782 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



well be jubilant over the cognate fact that the six creative days in 

 Genesis are now never thought or spoken of as compelling us to 

 believe that the whole creative work which has been done on our 

 planet since it was in a state of chaos, was a work accomplished 

 within six literal days of twenty-four hours each. Or he might 

 as well shout over the still older movement of thought which 

 divorced the conceptions of the Christian world from the literal 

 language of the geocentric astronomy. It is quite a mercy that 

 Prof. Huxley has not trotted out our old friend Galileo again, and 

 has taken refuge in such later and lesser lights as the late Canon 

 William Harcourt, and the still living Canon Eawlinson. But 

 even on this question of the possible universality of a deluge, 

 Prof. Huxley takes no notice of certain features in the Hebrew 

 narrative which manifest a most curious avoidance of the real 

 scientific objection to a complete and universal deluge, in spite of 

 some language which appears to assert it. It is not true, so far 

 as I know, that any science has proved a universal deluge to be a 

 physical impossibility. In particular, it is not true that there is 

 any deficiency in our existing oceans of a quantity of water ad- 

 equate more than adequate to cover the whole earth. On the 

 contrary, it is a fact that the actual distribution of sea and of dry 

 land on our planet is such that even a comparatively slight eleva- 

 tion of the floor of our oceans, together with some corresponding 

 depression of the land, would spill over upon our continents 

 enough water to submerge them completely, and to submerge 

 them all. My distinguished friend Dr. John Murray (of the 

 Challenger Expedition) has calculated that there is enough water 

 in our existing seas to cover the whole globe with water more 

 than two miles deep. This is the latest calculation of scientific 

 inquiry, and it is curious. The fundamental objection to a com- 

 plete and simultaneous deluge at so late a period of the earth's 

 history is not physical but biological. It lies in its bearing upon 

 the history and development of organic life. Even this objection 

 applies only to the completeness, and not to the universality, of a 

 deluge. That is to say, biological facts may be perfectly com- 

 patible with the partial and contemporaneous submergence of 

 every continent on the globe, but not with any such submergence 

 having ever been total or complete. As regards the lower animals, 

 there must have been, so far as we can reason, other refuges than 

 an ark. There must have been many areas left uncovered. But 

 this necessity is demanded quite as much by the narrative in Gen- 

 esis as by the scientific evidence of the distribution of life. The 

 repeopling of the deluged earth by ordinary generation requires 

 this absolutely. The universal destruction of all terrestrial life 

 would have necessitated a complete re-creation of all its forms. 

 And yet this is exactly the consequence which the narrative in 



