xxvi PURGING OF IMPURITIES 143 



actually like ordure, which has a vile smell too. 

 Whence comes the fable that the oxen of the sun 

 are stalled in that neighbourhood. In certain cases 

 of this kind it is difficult to reach the true explana- 

 tion, especially when the time of the occurrence 

 in question has not actually been observed and is 

 therefore doubtful. But though the immediate and 7 

 special cause cannot be discovered, there is a general 

 one worth mentioning ; all waters when standing 

 and enclosed tend to throw off impurities. In water 

 that has a current the impurities cannot settle, as 

 they are carried down and expelled by the mere 

 force of the stream. The waters which do not 

 throw off foreign bodies that settle in them always 

 boil more or less. As for the sea, it drags from 

 its lowest depths dead bodies, refuse of vegetation, 

 and all kinds of wreckage, and purges itself of them, 

 not merely when its billows rage in a storm but 

 likewise in its calm and peaceful moments. 



XXVII 



THE occasion reminds me of a wider question, i 

 When the fated day of deluge comes, after what 

 fashion will the earth for the most part be over- 

 whelmed by the waves ? Will it be by the strength 

 of Ocean and the rise of the outer sea against us ? 

 Or will the rain descend uninterruptedly, and will 

 summer be cut out of the year while persistent 

 winter bursts its clouds and pours down endless 

 masses of water ? Or will earth herself open new 2 

 reservoirs and shed forth rivers more abundantly ? 

 Or will a single cause be insufficient to produce 

 such a catastrophe, and all the methods conspire 



