Let us now endeavour to ascertain what may have been the power of water,
acting under fixed circumstances, operating upon known substances, and
conducting to a certain end.
The action of water upon all different substances is an operation
with which we are familiar. We have it in our power to apply water in
different degrees of heat for the solution of bodies, and under various
degrees of compression; consequently, there is no reason to conclude
any thing mysterious in the operations of the globe, which are to be
performed by means of water, unless an immense compressing power should
alter the nature of those operations. But compression alters the
relation of evaporation only with regard to heat, or it changes the
degree of heat which water may be made to sustain; consequently, we are
to look for no occult quality in water acting upon bodies at the bottom
of the deepest ocean, more than what can be observed in experiments
which we have it in our power to try.
With regard again to the effect of time: Though the continuance of time
may do much in those operations which are extremely slow, where no
change, to our observation, had appeared to take place, yet, where it
is not in the nature of things to produce the change in question, the
unlimited course of time would be no more effectual, than the moment by
which we measure events in our observations.
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