Felicuda have for their bafe fhoerl in mafs; but it is true that other congenerous lavas of the fame ifland, which form as it were walls perpendicular to the fea, are fmooth over their whole fuperficies. A fimilar fmoothness is obfervable in fome of thofe of Mount Etna, on the fhore between Meffina and Catania, which have for their bafe the horn-ftone; though others extremely resembling them, between Jaci Reale and Catania, are formed in prifms.

"Compactness and folidity are, likewife, not a neceffary condition in lavas, to this appropriate cryftallifation. This has already been remarked by M. Dolomieu; and I have obferved that many amorphous lavas on the fhores of feveral of the Eolian iflands are more compact than the prifmatic lavas of Felicuda.

"What then can be the intrinfic circumftance of the lava which determines it thus to cleave in the prifmatic form? I confefs I am ignorant: and who can fay that we do not feek it in vain within the lava, fince it may be extrinfic and adventitious? Such, certainly, appears to be the opinion of M. de Luc; and, more exprefsly, that of M. Dolomieu, who, to explain the phenomenon of volcanic prifms, has recourse to a fudden congelation, and inftantaneous contraction of lavas.

"The facts which we have adduced relative to lavas, both prifmatic and not prifmatic, it has been feen, do not always accord with thofe related by the French naturalift. But even on this fuppofition, which is inconteftable, may we not retain the fame principle of explanation, which, to faythe truth, appears to be fufficient, with fome requifite modifi-,

cations? Thefe I will endeavour to fuggeft, illuftrating my conjecture by the two cafes above adduced; the one, that of the lavas which take the form of prisms merely from the contact of the atmofphere, as in Vulcano and near the fummit of Etna; the other, that of the lavas which refuse to take fuch a form even within the sea, as at Ifchia, in fome parts of the base of Etna, and in all the Eolian ifles except Felicuda.

As to the former, may not a fudden coagulation and contraction have taken place in fome lavas from the mere influence of the atmofphere, though the lava was not included in any cleft or fissure? It is fufficient that it be fuddenly deprived of the caloric (heat) by which it is penetrated, and which rendered it rarefied and fluid. To this deprivation a lava of little thickness will be very liable; fince a body lofes its heat the fooner, the lefs its thickness and denfity. This fudden contraction may alfo be produced by the circumftances of the atmo fphere; as should a strong wind, of a very cold temperature, blow at the time, the melted lavas in our crucibles will be found to give greater weight to this latter conjecture. If they are taken from the furnace, and caufed to pafs through a heat gradually lefs; their furface, as they cool, will only fplit into a few cracks, of little depth, and ufually irregular; but, when they are immediately, in the winter time, carried into the cold air, the fiffures, befides being deeper, will frequently be difpofed in fuch a manner, as to form fmall polyhe drous prifms, which may easily be detached from the rest of the lava.

"With refpect to thofe lavas which do not affume a prifmatic

form,

form, though they fall into the fea, it is certain that, to take that conformation, their mafs must have a ftrong degree of effervefcence and dilatation, and that it must be deeply penetrated with the igneous fluid, otherwife the contraction neceffary to produce prifms cannot take place. But many currents which defcend from the fummit of burning mountains to the fea, must have loft their effervefcence with their heat in fo long a courfe, and fcarcely retain fufficient to continue their motion downwards, which, perhaps, would ceafe, were it not for the impelling gravity of the lava, which frequently falls into the fea perpendicularly.

"Such is the hypothefis by which I would explain the cause why fome lavas have affumed a prifmatic conformation without any concurrence of the fea-water, and others exhibit no appearance of it in places where they have immerged into the fea. I neverthelefs leave every one to form his own opinion; and fhould an explanation of these important facts be difcovered, preferable to mine, which I confider as only conjectural, I fhall receive the communication of it with fincere gratitude, and adopt it with pleasure."

" ift. on a mountain in Peru at the height of 14220 feet, 2 Buff. Epoque, 268. Now I have already fhewn*, that no mountains higher than 8500 feet were formed fince the creation of fish, or, in other words, that fifh did not exist until the original ocean had fubfided to the height of eight thousand five hundred feet above its prefent level. Therefore the fhells found at more elevated ftations were left there by a fubfequent inundation. Now an inundation that reached fuch heights could not

CCORDING to Don

AUlloa, mhells were found

be partial, but must have extended over the whole globe.

