John Keill's View of the Hydrologic Cycle, 1698

Abstract

In the latter part of the 17th century a number of men in England were becoming impressed by the extent of sedimentary strata and by the presence of fossil shells in them. They realized that the material had been deposited in water at a time when the seas had different boundaries. Many thought that the greater extent of the seas had been only ephemeral and was related to the Noachian Deluge; they assumed that the waters rose very rapidly and persisted for only a short time.

Among these writers was Thomas Burnet, whose work on Sacred Theory of the Earth., first published in 1681, went through many editions in several languages in the next 20 or 30 years. William Whiston, in his New Theory of the Earth [1686], was concerned with the same matters, as was John Woodward, in his An Essay Towards a Natural History of the Earth [1695].