of the earth under the ocean,
as in the parts of the dry land; in confirmation of which, he mentions
the immeasurable depth of the sea near some volcanoes. To attest the
extent of simultaneous subterranean movements, he refers to an
earthquake in the West Indies, in the year 1690, where the space of
earth raised, or "struck upwards," by the shock, exceeded, he affirms,
the length of the Alps and Pyrenees.

_Hooke's diluvial Theory._--As Hooke declared the favorite hypothesis of
the day, "that marine fossil bodies were to be referred to Noah's
flood," to be wholly untenable, he appears to have felt himself called
upon to substitute a diluvial theory of his own, and thus he became
involved in countless difficulties and contradictions. "During the great
catastrophe," he said, "there might have been a changing of that part
which was before dry land into sea by sinking, and of that which was sea
into dry land by raising, and marine bodies might have been buried in
sediment beneath the ocean, in the interval between the creation and the
deluge."[63] Then follows a disquisition on the separation of the land
from the waters, mentioned in Genesis; during which operation some
places of the shell of the earth were forced outwards, and others
pressed downwards or inwards, &c. His diluvial hypothesis very much
resembled that of Steno, and was entirely opposed to the fundamental
principles professed by him, that he would explain the former changes
of the earth _in a more natural manner_ than others had done. When, in
despite of this declaration, he required a former "crisis of nature,"
and taught that earthquakes had become debilitated, and that the Alps,
Andes, and other chains, had been lifted up in a few months, he was
compelled to assume so rapid a rate of change, that his machinery
appeared scarcely less extravagant than that of his most fanciful
predecessors. For this reason, perhaps, his whole theory of earthquakes
met with undeserved neglect.

_Ray_, 1692.--One of his contemporaries, the celebrated naturalist, Ray,
participated in the same desire to explain geological phenomena by
reference to causes less hypothetical than those usually resorted
to.[64] In his essay on "Chaos and Creation," he proposed a system,
agreeing in its outline, and in many of its details, with that of Hooke;
but his knowledge of natural history enabled him to elucidate the
subject with various original observations. Earthquakes, he suggested,
might