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the earth after the destruction of oi'ganic life also varied ; thus the 

 Gerbonites, a sect of philosophei-s who lived some centuries B.C., held 

 that after every period of 36,400 years there were produced a pair of 

 every species of animal, both male and female, from whom other 

 animals might be propagated and inhabit this lower world, but when a 

 circulation of the heavenly orbs was completed, which was supposed to 

 be finished in that time, other genera and species were propagated, 

 as also plants and other thinfjs, the first order was destroyed, and so 

 on forever. 



The theory of Strabo to account for the phenomena of submergence 

 and upheaval is worthy of much attention, and shows that even many 

 hundreds of years ago considerable thought had been bestowed upon 

 some of the most puzzling problems of science. " Thus," he says. " it 

 is not because the lands covered by the seas were originally at 

 different altitudes tliat the waters have risen or subsided or receded 

 from some i)arts and inundated others, but that the same land is some, 

 times raised up and sometimes depressed, and that the sea is 

 simultaneously raised and depressed, so that it either overflows or 

 returns into its own place again. We must therefore ascribe the 

 cause to the ground, either to that which is beneath the sea or to that 

 which becomes flooded by it, but rather to that which is beneath the 

 sea for this is more movable, and on account of its humidity can be 

 altered with greater celerity. It is proper, he observes, to derive our 

 explanations from things which are obvious and in some measure of daily 

 occurrence, such as deluges, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions and 

 sudden swellings of the land beneath the sea, for tlie last raise up the 

 sea also, and when the same lands subside again they occasion the sea 

 to be let down, and these affect not merely the small but the largi^ 

 islands and even the continents, which can be lifted up together with 

 th** seas." 



The cosmosronv stated in the Koran is brief but of interest. Thus : 

 ' The Prophet declares that the earth was created in two days, and the 

 mountains were then placed upon it, and during these and two addi- 

 tional days the inhabitants of the earth were formed, and in two more 

 the Seven Heavens. Concerning the deluge the waters were supposed 

 to be poured out of an oven, and all men were drowned save Noah and 



