Then, why might not that change alter the
center of gravity of the earth? Before this the pole of the ecliptique
perhaps was the pole of the world". And in confirmation of these views
he quotes several passages from Ovid's Metamorphoses, book i. fab. 7.
8. He also cites the scheme of Father Kircher, of the Society of
Jesus, which, in a section of the globe, represents it as "full of
cavities, and resembling the inside of a pomegranade", the centre
being marked with a blazing fire, or "ignis centralis". "But now",
writes Aubrey in 1691, "Mr. Edmund Halley, R.S.S., hath an hypothesis
that the earth is hollow, about five hundred miles thick; and that a
terella moves within it, which causes the variation of the needle; and
in the center a sun". Further on he says, "that the centre of this
globe is like the heart that warmes the body, is now the most commonly
received opinion". On the subject of subterranean heats and fires the
author quotes several pages from Dr. Edward Jorden's "Discourse of
Natural Baths and Mineral Waters; wherein the original of fountains,
the nature and differences of water, and particularly those of the
Bathe, are declared". (4to. 1632.) He also extracts a passage from
Lemery's "Course of Chymistry", (8vo. 1686,) as the foundation of a
theory to explain the heat of the Bath waters.
The difficulty of reconciling the various opinions that were advanced
with the Mosaic account of the Creation, was a great stumbling-block
to the progress of geological science at the time when Aubrey wrote.
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