However, if we direct our attention alone to those general laws which are known, and which are believed to govern matter, I apprehend it would be very difficult to account for the creation of worlds, and the admirable arrangement which subsists throughout the universe. To account for every thing, either according to the old or new theory, would be attempting too much. It would be placing the Deity in some corner of the universe an idle spectator, whilst matter governed by its own laws, was forming itself into worlds and systems; the bare thought of which is irreverent. Is the existence of matter owing to some other first cause, or did matter create itself, and impress upon itself the laws which govern it? Such an idea is absurd. We might as well imagine that matter created God, as itself. By attempting to trace every effect to some natural cause, is attempting to do more than we shall ever be able to accomplish. Such a course of reasoning must lead us to the conclusion that there is no God, or first cause; or, at least, to what would be nearly the same thing, that there is no need of one. But in reasoning upon this subject, I take it for granted, that there is a God, and that he is the first cause of all things, the creator of all the orbs in the universe, be they either solid globes or concentric spheres; and I hope such is the reader's belief. And I cannot discover in this any thing derogatory from His infinite power, wisdom, or divine economy, in the formation of a hollow world and concentric spheres, any more than in that of solid ones. I should rather be of opinion, that a construction of all the orbs in creation, on a plan corresponding with Symmes's theory, would display the highest possible degree of perfection, wisdom, and goodness――the most perfect system of creative economy――and, (as Dr. Mitchill expresses it) _a great saving of stuff_. FOOTNOTE: [3] The solidity of the earth is easily calculated by the measure of a meridional degree; but the result will be different according to the measurement assumed, as the length of a degree differs in different latitudes. "Notwithstanding all the admeasurements that have hitherto been made, it has never been demonstrated, in a satisfactory manner, that the earth is strictly a spheroid; indeed, from observations made in different parts of the earth, it appears that its figure is by no means that of a regular spheroid, nor that of any other known regular mathematical figure; and the only certain conclusions that can be drawn from the works of the several gentlemen employed to measure the earth is, that the earth is something more flat at the poles than at the equator." [Keith on globes p. 56. New-York, 1811.] According to Mott's translation of Newton's Principia, book 3, page 243, the equatorial diameter of the earth is 7964 English miles, and the polar diameter 7929, for as 230:229::7964:7929 miles, the polar axis.