Now, had
there been in the top of this mountain a deep hollow encompassed about
with the schistus rock; and had this cavity been now found filled with
horizontal strata, there might have been some shadow of reason for
supposing those strata to have been deposited upon the top of the
mountain. But to suppose, _first_, that shells and corals should be
deposited upon the convex summit of a mountain which was then covered by
the sea; _secondly_, that these moveable materials should remain upon
the summit, while the sea had changed its place; and, _lastly_, that
those shells and corals left by the sea upon the top of a mountain
should become strata of solid limestone, and have also metallic veins
in it, certainly holds of no principle of natural philosophy that I am
acquainted with. If, therefore, such an appearance as this were to be
employed either in illustration or confirmation of a theory, it
would itself require to be explained; but this is a task that this
cosmologists does not seem willing to undertake.
He has formed a hypothesis for explaining the general appearance of that
which was once the bottom of the sea being now found forming the summits
of our mountains; but surely this philosopher will acknowledge, that
those natural appearances, in any particular place, will be the same,
whether we suppose the bottom of the sea to have been raised, as in the
present theory, or the surface of the sea to have sunk according to his
hypothesis.
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