224 LIGHTS OF THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE vi 



depth of water might be mcaintained over the 

 cricket-ground so long as all the mains poured on 

 to it, anything which floated there would be 

 speedily whirled away by the current, like a cork 

 in a gutter when the rain pours ? But if this is 

 so, then it is no less certain that Noah's deeply 

 laden, sailless, oarless, and rudderless craft, if by 

 good fortune it escaped capsizing in whirlpools, or 

 having its bottom knocked into holes by snags 

 (like those which prove fatal even to well-built 

 steamers on the Mississippi in our day), would 

 have speedily found itself a good way down the' 

 Persian Gulf, and not long after in the Indian 

 Ocean, somewhere between Arabia and Hindostan. 

 Even if, eventually, the ark might have gone 

 ashore, with other jetsam and flotsam, on the 

 coasts of Arabia, or of Hindostan, or of the Maldives, 

 or of Madagascar, its return to the " mountains of 

 Ararat " would have been a miracle more stupen- 

 dous than all the rest. 



Thus, the last state of the would-be reconcilers 

 of the story of the Deluge with fact is worse than 

 the first. All that they have done is to transfer 

 the contradictions to established truth from the 

 region of science proper to that of common in- 

 formation and common sense. For, really, the 

 assertion that the surface of a body of deep water, 

 to which no addition was made, and which there 

 was nothing to stop from running into the sea, 

 sank at the rate of only a few inches or even feet 



