I take the first moment
I can, however, to acknowledge the receipt of your letters of April the
6th, July the 8th and 30th. In one of these, you say you have not
been able to learn, whether, in the new mills in London, steam is the
immediate mover of the machinery, or raises water to move it. It is the
immediate mover. The power of this agent, though long known, is but
now beginning to be applied to the various purposes of which it is
susceptible. You observe, that Whitehurst supposes it to have been the
agent, which bursting the earth, threw it up into mountains and vallies.
You ask me what I think of this book. I find in it many interesting
facts brought together, and many ingenious commentaries on them. But
there are great chasms in his facts, and consequently in his reasoning,
These he fills up by suppositions, which may be as reasonably denied
as granted. A sceptical reader, therefore, like myself, is left in the
lurch. I acknowledge, however, he makes more use of fact, than any other
writer on a theory of the earth. But I give one answer to all these
theorists. That is as follows.
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