STUDY IV. 



217 



in thofe days of vengeance, when Nature involved 

 in one ruin all the monuments of her greatnefs. 



Such convulfions, of which traces without num- 

 ber ftill remain, on the furface, and in the bowels 

 of the Earth, could not poflibly have been pro- 

 duced fimply by the aftion of an univerfal rain, 



I am aware that the letter of Scripture is exprefs 

 in refpcd to this ; but the circumltances which 

 the Sacred Hiftorian combines, feem to admit the 

 means which, on my hypothefis, effeded that tre- 

 mendous revolution. 



Tn the book of Genefis it is faid, that it rained, 

 over the whole Earth, for forty days and forty 

 nights. That rain, as we have alleged, was the re- 

 fult of the vapours produced by the melting of the 

 ices, both of the Land and of the Sea, and by the 

 Zone of Water which the Sun pafled over, in the 

 diredion of the Meridian. As to the period of 

 forty days, that quantity of time appears to me 

 abundantly fufficient to the vertical adion of the 

 Sun on the polar ices, to reduce them to the level 

 of the Seas, as fcarcely more than three weeks are 

 neceflary, of the proximity of the Sun to the Tro- 

 pic of Cancer, to melt a confiderable part of thofe 

 on our Pole. Nay, at that feafon, nothing more 

 feems to be wanting but a few puffs of foutherly, 



or 



