It is not meant to specify every particular in the means employed by
nature for the elevation of our land. It is sufficient to have shown,
that there is, in nature, means employed for the consolidating of
strata, formed originally of loose and incoherent materials; and that
those same means have also been employed in changing the place and
situation of those strata. But how describe an operation which man
cannot have any opportunity of perceiving? Or how imagine that, for
which, perhaps, there are not proper data to be found? We only know,
that the land is raised by a power which has for principle subterraneous
heat; but, how that land is preserved in its elevated station, is a
subject in which we have not even the means to form conjecture; at
least, we ought to be cautious how we indulge conjecture in a subject
where no means occur for trying that which is but supposition.
We now proceed, from the facts which have been properly established, to
reason with regard to the duration of this globe, or the general view of
its operations, as a living world, maintaining plants and animals.
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