622

R Hooke Read a Lecture ^ /in prosecution of his Former Lectures/ concerning the Great mutations that haue sometimes been caused of the superficiall parts of the
Earth. and Particularly in answer to the great Obiection made against it by alledging that there were noe ^ /antient or modern/ historys that had
Recorded any such catastrophys, producing seuerall passages out of Strabo's Geography that very much concurred
with the Doctrine, who has diuers others also very much to the same purpose, those he mentiond were taken out of Authours that had writ
ten Long before the time ^ /of Strabo/ and were then accounted very antient. who tis probable had ^ /Receiued/ them from others that were before them, for that
Strabo does most insist vpon their philosophicall Explication of the phenomena. and though he takes it for Granted that all the Coun
try between the temple of Iupiter Ammon had been Left by, or ^ /rather/ Raised from vnder the Sea according to his ^/own/ Explication of it, yet he does
not Specify the time when that mutation was made. Before he ^/the sphere Hook/ further added, that though he had complyed in this matter
of Producing Authoritys & Historys for the Comfo strengthning of that Doctrine yet he conceiued that the arguments for it were
Drawn from Such Self Euident Principles as Stood in need of noe such helps. And vpon the Same account conceiued that the
newly mentiond phenomenon of the Broad black belt of the Rainbow. though it had hitherto past without being taken
notice of by any authour, either antient or Modern, yet from the reason and Cause of its appearance it may as Certain
ly be concluded to haue appeared in the first Rainbow after Noahs Flood as if there were any certain Record or history tht
it did Soe. vpon the same around as many Learned men haue concluded that the Phenomenon of the ^ /coloured/ Rainbow did appear
/though noe history mentions such appearance & /also before the flood though it were not made a Symboll or Signe to mankind that the earth should not be all ouerwhelmed
/till after Noahs Flood/
with water. but this way of Probation must be founded vpon certain principles as well as vpon rightly /a true method of/ syllogising Least the . . .
conclusions prove like that of Hezgesius who would prove the Wonderfull new star of i572 to be as old as any of the other Stars
founding his conclusion on /because by/ the Doctrine of Aristotle that noe coelestiall body was /is/ subject to any alteration or change.
Lastly to adde further Euidence to the ground from which he reasoned. he Produced the Curiously shaped flints that had been
presented to the Society the preceeding meeting. by seuerall Remarks about which he thought it might evidently appeare to
any unpreiudiced person, that those shapes and marks had Really been moulded off from the shells of the E a species of
the Ecticjs, and that the substance of the flint had at first been as fluid as water which flints being found in beds of Chalk and
those bedds sometimes very farr within the earth below its surface and in sometimes at great heights in . . Chalk hills doe Evidence
to Speak that there must haue formerly hapned very great mutations of the superficiall parts of the earth, which was the doctrine
he Indeauoured to proue.

Ref: CELL/RS/HF_624  © Centre for Editing Lives and Letters