ly mixed,
or separated and accumulated. Here is a general conclusion, well
authenticated in the appearances of nature, and highly important in the
natural history of the earth.

The general amount of our reasoning is this, that nine-tenths, perhaps,
or ninety-nine hundredths of this earth, so far as we see, have
been formed by natural operations of the globe, in collecting loose
materials, and depositing them at the bottom of the sea; consolidating
those collections in various degrees, and either elevating those
consolidated masses above the level on which they were formed, or
lowering the level of that sea.

There is a part of the solid earth which we may at present neglect, not
as being persuaded that this part may not also be found to come under
the general rule of formation with the rest, but as considering this
part to be of no consequence in forming a general rule, which shall
comprehend almost the whole, without doing it absolutely. This excluded
part consists of certain mountains and masses of granite. These are
thought to be still older in their formation, and are said never to
be found superincumbent on strata which must be acknowledged as the
productions of the sea.

Having thus found the greater part, if not the whole, of the solid land
to have been originally composed at the bottom of the sea, we may now,
in order to form a proper idea of these operations, suppose the whole of
this seaborn land to be again dispersed along the bottom of the ocean,
the surface of which would rise proportionally over the globe. We would
thus have a spheroid of water, with granite rocks and islands scattered
here and there. But this would not be the world which we inhabit;
therefore, the question now is, how such continents, as we actually have
upon the globe, could be erected above the level of the sea.

It must be evident, that no motion of the sea, caused by this earth
revolving in the solar system, could bring about that end; for let us
suppose the axis of the earth to be changed from the present poles, and
placed in the equinoctial line, the consequence of this might, indeed,
be the formation of a continent of land about each new pole, from whence
the sea would run towards the new equator; but all the rest of the globe
would remain an ocean. Some new points might be discovered, and others,
which before appeared above the surface of the sea, would be sunk by
the rising of the water; but, on the whole, land could only be