СНАР. V.

THE CONVENIENCE AND NECESSITY OF A SPHÆRICAL

FIGURE TO THE GOOD OF THE GLOBES, IS AN
ARGUMENT THEY WERE THE WORK OF GOD.

BESIDES the orderly and commodious placing

the parts of the feveral globes spoken of in the laft Chapter, there are ftill other reasons to afcribe the sphæricity of our own and the other globes to a wife agent. For befides that this figure is the moft agreeable to a world, as being the most capacious; and the most agreeable to a mafs in motion, as being at a due diftance from the center of motion and gravity; fo without this figure there could have been no fuch comfortable and agreeable alterations of day and night, of heat and cold, as now there are, but fome parts must have been for too long a time skreened from the kindly approaches of the fun and moon, and confequently have lain under too long and uncomfortable a darkness, and been

chilled

chilled with miferable cold. And as to our own globe, the winds could not have given those kindly and falutiferous agitations to the air as they do, but they must have been too much retarded, if not wholly stopped by the exorbitant angles and jettings out of other figures. And, laftly, the waters which I fhewed to be well intermixed with dry land, would have had intolerable confluences; one part too much, another none at all; no vapours, no fountains, no rivers: fo that instead of an habitable, well-ftocked world, far the greateft part would have been either a defart, or an unneceffary confluence of

water.

Thus having made it evident, that particularly our own globe received its figure by the direction of the infinitely wife architect of all things: we have reafon, had we none befides, to conclude the fame of all the reft of the globes of the univerfe, inasmuch as they agree with ours in other things as well as in their figure, fo far as we have any knowledge of them, and their state. Thus the planets of the Solar fyftem have their light from the fun as well as we; they turn round on their own axes, and revolve round the fun, and confequently have their days and nights, their fummers and winters, as well as we they

have their hills and valleys, as I faid, their land and waters, by all the figns that may be, as well as we; and therefore agreeing with our globe in fo many of thofe very things, wherein their figure is concerned, had we none of thofe reafons I have already mentioned, there would however be great reafon to prefume the fame thing of them, as of our earth, viz, That they received their figure from the fame wife Creator, and that (were we near enough to behold them) they have as manifeft fignals of it as we have,

BOOK

BOOK VI.

F THE

ATTRACTION OR GRAVITY

O F THE

Terraqueous and the other Globes.

CHA P. I.

THE USEFULNESS OF ATTRACTION IN THE PRODUC

TION AND PRESERVATION OF THE FIGURE OF THE

EARTH, AND THE DESCENT OF HEAVY BODIES.

HAVING in the two last books treated of the

motions and figure of the globes, I shall in this confider their gravity or attraction, which according to the modern Philosophy, (which hath great reason and probability on its fide) hath a great agency in both these matters, both in effecting and preferving the figure of the globes, and governing their motion.

As

As to the agency of the natural attraction of matter in the production and preservation of a fphærical figure, as that of the feveral globes is, besides what hath been before fuppofed, it may be collected from the fphærical figure which most fluids take, when there is no obstacle to hinder their doing so. Thus I have faid quickfilver manifeftly doth, efpecially in fmall drops or quantities; in which cafe their own felf-attracting power is equal to, or exceeds that of the earth fo doth lead and other metals when in Auxion; fo doth water, oil, and in fhort, all liquids, which run nearly into a sphærical form, when hung on a small surface; as at the point of a pin; or into an hemifphærical figure, on a broader surface; their felf-attraction caufing the former, as that of the earth and the furface on which they lie, doth the latter. These phænomena have indeed been afcribed to divers causes, most of them probable enough, except the preffure of the incumbent air; but this is manifeftly. not the true caufe, by reafon the cafe is the very

fame

This is very manifeft from the making of fhot. The way of doing which, is by running the melted lead through a ladle full of holes into cold water. In doing which they take care their lead be not too hot, because the globules would then fly to pieces; nor too cold, because it would then be long and have tails; but in a duc temper it turns round. They put orpiment into their lead, when they melt and prepare it for fhot.