"2dly, The bones of elephants and of rhinoceri, and even the intire carcafe of a rhinoceros, have been found in the lower parts of Siberia. As these animals could not live in fo cold a country, they must have been brought thither by an inundation from warmer and very diftant climates, betwixt which and Siberia mountains above nine thousand feet high intervene. It may be replied that Siberia, as we have already fhewn, was not originally as cold as it is at prefent;

which is true, for probably its original heat was the fame as that of many iflands in the fame latitude at this day, but ftill it was too cold for elephants and rhinoceri, and between the climates which they might have then inhabited and the places they are now found in too many mountains intercede to fuppose them brought thither by any other means but a general inundation. Befides, Siberia must have attained its prefent temperature at the time thefe animals were tranf ported, elfe they must have all long ago putrified.

66

3dly, Shells known to belong to fhores under climates very distant from each other are in fundry places found mixed promifcuously with each other; one fort of them, therefore, must have been tranfported by an inundation; the promifcuous mixture can be accounted for on no other fuppofition.

"Thefe appear to me the most unequivocal geologic proofs of a general deluge. To other facts generally adduced to prove it, another origin may be afcribed; thus the bones of elephants found in Italy, France, Germany, and England, might be the remains of fome brought to Italy by Pyrrhus or the Carthaginians, or of thofe employed by the Romans themfelves; fome are said to have been brought to England by Claudius. 4 Phil. Tranf. Abr. 2d part, 242. When thefe bones, however, are accompanied with marine remains, their origin is no longer ambiguous. Thus alfo the bones and teeth of whales, found near Maeftricht, are not decifively of diluvian origin, as whales have often been brought down as low as lat. 48°. 34 Roz. 201. Nay fometimes they ftrike on the coaft of Italy. 1 Targioni Tozzetti, 386.

"Yet, to explain the leaft ambiguous of thefe phænomena, without having recourse to an univerfal deluge, various hypothefes have been framed.

"Some have imagined that the axis of the earth was originally parallel to that of the ecliptic, which would produce a perpetual fpring in every latitude, and confequently that elephants might exist in all of them. But the ableft aftronomers having demonftrated the impoffibility of this parallelifm, it is unneceffary to examine its confequences; it only deferves notice that the obliquity of the equator is rather diminishing than increasing. See La Lande in 44 Roz. 212. Befides, why are thefe bones accompanied by marine remains? Others, from this nutation of the earth's axis, have fuppofed that its poles are continually fhifting, and confequently that they might have originally been where the equator now is, and the equator where the poles now are; thus Siberia might have, in its turn, been under the equator. But as the nutation of the earth's axis is retrogreffive every nine years, and never exceeds ten degrees, this hypothefis is equally rejected by aftronomers. 44 Roz. 210. 2 Bergum. Erde Kugel, 305. The pyramids of Egypt demonftrate that the poles have remained unaltered these three thousand years.

"The 3d hypothefis is that of Mr. Buffon, to which the unfortunate Bailly has done the honour of acceding; according to him the earth, having been originally in a ftate of fufion, and for many years red hot, at last cooled down to the degree that rendered it habitable. This hypothefis he was led to imagine from the neceffity of admitting that the globe was, at least to a certain diftance beneath

its furface, originally in a foft ftate; the folution of its folid parts in water he thought impoffible, falfely imagining that the whole globe must have been in a state of folution, whereas the figure of the earth requires the liquidity of it only a few miles beneath its furface. Epoques, 10 and 35. If he had trod the path of experiments he would have found both the hardnefs and tranfparency, of what he calls his primitive glafs, and thinks the primitive fubftance of globe, namely quartz, to be altered in a strong heat with a lofs of 3 per cent. of its weight, and that fo far from having been a glafs, it is abfolutely infufible. The lofs of weight, he must have seen, could be afcribed to nothing elfe but the lofs of its watery particles, and that therefore it must have been originally formed in water; he would have found that fome feldtfpars lofe 40 per cent. and others at leaft 2 per cent. by heat; he would have perceived that mica, which he thinks only an exfoliation of quartz, to be in its compofition effentially different. He certainly found their cryftallisation inexplicable, for he does not even attempt to explain it. "But waving this, and a multitude of other infuperable difficulties in his hypothefis, and adverting only to the folution he thinks his theory affords, of the phænomenon of the existence of the bones of elephants, and the carcafe of a rhinoceros in Siberia, I fay it is defective even in that refpect. For allowing his fuppofition that Siberia was at any time of a temperature fo fuited to the conftitution of thefe animals that they might live in it, yet the remains lately found in that country cannot be fuppofed to belong to animals that ever lived in it :

"ft, Because though they are found at the diftance of several hundred miles from the fea, yet they are furrounded by genuine marine vegetables, which fhews that they were brought thither together with thofe vegetables.

