heat; while the aqueous theorists pour
cold water, in torrents, upon the igneous men. The shocks of conflicting
glacier theories have shaken the Alps and convulsed all North America;
and have not yet ceased. There are eleven theories of earthquakes, which
have been, and are still, such energetic agents in geology; and the
whole eleven afford not the least rational idea of their causes; nor of
any means of preventing, predicting, or escaping their ravages. The best
geologists have described fossil tracks as the footprints of gigantic
birds, which others equally as authoritative pronounce the tracks of
frogs and lizards. Indeed, a good part of every geological treatise, and
of the time of every association of geologists, is taken up with
refutations of the errors of their predecessors.

There are no less than nine theories of the causes of the elevation of
mountains; some scoop out the valleys by water; others by ice; others
heave up the mountains by fire; and some by the chemical expansion of
their rocks; while others still upheave them by the pressure of molten
lava from beneath; and others again make them out to be the wrinkles of
the contraction of the supposed crust of the liquid interior. Of all
these theories an able geologist says: "The many proposed theories of
mountain elevation are based upon assumptions which unfortunately are
not true; but that is an unimportant matter to the majority of our
speculating geologists; and one never seen by the inventors of the
theories, who allow themselves to be led captive by a poetic
imagination, instead of building their inductions upon field
observations.

"Thus, to suppose that mountains are elevated by a wedge like intrusion
of melted matter is to give to a fluid functions incompatible with its
dynamic properties. So also the supposition that the igneous rocks were
intruded, as solid wedges separating and lifting the crust, is opposed
to the fact that no apparent abrasion, but generally the closest
adhesion, exists at the line of contact of the igneous and stratified
rocks. Equally fatal objections may be advanced against the other
theories."[376]

Multitudes of the alleged facts of Infidel geologists are as apocryphal
as their theories. Thus in a recent ponderous quarto volume, the
production of half a dozen philosophers, this identical impossible
theory--of the cooling of the earth's crust down to solidity, while an
irresistible central heat remains below--is present