52 Mr. Smithson on Mr. Penn's Theory concerning [July, 



reign bodies into their substance, their existence in it is evi- 

 dence. 



Every shell and stone on the beach tells by its rounded form 

 the attrition to which it is subject at each flood and ebb of the 

 tide ; and that a subtil powder is abraded from it which is col- 

 lected somewhere. 



From the immense multitudes of marine bodies which exist 

 in some of these limestones, from others consisting in fact 

 entirely of them, from in general little or nothing but calcare- 

 ous matter being present, it becomes highly probable that it 

 is to the calcareous part of marine animals, more or less com- 

 minuted, that secondary limestones owe their origin. 



Deposition of the Calcareous Mud. 



The waters of the deluge had not, surely, either a duration 

 or power, to obtain the matter of this supposed layer of mud. 



No shores any longer existing, shells could not be pulve- 

 rised by the beat of the wave, for it is not deep under water 

 that such destruction is effected ; nor, was it so, would the 

 short period of a year have been sufficient to produce the ma- 

 terial of all the secondary limestones of the earth 1 



To have harrowed up this matter from the depths of the 

 ocean, would have required an agitation of the waters, which 

 nothing warrants us in giving to them, which every thing denies 

 their having had. 



No hurricanes, no tempestuous winds, no swollen billows, 

 are recorded. To drown mankind they were superfluous. A 

 wind having arisen at the termination of the calamity tells that 

 none existed before ; and this wind must have been a most 

 gentle one, a very zephyr. A vessel, bulky beyond all the 

 efforts of imagination to figure, so laden, so manned, could not 

 have lived in any agitated sea, least in one which out-topped 

 the Alps, and the Andes, all that could curb its fury, and 

 mitigate its violence. 



Had the ark not foundered, which is impossible, what yet 

 had become of the millions which its sides enclosed ! Few 

 had survived to repair the effects of the divine wrath. 



The waters must have been at rest when the ark continued 

 stationary for many months on the mountains of Ararat. 



Nor, do the agitations of a sea extend far below its surface. 

 What navigator has told of the storm in which the sea became 

 thick with its own sediments ? 



But had such a deposit been made on our island, it would 

 not have continued on it. Standing like a little turret in the 

 bosom of the waters, each agitation of them would have pre- 

 cipitated part of it down its sides. Their gigantic tides must 

 alone have washed it away, and on the rush of their final depar- 

 ture, not a vestige of it could possibly have remained behind. 



