was about to place upon its surface, was in the providential contemplation of the Creator, in his primary disposal of the physical forces, Which-have caused some of the.earliest, and most violent Perturbations of the globe.[1]
CHAPTER XXII.
Adaptations of the Earth to afford supplies of water through the medium of Springs.
As the presence of water is essential both to animal and vegetable existence, the adjustment of the Earth's surface to supply this necessary fluid, in due proportion to the demand,
- ↑ That part of the History of Metals which relates to their various Properties and Uses, and their especial Adaptation to the Physical condition of Man, has been so ably and amply illustrated by two of my Associates in this Series of Treatises, that I have more satisfaction in referring my readers to the Chapters of Dr. Kidd and Dr. Prout upon these subjects than in attempting myself to follow the history of the productions of metallic veins, beyond the sources from which they are derived within the body of the Earth.
A summary of the all-important Uses of Metals to Mankind is thus briefly given, by one of our earliest and most original writers on Physical-theology.
"As for Metals, they are so many ways useful to mankind, and those Uses so well known to all, that it would be lost labour to say anything of them: without the use of these we could have nothing of culture or civility: no Tillage or Agriculture; no Reaping or Moving; no Ploughing or Digging; no Pruning or Loping; no Gratting or Insition; no mechanical Arts or Trades; no Vessels or Utensils of Household-stuff; no convenient Houses or Edifices; no Shipping or Navigation. What a kind of barbarous and sordid life we must necessarily have lived, the Indians in the Northern part of America are a clear demonstration. Only it is remarkable that those which are of most frequent and necessary use, as Iron, Brass and Lead, are the most common and plentiful: others that are more rare, may better be spared, yet are they thereby qualified to be made the common measure and standard of the value of all other commodities, and so to serve for Coin or Money, to which use they have been employed by all civil Nations in all Ages." Ray's Wisdom of God in the Creation. Pt. i. 5th ed; 1709, p. 110.
