Had our
author attended to the ocular proof that we have of the actual existence
of subterraneous fire, and to the physical demonstrations which I have
given of the effects of heat in melting mineral bodies, he must have
seen that those arguments of his, with regard to the difficulty or
impossibility of procuring that fire, can only show the error of his
reasoning. I am far from supposing that my theory may be free from
inconsistency or error; I am only maintaining that, in all his confident
assertions, this author has not hitherto pointed any of these out.
So far I have answered our author's objections as to consolidation, and
I have given a specimen of his reasoning upon that subject; but with
regard to my Theory of the Earth, although simple fluidity, without
heat, would have answered the purpose of consolidating strata that had
been formed at the bottom of the sea, it was necessary to provide a
power for raising those consolidated strata from that low place to the
summits of the continents; now, in supposing heat to be the cause of
that fluidity which had been employed in the consolidation of those
submarine masses, we find a power capable of erecting continents, and
the only power, so far as I see, which natural philosophy can employ
for that purpose.
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