[ J93 ] 



perhaps the longevity of the antediluvians may in great meafure 

 be attributed. After the flood the flate of things was perfedlly 

 reverfed, the furface of the earth was covered with dead and 

 pxitrifying land animals and fifli, which copioufly abforbed the 

 oxygenous part of the atmofphere and fupplied only mephitic 

 and fixed air ; thus the atmofphere was probably brought to 

 its adtual flate, containing little more than one-fourth of pure 

 air and nearly three-fourths of mephitic. Hence the confti- 

 tution of men muft have been weakened and the lives of their 

 enfeebled pofterity gradually reduced to their prefent flandard. 

 To avoid thefe exhalations it is probable that the human race 

 continued for a long time to inhabit the more elevated moun- 

 tainous tra(5ls. Domeftic difturbances in Noah's family, briefly 

 mentioned in holy writ, probably induced him to move with 

 fuch of his defcendants as were moft attached to him to the 

 regions he inhabited before the flood, in the vicinity of China> 

 and hence the early origin of the Chinefe monarchy. 



THIRD ESSAY. 

 OF SUBSEQUENT CATASTROPHES. 



A Shock fo violent and univerfal as that which pervaded 

 the globe during the diluvian revolution mufl have produced 

 not only innumerable alterations in the whole extent of its 



furface 



