In opposition to this conclusion, it will not be allowed to allege; that
we are ignorant how such a power might be exerted under the bottom of
the ocean; for, the present question is not, what had been the cause of
heat, which has appeared to have been produced in that place, but if
this power of heat, which has certainly been exerted at the bottom of
the ocean for consolidating strata, had been employed also for another
purpose, that is, for raising those strata into the place of land.
We may, perhaps, account for the elevation of land, by the same cause
with that of the consolidation of strata, already investigated, without
explaining the means employed by nature in procuring the power of heat,
or showing from what general source of action this particular power had
been derived; but, by finding in subterranean heat a cause for any other
change, besides the consolidation of porous or incoherent bodies, we
shall generalise a fact, or extend our knowledge in the explanation of
natural appearances.
The power of heat for the expansion of bodies, is, so far as we know,
unlimited; but, by the expansion of bodies placed under the strata at
the bottom of the sea, the elevation of those strata may be effected;
and the question now to be resolved regards the actual exertion of
this power of expansion.
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