our author founds his estimate; it is upon the superfluity of combustible materials which is actually found in this earth, after it had been properly consolidated and raised above the surface of the sea.  This is a method of reasoning calculated to convince only those who do not understand it; it is as if we should conclude that a person had died of want, because he had left provision behind him.  Our author certainly means to employ nothing but the combustible minerals of the present earth, in feeding the subterraneous fire which is to concoct a future earth; in that case, I will allow that his provision is deficient; but this is not my theory.

I am not here to enter into any argument concerning subterraneous fire; the reader will find, in the foregoing theory, my reasons for concluding, That subterraneous fire had existed previous to, and ever since, the formation of this earth,—­that it exists in all its vigour at this day,—­that there is, in the constitution of this earth, a superfluity of subterranean heat,—­and that there is wisely provided a proper remedy against any destructive effect to the system, that might arise from that superabundant provision of this necessary agent.  Had our author attended to the ocular proof that we have of the actual existence of subterraneous fire, and to the physical demonstrations which I have given of the effects of heat in melting mineral bodies, he must have seen that those arguments of his, with regard to the difficulty or impossibility of procuring that fire, can only show the error of his reasoning.  I am far from supposing that my theory may be free from inconsistency or error; I am only maintaining that, in all his confident assertions, this author has not hitherto pointed any of these out.

So far I have answered our author’s objections as to consolidation, and I have given a specimen of his reasoning upon that subject; but with regard to my Theory of the Earth, although simple fluidity, without heat, would have answered the purpose of consolidating strata that had been formed at the bottom of the sea, it was necessary to provide a power for raising those consolidated strata from that low place to the summits of the continents; now, in supposing heat to be the cause of that fluidity which had been employed in the consolidation of those submarine masses, we find a power capable of erecting continents, and the only power, so far as I see, which natural philosophy can employ for that purpose.  Thus I was led, from the consolidation of strata, to understand the nature of the elevating power, and, from the nature of that power, again to understand the cause of fluidity by which the rocks and stones of this earth had been consolidated.