We’ll turn out full moons by the hundred.
I do not think that one in forty of your worships has ever read the “Theory of the Earth,” as first produced by James Hutton, M. D., F. R. S., &c. &c. and thereafter much improved by professor Playfair. As it would, however, be highly commendable for gentlemen of your honorable profession not to rest with a superficial view of the great operations of nature, I will accompany you as far as the centre of gravity, in a journey of observation, for investigating the astonishing magazines of burning materials which Dr Hutton and professor Playfair have furnished us for the execution of our stupendous project.
1. You will obligingly take it for granted, or run the risk of spoiling the Huttonian Theory, that the centre of the globe is a stupendous furnace, a million times hotter than that of Nebuchadnezzar. That this same heat, although it never amounts to a blaze, and wastes no fuel, is sufficiently elastic to raise the continents from the bottom of the main.—That having once raised or blown them up, as it were, like a bladder, it is very careful not to let them down again, because as we shall see by and by, they must all be “disintegrated,” alias washed into the ocean.
2. Moreover, Dr Hutton’s followers will thank you to suppose that all this matter, raised as aforesaid, consisted originally of unstratified rocks, which, though they are properly called primitive as the most ancient of the whole family of rocks, yet they are in fact nothing better than the scrapings or “disintegrations” of primal continents which existed before the commencement of the last edition of the earth.
3. You will please to believe that all calcareous matters are formed from the detritus of the primitive rocks, delivered by rivers into the sea, and there, after having been modified by central heat, protruded above water as before mentioned.
4. You will likewise be convinced that no metal, mineral, or lapidose substance, can possibly be formed except at the bottom of the ocean, in the laboratory of Dr Hutton.[C]
5. That although some foolish people have supposed that the sea has been subsiding for centuries, yet, as we know that the continents are crumbling into the ocean, you will conclude that we shall at length find all our dry land under water, and the sea increased in proportion to the square feet of earth deposited under its surface.
6. That it is evident that this central heat, having raised its continents, and put proper supporters under them, will go to work in due time, and raise new continents from the bottom of the ocean. Thus the area of Dr Hutton’s centre will be enlarged, till the earth and moon will come in contact, if our plan hereafter mentioned should not check such progression. But we forbear, lest when it is ascertained that “the present continents are all going to decay and their materials descending into the ocean,” it may cause some disagreeable sensations among our friends, who are speculators in American lands, whose property, it seems, according to Dr Hutton’s theory, is about to take French leave of its worthy proprietors.
When you have thoroughly saturated your faculties with this theory, we will oblige you with a fresh solution from Dr Darwin, compounded as follows: