S6o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



About the year 1760 news of the discovery of marine fossils in 

 various elevated districts of Europe reached Voltaire. He too had a 

 theologic system to support, though his system was opposed to that 

 of the sacred books of the Hebrews. He feared that these new dis- 

 coveries might be used to support the Mosaic accounts of the Deluge. 

 All his wisdom and wit, therefore, were compacted into arguments to 

 prove that the fossil fishes were remains of fislies intended for food, 

 but spoiled and thrown away by travelers ; that the fossil shells were 

 accidentally dropjjed by Crusaders and pilgrims returning from the 

 -HolyLand; and that the fossil bones of a hippopotamus found be- 

 tween Paris and Etarapes were parts of a skeleton belonging to the 

 cabinet of some ancient philosopher. Through chapter after chapter 

 Voltaire, obeying the supposed necessities of his theology, fights des- 

 perately the gi'owing results of the geologic investigations of his time.' 



But far moreAvide-Si^read and disastrous was the eiiorton the other 

 side to show that the fossils were caused by the Deluge of Noah. 



No supposition was too violent to support a theory which Avas 

 considered vital to the Bible. Sometimes it was claimed that the tail 

 of a comet had produced the deluge. Sometimes, by a prosaic render- 

 ing of the expression regarding the breaking np of the fountains of 

 the great deep, a theory was started that the earth contained a great 

 cistern, from which the waters came and to which they retired. By 

 taking sacred poetry as prose, and by giving a literal interpreta- 

 tion of it, Thomas Burnet in his " Sacred Theory of the Earth," 

 Winston in his " Theory of the Deluge," and others like them, built 

 up systems which bear to real geology much the same relation that 

 the " Christian Topography " of Cosmas bears to real geography. 

 In vain were exhibited the absolute geological, zoological, and astro- 

 nomical proofs that no universal deluge, or deluge covering any great 

 extent of the earth, had taken place within the last six thousand or 

 sixty thousand years ; in vain did Bishop Clayton declare that the 

 deluge could not have taken place save in that district where Noah lived 

 before the flood ; in vain was it shown that, even if there had been a 

 universal deluge, the fossils were not produced by it ; the only an- 

 swers were the citation of the text " and all the high mountains 

 which were under the whole heaven were covered " and denuncia- 

 tion of infidelity. In England, France, and Germany, belief that the 

 fossils were produced by the Deluge of Noah was insisted upon as 

 part of that faith essential to salvation.'* It took a hundred and twenty 



' See Voltaire, " Dissertation sur les Changements arrives dans notre Globe," also 

 Voltaire, " Les Singularites do la Nature," chapter xii., near close of vol. v. of the Didot 

 edition of 1843 ; also Jevons, "Principles of Science," vol. ii., p. 328. 



"^ For a candid summary of the proofs from geology, astronomy, and zoology, that the 

 Noachian Deluge was not universally or widely extended, see McClintock and Strong, 

 " Cyclopaedia of Biblical Theology and Ecclesiastical Literature," article " Deluge." For 

 general history see Lyell, D'Archiae, and Vezian. For special cases showing bitterness 

 of the conflict, see the Rev. Mr. Davis's'" Life of Rev. Dr. Pye Smith," passim. 



