212 STUDIES OF NATURE. 



of the Ocean, covered the Earth with an univcrfal 

 rain. The adion of the Sun's heat was farther 

 augmented by that of the burning winds of the 

 fandy Zones of Africa and Afia, which blowing, 

 as all winds do, toward the parts of the Earth 

 where the air is moft rarefied, precipitated them- 

 felves, like battering rams of fire, toward the Poles 

 of the World, where the Sun was then afting with 

 all his energy. 



Innumerable torrents immediately burfl from 

 the North Pole, which was then the moft loaded 

 with ice, as the Deluge commenced on the 17th 

 of February, that feafon of the year, when Winter 

 has exerted it's full power over our Hemifphere. 

 Thefe torrents ifTued all at once from every flood- 

 gate of the North ; from the ftraits of the Sea 

 of Anadir, from the deep gulf of Kamfchatka, 

 from the Baltic Sea, from the ftrait of Waigats, 

 from the unknown fluices of Spitzbergen and 

 Greenland, from Hudfon's-Bay, and from that of 

 Baffin, which is ftill more remote. Their roaring; 

 currents ruflied furioufly down, partly through the 

 channel of the Atlantic Ocean, hurled it up from 

 the abyfTes of it's profound bafon, drove impetu- 

 oully beyond the Line, and their collateral coun- 

 ter-tides forced back upon them, and increafed by 

 the Currents from the South Pole, which had 

 been fet a flowing at the fame time, poured upon 



our 



