Some Farther Thoughts upon the Same Subject, Delivered on the 19th of the Same Month. By the Same

North-West of America, about Hudson's-Bay, may be occasioned by those Parts of the World having once been much more Northerly, or nearer the Pole than now they are; whereby there are immense Quantities of Ice yet unthaw'd in those Parts, which chill the Air to that degree, that the Sun's warmth seems hardly to be felt there, and of which the Poet might justly say, *Frigus iners illic habitat pallorque tremorque*—Ac jejuna fames. If this Speculation seem worthy to be cultivated, I shall not be wanting farther to insist on the Consequences thereof, and to shew how it may render a probable Account of the strange Catastrophe we may be sure has at least once happened to the Earth. VIII. Some farther Thoughts upon the same Subject, delivered on the 19th of the same Month. By the same. I HAVE been advised since the last Day, by a Person whose Judgment I have great Reason to respect, that what I then advanced, ought rather to be understood of those Changes which might have happen'd to the Earth in Times before the Creation, and which might possibly have reduc'd a former World to a Chaos, out of whose Ruins the present might be formed, than of the Deluge whereby Mankind was in a manner extinguished about 4000 Years since; that being much more gradually brought to pass, and with some Circumstances that this Hypothesis cannot admit of, which abler Pens, perhaps, may account for: What I have advanced, I desire may be taken for no more more than the Contemplation of the Effects of such a Choc as might possibly, and not improbably, have befallen this Lump of Earth and Water in Times whereof we have no manner of Tradition, as being before the first Production of Man, and therefore not knowable but by Revelation, or else \textit{a posteriori} by Induction from a convenient Number of Experiments or Observations, arguing such an Agitation once, or oftner, to have befallen the Materials of this Globe. And perhaps, in due Periods of Time, such a Catastrophe may not be unnecessary for the well-being of the future World; to bury deep from the Surface those Parts, which by length of time are indurated into stony Substances, and become unapt for vegetable Production, by which all Animals are either immediately or mediately sustained: the ponderous Matter in such a Mixture subsiding first, and the lighter and finer Mould remaining for the latter Settling, to invest the exterior Surface of the New World. This may, perhaps, be thought hard, to destroy the whole Race for the Benefit of those that are to succeed. But if we consider Death simply, and how that the Life of each Individual is but of a very small Duration, it will be found that as to those that die, it is indifferent whether they die in a Pestilence out of 100000 \textit{per Ann}. or ordinarily out of 25000 in this great City, the Pestilence only appearing terrible to those that survive to contemplate the Danger they have escaped. Besides, as Seneca has it, \begin{quote} \textit{Vitæ est avidus quisquis non vult Mundo secum pereunte mori.} \end{quote} N. B. N.B. The foregoing Papers having been read before the Society thirty Years since, were then deposited by their Author in their Archives, and not published; he being sensible that he might have adventured ultra crepidam; and apprehensive least by some unguarded Expression he might incur the Censure of the Sacred Order. Nor had they now been printed, but at the Desire of a late Committee of the Society, who were pleased to think them not unworthy the Press. Here the Reader is desired to observe, that Mr. William Whiston's Book, entituled, A New Theory of the Earth, was not published till about a Year and a half after the Date hereof, and was not presented before June 24, 1696. to the Royal Society. FINIS. ERRATUM. Pag. 118. lin. 25, 26. read Relation.