of so many various Species of Animals, in each of which there want not many Instances that manifest the boundless Power and Goodness of their Divine Author; and can we then think it a hard Supposition, that the Internal Parts of this Bubble of Earth should be replete with such Saline and Vitriolick Particles as may contribute to Petrefaction, and dispose the transuding Water to shoot and coagulate into Stone, so as continually to fortifie, and, if need were, to consolidate any breach or flaw in the Concave Surface of the Shell.
And this perhaps may not without Reason be suppos'd to be the final Cause of the admixture of the Magnetical Matter in the Mass of the Terrestrial parts of our Globe, viz. To make good and maintain the Concave Arch of this Shell: For by what the Excellent Mr. Newton has shewn in his Principia Philosophiæ, it will follow, that according to the general Principle of Gravity, visible throughout the whole Universe, all those Particles that by length of time, or otherwise, shall moulder away, or become loose on the Concave Surface of the External Sphere, would fall in, and with great force descend on the Internal, unless those Particles were of another sort of Matter capable by their stronger tendency to each other, to suspend the force of Gravity; but we know no other Substances capable of supporting each other by their mutual Attraction but the Magnetical, and these we see miraculously to perform that Office, even where the Power of Gravity has its full effect, much more within the Globe where it is weaker. Why then may we not suppose these said Arches to be lin'd throughout with a Magnetical Matter, or rather to be one great Concave Magnet, whose two Poles are the Poles we have before observ'd to be fixt in the Surface of our Globe.
Another Argument, favouring this Hypothesis, is drawn from a Proposition of the same Mr. Newton, where he determines the force wherewith the Moon moves the Sea in producing