Volume 1
An history of the earth, and animated nature / By Oliver Goldsmith.
- Oliver Goldsmith
- Date:
- 1797
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: An history of the earth, and animated nature / By Oliver Goldsmith. Source: Wellcome Collection.
48/444 page 36
![CHAP. VI. OF THE INTERNAL STRUCTURE OF THE EARTH. ]Eiaving, in fome meafure, got free from the regions of conje&ure, let us now proceed to a defcription of the earth as we find it by examination, and obferve its internal com- pofition, as far as it has been the fubjedt of experience, or expofed to human inquiry. Thefe inquiries, indeed, hayp been carried but to a very little depth below its furfa^e, and even in that difquifition men have been conduced more by motives of avarice than of curiofity. The deepeft/mine, which is that at Cotteberg in Hungary*, reaches not more than three thoufand feet deep; but what proportion does that bear to the depth of the terreftrial globe, down to the centre, which is above four thoufand miles ? All, therefore, that has been faid of the earth, to a deeper degree, is merely fabulous or eonjedlural: we may fuppofe with one, that it is a globe of glafsf ; with another, a fphere of heated ironj ; with a third, a great mafs of waters {j ; and with a fourth^ one dreadful volcano § ; but let us, at the fame time, fhew our confcioufnefs, that all thefe are but fuppofitions. Upon examining the earth, where it has been opened tq any depth, the firft thing that occurs, is the different layers or beds of which it is compofed : thefe all lying horizontally one over the other like the leaves of a book, and each of them compofed of materials that encreafe in weight in proportion as they lie deeper. This is, in general, the difpofition of the different materials where the earth feems to have remained tmmolefted *, but this order is frequently inverted ; and we cannot tell whether from its original formation, or from ac- cidental caufes. Of different fubftances, thus difpofed, the far greateft part of our globe confifts, from its furface down- wards to the greateft depths we ever dig or mine % The firft coat that is moft commonly found at the fur- face, is that light coat of blackifh mold, which is called, by fome, garden-earth. With this the earth is every where mvefted, unlefs it be wafhed off by rains, or removed by * Boyle, voi iii. p. 240. y Burnet. Buffon. X Whifton. § Kircher. Woodward, p. 9.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b28777773_0001_0048.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
