Note 10 — CHAP. III. Of Pasture of Plants.
Reading edition
This Pasture of Plants never having been mentioned or described by any Author that I know of, I am at a loss to find any other Term to describe it by, that may be synonymous, or equipollent to it: Therefore, for want of a better, I call it the inner, or internal Superficies of the Earth, to distinguish it from the outer or external Superficies, or Surface, whereon we tread.
Inner or internal Superficies may be thought an absurd Expression, the Adjective expressing something within, and the Substantive seeming to express only what is without it; and indeed the Sense of the Expression is so; for the Vegetable Pasture is within the Earth, but without (or on the Outsides of) the divided Parts of the Earth.
And, besides, Superficies must be joined with the Adjective Inner (or Internal) when ’tis used to describe the Inside of a thing that is hollow, as the Pores and Interstices of the Earth are.
The Superficies, which is the Pasture of Plants, is not a bare Mathematical Superficies; for that is only imaginary.