166 NOMOS. 



the second month, in the seven and twentieth day of 

 the month, was the earth dried." 



How strangely circumstantial is this account ! 



How very strange the catastrophe itself! It is not 



sudden and appalling, as might be ex- 



The details rr ' & 



of the deluge pected if it had been throughout the 

 i S de P a P that the work of a miracle ; but it is slow and 





this orderly, as if it had been carried into effect 

 by natural causes. The rains descend and 

 the floods ascend for forty days and forty nights 

 before the earth is submerged; 150 days pass away 

 before the waters attain the height of 15 cubits above 

 the topmost hills; and 150 days are added to these, 

 before the flood has retired and left the ground in an 

 habitable state. Nearly a whole year is consumed 

 in this awful process. The catastrophe, we repeat, 

 is slow and orderly, as if it had been carried out, not 

 by miraculous interference, but by natural causes 

 after such interference. It seems, indeed, as if the 

 submersion and the subsequent renovation of the 

 earth was the natural consequence of a miracle, and 

 not the direct effect of a miracle of a miracle such 

 as we may easily imagine to have been carried out. 

 Let us imagine a shifting of the axis of the earth by 

 which the action of the sun and moon was removed 

 from the ancient land to the ancient seas, and, 

 according to the premises, the events will follow 

 which are described in the sacred page. The removal 

 of the action of the sun and moon from the land is to 

 take away that expansive power by which the land 

 is kept above the waters. The removal of this action 

 to the sea is to alter the position of the equatorial 



