If we are not informed in this branch of science, we may gaze without
instruction upon the most convincing proofs of what we want to attain.
If our knowledge is imperfect, we may form erroneous principles, and
deceive ourselves in reasoning with regard to those works of nature,
which are wisely calculated for our instruction.

The strata, formed at the bottom of the sea, are to be considered
as having been consolidated, either by aqueous solution and
crystallization, or by the effect of heat and fusion. If it is in the
first of these two ways that the solid strata of the globe have attained
to their present state, there will be a certain uniformity observable
in the effects; and there will be general laws, by which this operation
must have been conducted. Therefore, knowing those general laws, and
making just observations with regard to the natural appearances of those
consolidated masses, a philosopher, in his closet, should be able to
determine, what may, and what may not have been transacted in the bowels
of the earth, or below the bottom of the ocean.

Let us now endeavour to ascertain what may have been the power of water,
acting under fixed circumstances, operating upon known substances, and
conducting to a certain end.

The action of water upon all different substances is an operation
with which we are familiar. We have it in our power to apply water in
different degrees of heat for the solution of bodies, and under various
degrees of compression; consequently, there is no reason to conclude
any thing mysterious in the operations of the globe, which are to be
performed by means of water, unless an immense compressing power should
alter the nature of those operations. But compression alters the