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Show 34 . JJOOIC.E ON EARTIIQUAI\:ES. nerating, and tending to its final dissolution; " and as, when that shall happen, all the species will be lost, why not some at one time and some at another * ?" But his principal object was to account for the manner in which shells had been conveyed into the higher parts of " the Alps, Apennines, and Pyrenean hills, and the interior of c~ntineuts in general." These and other appearances, ~e sa1d, might have been brought about by earthq~ake~, " wh!ch have turned plains into mountains, and mountams mto plams, seas into land, and land into seas, made rivers where there were none before, and swallowed up others that formerly were, &c. &c.; and which, since the creation of the world, have wrought many great changes on the superficial parts of the earth, and have been the instruments of placing shells, bones, plants, fishes, and the like, in those places, where, with much astonishment, we find them t." This doctrine, it is true, had been laid down in terms almost equally explicit by Strabo, to explain the occurrence of fossil shells in the interior of continents, and to that geographer, and other writers of antiquity, Hooke frequently refers; but the revival and developement of the system was an important step in the progress of modern science. He enumerated all the examples known to him of subter-ranean disturbance, from '' the sad catastrophe of Sodom and Gomorrah" down to the Chilian earthquake of 1646. The elevating of the bottom of the sea, the sinking and submersion of the land, and most of the inequalities of the earth's surface, might, he said, be accounted for by the agency of these subterranean causes. He mentions that the coast near Naples was raised during the eruption of Monte N uovo ; aQd that, in 1591, land rose in the island of St. Michael durin()' an erup- • , 0 twn; and although it would be more difficult, he says, to prove, he do.es not doubt but that there had been as many earthquakes tn the parts of the earth under the ocean, as in the parts of the dry land; in confirmation of which he mentions the immeasurable depth of the sea ncar some volcanoes. To attest the extent of simultaneous subterranean movements, he refers to an earthquake in the West Indies, in 1690, where • Post11, Worl<s, Lecture May 29, 1G89. t Posth. Works, 11. 312, llOOKE.-RAY, 35 the space of earth raised, or "struck upwards~' by the shock, exceeded the length of the Alps or the Pyrenees. As Hooke declared the favourite hypothesis of the day ('' that marine fossil bodies were to be referred to Noah's flood'') to be wholly untenable, he appears to have felt himself called upon to substitute a diluvial theory of his own, and thus he became involved in countless difficulties and contradictions. " During the great catastrophe," he said, " there miO'ht have been a c~an?ing of that part which was before dry l~nd into se~ _by smkmg, ~nd of _that ~hich was sea into dry land by ra1smg, and marme bodies might have been buried in sediment beneath the ocean, in the interval between the creation an~ the deluge ~ ." Then follo,wed a disquisition on the separatiOn of the land from the waters, mentioned in Genesis : during which operation some places ·of the sheil of the earth were forced outwards, and others pressed downwards or inwards, &c. His diluvial hypothesis very much resembled that o~ Steno, and was enti:ely opposed to the fundamental principles professed by him, that he would explain the former changes of the earth in a more natu·ral manner than others had done. When, in despite of this declaration, he required a former " crisis of nature," and taught that earthquakes had become debilitated, and that the Alp, Andes, and other chains had been lifted up in a few months, his machinery was a; extravagant and visionary as that of his most fanciful predecessors; and for ~his reason, perhaps, his whole theory of earthquakes met w1th very undeserved neglect. 0~~ of hi~ contemporarie~, the celebrated naturalist, Ray, participated m the same desire to explain geological phenomena, by reference to causes less hypothetical than those usually resorted tot. In his Essay on " Chaos and Creation" he p;opos~d a system, agreeing in its outline, and in many of its d~ta1ls, with that. of Hook~; but his knowJedge of natural h~story enable~ lum to eluCidate the subject with various origmal observations. Earthquakes, he suggested, might have • Posth. Works, p. 410. t Ray's Physico-theological Discourses wero of somewhat later date than Hoo~e's f:,>Teat work on earthquakes. He speaks of Hooke as one " ,vhom for his loarnmg and deep insight into tho mysteries of nature he dl'scrvcdly honoured,' -01~ tlte Deluge, chap. 4. D 2 |
