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As pregnant with matter. He has this advantage too over Lord Verulam; that he not only investigates all the subjects which are calculated to try the clearness, the force and the comprehension of the human intellect: he introduces others, also, in handling whereof he shews the masterly powers with which he could touch the keys of the heart, and awaken all the tones of sensibility which belong to man. Surely if ever a human being deserved to be canonized for great, unclouded intelligence, and seraphic purity and ecstacy of soul, that being was Sir Robert Boyle. When I reflect that this "pure intelligence, this link between men and angels," was a christian, and look around upon the petty infidels and deists with which the world swarms, I am lost in amazement-Have they seen arguments against religion, which were not presented to Sir Robert: Boyle? His religious works shew that they have not. Are their judgments better able to weigh those arguments than his was? They have not the vanity even to believe it. Is the beam of their judgments more steady, and less liable to be dis. turbed by passion than his? O! no; for in this he seems to have excelled all mankind. Are their minds more elevated and more capable of comprehending the whole of this great subject, with all its connections and dependencies, than was the mind of Sir Robert Boyle? Look at the men... and the question is answered. How then does it happen that they have been conducted to a conclusion, so perfectly the reverse of his? It is for this very reason; because their judgments are less extricated from the influence and raised a

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bove the mists of passion; it is because their minds are less etherial and comprehensive; less capable than his was " to look through nature up to-nature's God." And let them hug their precious, barren, hopeless infidelity; they are welcome to the horrible embrace! May we my friend, never lose the rich and inexhaustable comforts of religion! Adieu! my S.

THE author of " An Enquirer," on the theory of the earth, begs leave to offer the following observations, to the publisher of "the British Spy," in answer to some of his additional

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notes.

When the Enquirer read, in the second letter of the British Spy, that "the perpetual revolution of the earth, from west to east, has the obvious tendency to conglomerate the loose sands of the sea, on the eastern coast ;" "that, whether the rolling of the earth to the east, give to the ocean an actual counter-current to the west, or not, the newly emerged pinnacles are whirled, by the earth's motion, through the waters of the deep ;" and, from the continued operation of the causes which produced them, that "all continents and islands, will be caused, reciprocally, to approximate ;" when he read these and other similar passages, he saw no reason to doubt, that the British Spy, considered the ocean now, as well as formerly, affected by the rotation of the earth ; or, to express the same thing more correctly, that the rotatory motion of the earth, is but partially

communicated to the ocean. This opinion, which a thousand facts may be brought to disprove, and which the favorite cosmogonist of the British Spy says,* no man can entertain, who has the leas knowledge of physics, it was decorous to suppose, had been advanced from inadvertence. If the meaning of the writer, was taken by the Enquirer, in a greater latitude than was meant, he is not the less sorry for his mistake, because it was a natural one, and was not confined to himself.

But the annotator of the Spy, without saying whether the supposed current now exists or not, thinks the former existence of such a current not improbable, and puts a case, by way of illustrating his hypothesis. My reasoning on the subject, somewhat different from his, is briefly this.

If the whole surface of the earth, when it first received its rotatory impulse, was covered with water, and this impulse was communicated to its solid part alone, then, indeed, a current to the west, would be produced; and would continue, until the resistance, occasioned by the friction of the waters, gradually communicated the whole motion of the earth, to the ocean. It is not easy to say, when this current would cease, but it seems to me, it would be more likely to wear the bed of the ocean smooth, than to raise protuberances;

*The passage in Smellie's translation of Buffon, stands thus: But every man, who has the least knowledge of physics, must allow, that no fluid, which surrounds the earth, can be affected by its rotation. Vol. 1. on regular winds.

and even, though it were to cause sand banks, it could never elevate them above its own level. F should observe, that to avoid circumlocution, I admit a current to the west; because the effect is the same, as to alluvion, whether the earth revolve under the waters, or the waters roll over the earth; though the fact is, that the ocean, like the oil in the plate, in the experiment proposed, would have a tendency to remain at rest, and whatever motion it acquired, must be to the east, like that. of the earth, from which it was derived.

If we suppose a few solitary mountains to lift their heads above the circumfluous ocean, we may infer, by the rules of strict analogy, that they would be worn away by the friction of the passing waters, rather than that they would receive any

accessions of soil.

But let us suppose some ridges of mountains, running from north to south, and of sufficient ex-tent and elevation, to obstruct the course of the waters. In this case, the sudden whirling of the earth to the east, would force the ocean on its western shores, where it would accumulate, until the gravity of the mass thus elevated, overcame the force which raised it. Then one vast undulation of the stupendous mass would take place,. from shore to shore, and 'would continue, until it gradually yielded to the united effect of friction and gravity. A comparison between vessels of different sizes, partly filled with water, might en-able us to form a rational conjecture of the term: of this oscillation; but be it one year, or many years, I think the effect would more probably be,. an abrasion of the mountain, than the formation of a continent.

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But the postulatum that the first impulse to the earth, was communicated to its solid part alone, on which all these suppositions rest, is but a possibility Whether we suppose that the cause which first whirled the earth on its axis, be an ascending link in nature's chain of causes, or the immediate act of the first Great Cause of all, it is not unlikely, that it penetrated and influenced every particle of matter, whether it were solid, liquid, or aeriform. On this subject, our suppositions are to be limited only by our invention. One man may resort to electricity, according to an alledged property of that fluid; another, to magnetism; a third to the action of the sun's rays; and a fourth, to a quality inherent in matter; according to either of which hypotheses, no current could have existed. Monsieur de Buffon, indeed, ascribes the earth's rotation, to a mechanical and partial impulse, the oblique stroke of a comet; but as, according to him, the earth, was then one entire globe of melted glass, its rotatory motion must have been uniform, long before the ocean existed. Whoever would dispel the clouds in which this question is enveloped, and make it as clear" as the light of Heaven," should indeed, be mihi magnus Apollo: but hypotheses, of which nothing can be said, but that they are not impossible, though they may beguile the lounger, of a heavy hour, are little likely to further our knowledge of nature. In so boundless a field of conjecture, with scarce one twinkling star to guide us, we can hardly hope to find, among the numberless tracks of error, that which singly leads to

truth.

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