15S Conjectural Ol'servations on the Mammoth.. 



of the subsequent mixture of the quautity of rain which fell 

 during the awful crisis aUuded to : but I am far from adopt- 

 ing- that opinion, although it would not militate against the 

 s-upposition above hazarded ; for, if a class of creatures not 

 included in the ark escaped the ravages of the deluge, it fol- 

 lows that, if the same are still in existence, the waters which 

 composed the deluge, whether saline or not, did not prove 

 deleterious to them '''■'. 



♦ The salubrity of water not depending on its containing salt, but on 

 its continujl tt^itation, my own opinion is, that the sea was scarce at all 

 salirie bLfore the dcluee ; End as it is necessary we should find some source 

 ft)rthc saline matter therein contained, which the supposition of its r:se 

 from saline springs running into it, or mines of salt under its bed, is found 

 inadequate to, so [ imai;ine that the origin of the formation of muriatic 

 acid (which combined wi.li the alkaline and earthv matters at tbe bottom 

 ©f the ocean forms the several marine salts contained in the same) is doe 

 To the putrefaction of the various animals floating in the ocean : but of 

 this we must remain ignorant till experiment shall de\elop the actual ele- 

 ments of this acid so peculiar to marine situations: it is certain that 

 wherever the external agents are most favourable to the putrefying pro- 

 cess, there the sea is most salt ; and this, as I think, depending conjointly 

 on the greater evaporation which must needs happen wherever the tem- 

 perature, as in hot climates, is most favourable to this process, together 

 with the more speedy putrefaction of all animal and vegetable matters in 

 equatorial latitudes. The deluge, in an indirect manner, was certainly 

 a means of destruction of myriads of shell-fish, which, imbedded in the 

 mire covering the surface of the earth, were by the induration of the 

 same completely hemmed in on every side, forming extensive beds of that 

 mixture of iheils and earthy matters so frequently met with : but fish 

 provided with 'ins to rise to the surface of the water, as also all that have 

 the faculty of swimming, could not be included in this general destruc- 

 tion : hence the tribes of serpents and v/atcr-snakes would not be dimi- 

 nished by the waters of the deluge ; which implies a still further necessity 

 of fomc effectual means of their diminution ; otherwife their numbers 

 would present a most formidable obstacle to the new peopling of the cartli 

 after the deluge. With regard to fresh- and salt-water fish, though the 

 former could not perhaps endure for a length of time so concentrated a 

 saline solution as is our present ocean, yet we may reasonably conclude 

 that both classes could exist in, and becoine naturalized to, a slightly sa- 

 turated mixture, as must of necessity have been the waters which com- 

 posed the general deluge. 



In conformity with the above theory I consider the origin of sea salt 

 to be in the sub-aqueous putrefaction of animal matters, especially during 

 the decline of thf: deluge ; and so far from the ocean beintj supplied from 

 mines and springs of salt, I imagine the former to be merely the product 

 of filtratioti, during the very gradual subsidence of the waters of the de- 

 luge into immense cavit'es, (which must needs have been found by the 

 falling in of vast masses of earth, ^whose support worn down by the soft- 

 ening quality of the water no longer could resist the incumbent weight,) 

 and that of the latter to arise of course from currents of fresh water, 

 which, occasionally in wearing them.-clves an outlet, find apassHge through 

 tkesc same primitive depositions of sea salt, 



5; 



