reat strength and hardness; those bodies
are thus enabled to resist the force of waves and currents, and to
preserve themselves, for a sufficient time, in their proper shape and
place, as land above the general surface of the ocean.

We now desire to know, how far those internal operations of the globe,
by which solidity and stability are procured to the beds of loose
materials, may have been also employed in raising up a continent of
land, to remain above the surface of the sea.

There is nothing so proper for the erection of land above the level of
the ocean, as an expansive power of sufficient force, applied directly
under materials in the bottom of the sea, under a mass that is proper
for the formation of land when thus erected. The question is not, how
such a power may be procured; such a power has probably been employed.
If, therefore, such a power should be consistent with that which we
found had actually been employed in preparing the erected mass; or,
if such a power is to be reasonably concluded as accompanying those
operations which we have found natural to the globe, and situated in the
very place where this expansive power appears to be required, we should
thus be led to perceive, in the natural operations of the globe, a power
as efficacious for the elevation of what had been at the bottom of the
sea into the place of land, as it is perfect for the preparation of
those materials to serve the purpose of their elevation.

In opposition to this conclusion, it will not be allowed to allege; that
we are ignorant how such a power might be exerted under the bottom of
the ocean; for, the present question is not, what had been the cause of
heat, which has appeared to have been produced in that place, but if
this power of heat, which has certainly been exerted at the bottom of
the ocean for consolidating strata, had been employed also for another
purpose, that is, for raising those strata into the place of land.

We may, perhaps, account for the elevation of land, by the same cause
with that of the consolidation of strata, already investigated, without
explaining the means employed by nature in procuring the power of heat,
or showing from what general source of action this particular power had
been derived; but, by finding in subterranean heat a cause for any other
change, besides the consolidation of porous or incoherent bodies, we
shall generalise a fact, or extend our knowledge in the explanation of
natural ap