252 On the Physical Facts contained in the Bible, - 
rare intervals. The waters of the heavens are incapable of 
producing them, as they were incapable of causing a cata- 
clysm, such as that which occasioned the destruction of man. 
In fact, the quantity of aqueous vapour diffused through the 
atmosphere is too inconsiderable to produce deluges resem- 
bling that of Noah, the extent of which physical facts suffi- 
ciently attest. 
Scripture does not confine itself to these particulars, in 
order to enable us to understand that, besides the great 
masses of water spread over the surface of the globe, there 
exist others not less considerable in the interior. The earth 
is founded and stretched out, it informs us, on the subter- 
ranean waters: they are there assembled, as in a mass, in 
the most secret places of its depth, whence they at times 
escape to impart fertility to the most barren soils.* 
Thus, when it describes the riches of the country of 
Canaan, to which a wonderful exuberance of vegetation is 
promised for the latter times, it represents it not only as 
abounding in springs and fountains, but particularly in sub- 
terranean waters. It seems thereby to anticipate the pro- 
cess of perforation, by means of which the moderns have 
succeeded in fertilising the most barren fields and the most 
steril countries. 
We find, moreover, in the Scriptures, proofs of the extent 
of the seas in the early ages; they even contain some suc- 
cinct details respecting the animals which inhabited them, 
the greater part of which have preceded the species of the 
dry and uncovered land. Such facts have required long 
spaces of time for their operation. In truth, the numerous 
generations buried in the old strata of the globe, and to 
which the present existing races have succeeded, must have 
lived during periods of greater or less duration, in order to 
fulfil the end of their creation. This circumstance of itself 
proves that the word tom used in Genesis, and which is 
translated day, means rather indeterminate epochs, the dura- 
tion of which it is impossible for us to fix. 
While enabling us to understand the extent of the seas, 
= 
* See Ps. xxiv. 2; xxxiii, 7. 
