An history of the earth, and animated nature / By Oliver Goldsmith. With copious notes and additions, containing the recent discoveries of eminent naturalists and others together with the elements of botany and an account of the most rare and curious foreign plants. The whole forming a complete panorama of nature. By G.F. Shaw.
- Oliver Goldsmith
- Date:
- 1817
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: An history of the earth, and animated nature / By Oliver Goldsmith. With copious notes and additions, containing the recent discoveries of eminent naturalists and others together with the elements of botany and an account of the most rare and curious foreign plants. The whole forming a complete panorama of nature. By G.F. Shaw. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![wrong-; but there is a defect of an opposite nature that does much more than prejudice; namely, that of silencing all inquiry, by alleging the benefits we re- ceive from a thing, instead of investigating the cause of its production. If I inquire how a mountain came to be formed, such a reasoner, enumerating its bene- fits, answers, because God knew it would be useful. If I demand the cause of an earthquake, he finds some good produced by it, and alleges that as the cause of its explosion. Thus, such an inquirer has constantly some ready reason for every appearance in nature, which serves to swell his periods, and give splendor to his declamation: every thing about him is, on some account or other, declared to be good ; and he thinks it presumption to scrutinize its defects, or endeavour to imagine how it might be better. Such writers, and there are many such, add very little to the advance- ment of knowledge. It is finely remarked by Bacon, that the investigation of final causes* is a barren study; and, like a virgin dedicated to the Deity, brings forth nothing. In fact, those men who want to compel every appearance and every irregularity in nature into our service, and expatiate on their benefits, combat that very morality which they would seem to promote. God has permitted thousands of natural evils to exist in the world, because it is by their intervention that man is capable of moral evil; and he has permitted that we should be subject to moral evil, that we might do something to deserve eternal happiness, by shewing We had rectitude to avoid it. CHAPTER IY. A Review of the different Theories of the Earth. Human invention has been exercised for several ages to account for the various irregularities of the earth. • Investigatio causarum finalium sterilis est, et veluti virgo Deo dedicata, nil parit. cultivation. Finely divided matter is carried by rivers from the higher dis- tricts to the low countries, and alluvial lands are usually extremely fertile. The quantity of habitable surface is constantly increased by these operations; ■—precipitous cliffs are gradually made gentle slopes—lakes are filled up—and islands are formed at the mouths of great rivers. In these series of changes, connected with the beauty and fertility of the surface of the globe, small quantities of solid matter are carried into the sea; but this seems fully com- pensated for, by the effects of vegetation in absorbing matter from the atmos- phere—by the production of coral rocks and islands in the ocean,—and by the operation of volcanic fires. Great changes are also wrought in the constitution of our earth by volca- noes, earthquakes, torrents of water, landslips, &c. These last are common in mountainous countries, and occur not unfrequently in Switzerland, where they bury whole villages. The irruption of Solway moss, which happened on the 16th December, 1772, and covered 400 acres, is also of this description. The Solway flow contains 1,300 acres of very deep and tender moss, which While those philosophers mentioned in the last chapter see nothing but beauty, symmetry, and order; there are others, who look upon the gloomy side of nature, enlarge on its defects, and seem to consider the earth, on which they tread, as one scene of extensive deso- lation.* Beneath its surface they observe minerals and waters confusedly jumbled together; its different beds of earth irregularly lying upon each other; mountains rising from places that once were level,f and hills sinking into vallies; whole regions swallowed by the sea, and others again rising out of its bosom: all these they suppose to be but a few of the changes that have been wrought in our globe; and they send out the imagination, to describe its primeval state of beauty. Of those who have written theories describing- the manner of the original formation of the earth, or ac- counting for its present appearances, the most cele- brated are Burnet, Whiston, Woodward, and Buffon. As speculation is endless, so it is not to be wondered that all these differ from each other, and give opposite accounts of the several changes, which they suppose our earth to have undergone. As the systems of each have had their admirers, it is, in some measure,] in- cumbent upon the natural historian to be acquainted, at least, with their outlines: and indeed, to know what others have even dreamed, in matters of science, is very useful, as it may often prevent us from indulging similar delusions ourselves, which we should never have adopted, but because we take them to be wholly our own. However, as entering into a detail of these theories is rather furnishing an history of opinions than things, I will endeavour to be as concise as I can. The first who formed this amusement of earth- making into system, was the celebrated Thomas Bur- net, a man of polite learning and rapid imagination. His Sacred Theory, as he calls it, describing the * Buffon's Second Discourse. t Senec. Quaest. lib. vi. cap. 21. before this accident, was impassable even in summer to a foot passenger. It was mostly of the quag kind, which is a sort of moss covered at top with a turf of heath and coarse aquatic grasses; but so soft and watery below, that if a pole is once thrust through the turf, it can be pushed, though perhaps 13 or 20 feet long, to the bottom. The surface of the flow was at different places between 50 and 80 feet higher than the fine fertile plain between it and the river Esk. About the middle of the flow were the deepest quags, and there the moss was elevated higher above the plain than in any part of the neigh- bourhood. From this to the farm called the Gap, upon the plain, there was a broad gully, though not very deep, through which a brook used to run. In consequence of an uncommon fall of rain, the moss being quite overcharged, burst at these quags, about eleven o’clock at night; and finding a descent at hand, poured its contents through the gully into the plain. It surprised the inhabitants of twelve farms in their beds. Nobody was lost, but many persons saved their lives with great difficulty,](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22006886_0028.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
