bly for 1000, poffibly for a greater number of years after the deluge, the cold of the north was moderated, and the heat of the fouth foftened by their influence. It was not till after that period that man felt the full and entire effects of the changes fucceffively taking place in his habitation, on his gradually altering conftitution. The vigour and stability of his health are well known to be dependent on the equality or inequality of temperature, and the falubrious or diftempered state of the atmosphere in which he breathes. The nature of his nourishment, equally affected by that state, conftantly supplies the feeds of invigoration or quick decay. Exceffes, no doubt, fhorten the lives of thoufands, but they limit not the general standard of the age of man.

Some of these conjectures on several great changes, not all at oncebut flowly and gradually effected during several centuries fubfequent to this great revolution, feem ftrongly countenanced by the fituation of islands in feveral parts of the world, pointing out a once continued fhore, the broken barrier of former interior feas now thrown into and levelled with the ocean; they are farther ftrengthened by the original traditions of ftill exifting feas, much more extended in former times. All these fucceffive alterations on the face of the earth become probable as the most natural, and in reality the only affignable causes of the conftitution of men, not fuddenly but flowly and progreffively, impaired during the course of several ages fucceeding the deluge. From the immediate effects of that cata

ftrophe,

ftrophe, his general age became reduced from upwards of 900 to under 450 years. To fome new and no lefs fudden alterations must be attributed its being curtailed 200 years more after the birth of Phaleg. From that time it gradually decreased until about 1500 years before Chrift, when it became fixed and stationary under 100 years.

The breaking up and diflocation of the ancient surface of the antediluvian earth, the evident marks of which are yet legible in its present both exterior and interior ftructure, fufficiently account for the appearances of its mountains and valleys, and for the diversely-altered stratification of their parts. The confequent violent displacing of the waters, which had in the first inftance inundated it, no less evidently discloses the causes of thofe veftiges of their ravages every where apparent. Their united effects amply folve the question of elephants' bones and of the relics of aquatic animals, and particularly of the great abundance of fhell-fish, of exotic foffile woods and plants, found on the tops of mountains or deep buried in the plains, however diftant from the only climates now congenial to their growth. The probability of a very different temperature in the pristine state of the whole earth, makes it still lefs difficult to account for phenomena which must otherwise seem inexplicable.

If there are many mountains and parts of the earth which apparently owe their formation to, or have visibly undergone the operations of, fire, the certainty that, during the war of contending elements. 4 A 2 raised

raised by fuch convulfions, innumerable fires must have been kindled in the bowels of the earth, occafioning the most dreadful earthquakes and volcanos in parts where these are unknown to the records of hiftory, ceases to make fuch appearances wonderful.

Upon the whole, the immediate or progreffive effects confequent to one great revolution, confirmed both by the fubfequent infant ftate of mankind, and by the confentaneous traditions of all nations, fatisfactorily account for every appearance of the visibly at: fome time altered structure and difpofition of the earth, without recurring to imaginary explications, frequently contradictory to one: another, and not feldom to the general well known laws of nature. The principal aim and tendency of many of these ingenious systems have been, either to set aside or explain away the Mosaical testimonies on the creation and deluge. But if it can be fhewn, as I have no doubt it may, by pursuing the path, however faulty in details, I have sketched out, that the teftimonies of nature are not only not repugnant to, but are corroborative of, the narration of Mofes, there remains little doubt of the preference it demands over the unfupported reveries of modern philofophy.

Whilst these Letters were in the prefs, two volumes of Dr. Hut ton's Theory of the Earth appeared. As the public has both our opinions before it nearly at the fame time, that public can alone decide on their respective merits. Moft of the fubjects forming the

Bafis of his system having been already difcuffed, I fhall be fhort in my obfervations on them.

This new fyftem feems to be chiefly drawn from Mr. de Buffon's, with the difference of perpetually renovating powers having no determinate commencement, inftead of a once flowly forming and now gradually decaying principle. The French author supposes a beginning to the present state of this terraqueous globe, and fixes it to a period of 75 thousand years before the present times. His countryman and difciple Mr. Bailly, in his first system, only wishes for fufficient time to derive all population from the northern pole, originally the only part of this earth on which man could reft his foot but too well versed in history and antiquity not to have perceived every where the authentic testimonies of a general deluge,, in his fecond he barely contends for the prolongation of a few hundred years to its date. Dr. Hutton rejects all time. The operations of his living renovating nature fcorn all limits. "Time," fays he," which measures every thing in our idea, is to nature endless and as nothing." Mr. de Buffon removes the first production of man to about 6700 years ago. This author fays, if we are to take the written history of man for the rule by which we judge of the time when the species firft began, that period would be little removed from the prefent ftate of things.. The expreffion implies lit-tle reliance on its authority. Profane-written history is indeed modern and fallacious. The review of population in times more

6

recent

recent fhews its varied statements of the first exiftence of the present race of mortals too far removed. But both history and tradition mark the utmost Aretch of its commencement, by much too limited for Dr. Hutton's ideas. What credit he gives to the Mofaical hiftory, which places this beginning of man at a very short distance, I shall not presume to guefs. He at least allows, that we do not find in natural history any document by which a high antiquity might be attributed to the human race. But with regard to inferior animals, and to teftaceous fish in particular, this is not the case; these indeed, if not eternal, must have existed according to the system for millions of years. Dr. Hutton confeffes that this globe was evidently made for man, who is by his intellectual faculties the fovereign of all animals the fole being who can contemplate and enjoy the contemplation of Nature, who can in many cafes dispose of, direct, and ameliorate her proceffes: yet he here feems to admit, that he was but as it were of yesterday, whilft his creative teftaceous fish had been millions of years forming and renovating the future theatre of his fuperior powers. Surely his living, organical, and organizing nature might have found fome earlier means of forming her chef-d'œuvre, fully to enjoy and to admire her works. Without it, they remained for fo many ages incomplete and without end. As well as inanimate fubftances or lefs happily animated beings, man decays and revives in his pofterity. The means to be devised of his first spontaneous production may indeed require great ingenuity, and in the end prove fully as metaphysical and as abftruse as those

of