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Bibliographical reference

Burnet, Thomas. The theory of the earth containing an account of the original of the earth, and of all the general changes which it hath already undergone, or is to undergo, till the consummation of all things. The two first books. 3rd ed. London: R. Norton for Walter Kettilby, 1697 [1684-1690].

Description

The English theologian Thomas Burnet (1635-1715) published his best-known work Telluris theoria sacra in 1681 (first volume) and 1689 (second volume), which deals with the nature of the world before the Flood and the origin of the Flood. This treatise has been translated into English as The Theory of the Earth (I: 1684; II: 1690; both 1697). Burnet describes a cosmogony based on the Biblical tradition. Isaac Newton was a reader of Burnet’s Telluris theoria sacra, especially as regards the theological approach to geological processes, and started a correspondence with Burnet concerning the number and the length of the days in which God created the Earth.