effluviant

"A formal idea of the heaven and the earth may be obtained by imagining the heaven as at first an effluviant generation from a mono central point, occupying, or creating and occupying space; the earth, as the airiest or end of such generative action, with the gradual relaxation of central tension and abnegation of such centre, the consequence being the formation of a huge internal spherical vacuity, termed in the genetic record 'earth.'" ("Clear as Mud," Richmond Daily Dispatch http://imls.richmond.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=ddr;cc=ddr;idno=ddr0886.0025.062;view=text;rgn=div3;node=ddr0886.0025.062%3A3.3.2,Sept. 11, 1863