Our author has justly remarked the difficulty of fire burning below the
earth and sea. It is not my purpose here to endeavour to remove those
difficulties, which perhaps only exist in those suppositions which are
made on this occasion; my purpose is to show, that he had no immediate
concern with that question, in discussing the subject of the
consolidation which we actually find in the strata of the earth, unless
my theory, with regard to the igneous origin of stony substances, had
proceeded upon the supposition of a subterraneous fire. It is surely one
thing to employ fire and heat to melt mineral bodies, in supposing this
to be the cause of their consolidation, and another thing to acknowledge
fire or heat as having been exerted upon mineral bodies, when it is
clearly proved, from actual appearances, that those bodies had been in
a melted state, or that of simple fluidity. Here are distinctions which
would be thrown away upon the vulgar; but, to a man of science, who
analyses arguments, and reasons strictly from effect to cause, this is,
I believe, the proper way of coming at the truth.
Pages:
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231