88 NATURAL HISTORY OF 



Panama, now by some asserted to be twenty-four feet 

 lower than the Pacific, and by others to be equal in 

 elevation, or differing only as the tides on either side 

 may be at full, would rise perhaps sufficiently to sepa- 

 rate the two great portions of America. 



Here, then, we have a not improbable diluvian event 

 in the western portion of the world, sufficient to account 

 for all the traditions locally current in the supposition, 

 that the progenitors of the present population were 

 already in part upon the spot. Some authors have 

 assumed the American cataclysm to be the same as the 

 Atlantic; but what is more evident, is the volcanic 

 agency in both, and the ignited galleries passing be- 

 neath the ocean, with spiracula in the western African 

 islands, and the Azores completing the electrical circle 

 on this side, as the Kamstchatka volcanoes and the 

 Caroline and Japanese effect 'on the other. 



