FOOTNOTES:
[115:A] A New Theory of the Earth by William Whiston, 1708.
ARTICLE III.
FROM THE SYSTEM OF BURNET.[128:A]
This author is the first who has treated this subject generally and in a systematical matter. He was possessed of much understanding, and was a person well acquainted with the belles lettres. His work acquired great reputation, and was criticised by many of the
learned, among the rest by Mr. Keil, who has geometrically demonstrated the errors of Mr. Burnet, in a treatise called "Examination of the Theory of the Earth." Mr. Keil also refuted Whiston's system; but he treats the last author very different from the first, and seems even to be of his opinion in several cases, and looks upon the tail of a comet to be a very probable cause for the deluge. But, to return to Burnet, his book is elegantly written; he knew how to paint noble images and magnificent scenes. His plan is great, but the execution is deficient for want of proper materials: his reasoning is good, but his proofs are weak; yet his confidence in his writings is so great, that he frequently causes his readers to pass over his errors.
He begins by telling us, that before the deluge the earth had a very different form from that which it has at present; it was at first, he says, a fluid mass, compounded of matters of all kinds, and all sorts of figures, the heaviest descended towards the centre, and formed a hard and solid body; round which the waters collected, and the air, and all the liquors lighter than water, surmounted them. Between the orb of air and that of water, was an orb of
oily matter, but as the air was still very impure, and contained a great quantity of small particles of terrestrial matter, they by degrees descended on the coat of oil, and formed a terrestrial orb blended with earth and oil; and this was the first habitable earth, and the first abode of man. This was an excellent soil, light, and calculated to yield to the tenderness of the first germs. The surface of the terrestrial globe was at first equal, uniform, without mountains, without seas, and without inequalities; but it remained only about sixteen centuries in this state, for the heat of the sun by degrees drying the crust, split it at first on the surface, soon after these cracks penetrated farther and increased so considerably by time, that at length they entirely opened the crust; in an instant the whole earth fell into pieces in the abyss of water it surrounded; and this was the cause of the deluge.
But all these masses of earth, by falling into the abyss, dragged along with them a great quantity of air; these struck against each other, divided, and accumulated so irregularly, that great cavities filled with air were left between them. The waters by degrees opened these cavities, and in proportion as they filled them,