John Whitehurst (1713–1788)

...you say you have not been able to learn whether in the new mills in London, steam is the immediate mover of the machinery or raises water to move it. It is the immediate mover. The power of this agent, tho’ long known, is but now beginning to be applied to the various purposes of which it is susceptible. You observe that Whitford supposes it to have been the agent which, bursting the earth, threw it up into mountains & vallies. You ask me what I think of his book. I find in it many interesting facts brought together, & many ingenious commentaries on them, but there are great chasms in his facts, and consequently in his reasoning; these he fills up with suppositions which may be as reasonably denied as granted. A sceptical reader, therefore, like myself, is left in the lurch. I acnoledge, however, he makes more use of fact than any other writer of a theory of the earth.

(TJ to Charles Thomson, Dec. 17, 1786.)
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=rbc3&fileName=rbc0001_2007jeffca...… (plus d'informations)