Whiston went even farther in his "cometical" theory; he supposed the Earth to have been originally a Comet; to have had a lop-sided form without beauty or proportion; subject to all the misfortunes of Comets, "sometimes a thousand times hotter than melted iron; at other times a thousand times colder than ice." These alternations of hot and cold were "Chaos," a dense though fluid atmosphere which surrounded the solid contents of the Earth, and which was in a state of continuous agitation PMI and... read more
