at the time that the foundation of this land was laying in the waters of
the ocean, and to trace the existence and the nature of things, before
the present land appeared above the surface of the waters. We should
thus acquire some knowledge of the system according to which this world
is ruled, both in its preservation and production; and we might be thus
enabled to judge, how far the mineral system of the world shall appear
to be contrived with all the wisdom, which is so manifest in what are
termed the animal and vegetable kingdoms.

It must not be imagined that this undertaking is a thing unreasonable
in its nature; or that it is a work necessarily beset with any
unsurmountable difficulty; for, however imperfectly we may fulfill this
end proposed, yet, so far as it is to natural causes that are to be
ascribed the operations of former time, and so far as, from the present
state of things, or knowledge of natural history, we have it in our
power to reason from effect to cause, there are, in the constitution of
the world, which we now examine, certain means to read the annals of a
former earth.

The object of inquiry being the operations of the globe, during the time
that the present earth was forming at the bottom of the sea, we are now
to take a very general view of nature, without descending into those
particulars which so often occupy the speculations of naturalists, about
the present state of things. We are not at present to enter into any
discussion with regard to what are the primary and secondary mountains
of the earth; we are not to consider what is the first, and what the
last, in those things which now are seen; whatever is most ancient in
the strata which we now examine, is supposed to be collecting at the
bottom of the sea, during the period concerning which we are now to
inquire.

We have already considered those operations which had been necessary
in forming our solid land, a body consisting of materials originally
deposited at the bottom of the ocean; we are now to investigate the
source from whence had come all those materials, from the collection of
which the present land is formed; and from knowing the state in
which those materials had existed, previously to their entering the
composition of our strata, we shall learn something concerning the
natural history of this world, while the present earth was forming in
the sea.

We have already observed, that all the strata of the earth are composed
eit