Notwithstanding the general prevalence of this opinion, and the high authorities which support it, the reader must not imagine it is absolutely _universal_. Some eminent men have suggested, that the earth, and matter generally, was created in a _solid_ state at first. This is the view taken by Mr. Ure, of the Andersonian University. He supposes _the earth was created a solid ball, or spheroid, regular on its surface, without hills and vallies, and immersed in a crust of ice, which completely and uniformly surrounded it: that it was a cold lifeless lump; heat not yet having pervaded it_. The first, and all quickening operation of heat he supposes to be indicated by these words of Moses: “And the Spirit of God moved on the face of the waters.” He supposes, all the matter of our earth is in the same relative position, in which it was when it first existed at the command of God; _except such cases in which some subsequent force has disarranged it_. These cases he supposes to have been many, and to have operated to the _upheaving_ the mountains, and hollowing out the beds of the sea, &c. He says of the earth: “The central mass composed, most probably, of the metallic bases of the earths and alkalies, as volcanic phenomena seem to attest, would fuse, when first the calorific energy was made to actuate the body of the earth, and the exterior parts would oxydize into the crust of mineral strata, and the outermost coat of all, the fixed ice, would melt into the moveable _waters_.” _New Syst. of Geol. B. 1. chap. 1. p. 7._ Perhaps Mr. Ure’s view might be improved, and made to approximate much nearer the common opinion, possibly identified with it, by supposing the mass of matter composing our earth, was confusedly mixed,--and of course chaotic--but was in a frozen, hard, inactive state: that the quickening energy, which softened and fused it, was simultaneous with its revolution on its axis. The consequence then would be precisely what we find it to be; viz: an enlargement of the equatorial diameter, and a flattening of the poles. This I conceive to be the true theory in this case.