Consequently, besides an operation, by which the earth at the bottom of
the sea should be converted into an elevated land, or placed high above
the level of the ocean, there is required, in the operations of the
globe, a consolidating power, by which the loose materials that had
subsided from water, should be formed into masses of the most perfect
solidity, having neither water nor vacuity between their various
constituent parts, nor in the pores of those constituent parts
themselves.
Here is an operation of the globe, whether chemical or mechanical, which
is necessarily connected with the formation of our present continents:
Therefore, had we a proper understanding of this secret operation, we
might thereby be enabled to form an opinion, with regard to the nature
of that unknown power, by which the continents have been placed above
the surface of that water wherein they had their birth.
If this consolidating operation be performed at the bottom of the
ocean, or under great depths of the earth, of which our continents are
composed, we cannot be witnesses to this mineral process, or acquire the
knowledge of natural causes, by immediately observing the changes which
they produce; but though we have not this immediate observation of those
changes of bodies, we have, in science, the means of reasoning from
distant events; consequently, of discovering, in the general powers of
nature, causes for those events of which we see the effects.
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