2dly, Because they are generally found in accumulated heaps, and it is not to be imagined that while alive they fought a common burial place no more than they at present do in India.

"3dly, Because the rhinoceros was found intire and unputrified, whereas if the country was warm when he perished, this could not have happened.

4thly, Because in no very diftant latitude, namely that of Greenland, the bones of whales, and not of elephants, are found on the mountains, confequently' that latitude muft have been in that ancient period fufficiently cold to maintain whales, as it is at this day; and that cold we know to be very confiderable, and incompatible with the proximity of a climate fuited to elephants. 17 N. Comment. Petropol. 576. Act. Petrop. 55. Renov. 73. Therefore the animals whofe remains are now found in Siberia could not have lived in it.

"The 4th hypothefis is that of Mr. Edward King, but much amplified and enlarged by Mr. de Luc. This juftly celebrated philofopher is of opinion that the actual continents were, before the deluge, the bottom or bed of the ancient ocean, and that the deluge confifted in the fubmerfion of the ancient continents, which confequently form the bottom or bed of our actual oceans, confequently our actual mountains were all formed in the antediluvian ocean, and thus fhells might be left on their highest fummits.

H 3

"In

"In this hypothefis the ancient continents must have exifted in thofe tracts now covered by the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans; if fo, I do not fee how the elephants could have been brought into Siberia, or a whole rhinoceros found in it: for Siberia being then the bottom of fome ocean, the fea must have moved from it to cover the finking continents, inftead of moving towards it, to ftrew over it their fpoils. If it be faid that these animals were carried into the fea before the flood, then, affuredly, the rhinoceros fhould have been devoured, and only his bones left.

"To fay nothing of the incompatibility of this fyftem with the principal geologic phænomena, mentioned in my former effay, and of the deftruction of at least all the graminivorous fish that must have followed from their transfer to a foil not fuited to them, it is evidently inconfiftent with the Mofaic account of this catastrophe, which account thefe philofophers however admit.

a

"Mofes afcribes the deluge to two principal caufes, a continual rain for forty days, and the eruption of the waters of the great abyfs. Now to what purpose a rain of forty days to overwhelm continent that was to be immerfed under a whole ocean? He tells us the waters increased on the continents a certain number of days, refted thereon another period of days, and then returned. Do not thefe expreffions imply a permanent ground on which they increafed and rested, and from which they afterwards retreated? As the retreat followed the advance, is it not clear that they retreated from the fame spaces on which they had before advanced and rested?

"Mr. de Luc replies, that in the 13th verfe of the 6th chapter of

Genefis, it is faid the earth fhould be deftroyed, and that Mr. Michaelis fo tranflates it. However it is plain, from what has been just mentioned, that Mofes did not underftand fuch a destruction as fhould caufe it to disappear totally and for ever; he tells us that the waters ftood 15 cubits over the highest mountains; now as he has no where mentioned the antediluvian mountains, but has the poftdiluvian, it is plain that it is to thefe his narration relates, and these he tells us were at the time of the deluge covered with water, and uncovered when the waters diminished; he never diftinguished the poft diluvian from the antediluvian, and therefore must have confidered them as the fame.

"Nor did Noah himself believe the ancient continents deftroyed, for he took the appearance of an olive branch to be a fign of the diminution of the flood. This he certainly believed to have grown on the ancient continent, and could not expect it to have fhot up from the bottom of the fea.-Mr. de Luc tells us that this olive grew on an antediluvian ifland, and that thefe iflands, being part of the antediluvian ocean, were not flooded

it is plain, however, Noah did not think fo, elfe he would not judge the appearance of the olive to be a fign of the diminution of the waters. Where is it mentioned or what renders it neceffary to infer that iflands exifted before the flood? If iflands did exift, and were to efcape the flood, fo might their inhabitants alfo, contrary to the exprefs words of the text.

"It would furely be much more convenient for Noab, his family and animals, to have taken refuge in one of them, than to remain pent up in the ark..

"The