Thought, concerning the Smoothness and Plainness of the Antediluvian Earth, to add a second, concerning the Disruption and Dissolution of it; for, as it often happens in Earthquakes, when the exterior Earth is burst asunder, and a great Flood of Waters issues out, according to the Quantity and Force of them, an Inundation is made in those Parts, more or less; so I thought, if that _Abyss_ lay under Ground and round the Earth, and we should suppose the Earth in this manner to be broken in several Places at once, and as it were a general Dissolution made, we might suppose that to make a general Deluge, as well as a particular Dissolution often makes a particular. But I will not anticipate here the Explication we intend to give of the Universal Deluge in the following Chapters; only by this previous Intimation we may gather some Hopes, it may be, that the Matter is not so desperate as the former Representation might possibly make us fancy it. GIVE me leave to add farther in this Place, that it hath been observ’d by several, from the Contemplation of Mountains and Rocks and Precipices, of the Channel of the Sea, and of Islands, and of Subterraneous Caverns, that the Surface of the Earth, or the exterior Region which we inhabit, hath been broke, and the parts of it dislocated: And one might instance more particularly in several Parcels of Nature, that retain still the evident Marks of Fraction and Ruin, and by their present Form and Posture shew, that they have been once in another State and Situation one to another. We shall have occasion hereafter to give an Account of these _Phænomena_, from which several have rightly argu’d, and concluded some general Rupture or Ruin in the superficial Parts of the Earth. But this Ruin, it is true, they have imagin’d and explain’d several ways, some thinking that it was made the _third Day_ after the Foundation of the Earth; when they suppose the Channel of the Sea to have been form’d, and Mountains and Caverns at the same time, by a violent Depression of some Parts of the Earth, and an Extrusion and Elevation of others to make them Room. Others suppose it to have come not all at once, but by Degrees, at several Times, and in several Ages, from particular and accidental Causes, as the Earth falling in upon Fires under Ground, or Water eating away the lower parts, or Vapours and Exhalations breaking out and tearing the Earth. ’Tis true, I am not of their Opinion in either of these Explications; and we shall shew at large hereafter, when we have propos’d and stated our own Theory, how incompetent such Causes are, to bring the Earth into that Form and Condition we now find it in. But in the mean time, we may so far make use of these Opinions in general, as not to be startled at this Doctrine, concerning the Breaking or Dissolution of the Exterior Earth; for in all Ages the Face of Nature hath provok’d Men to think of and observe such a Thing. And who can do otherwise, to see the Elements