COMETARY INFLUENCES. 



catastroplie as that which we liave here described. The deluge, 

 which we shall presently notice, did not correspond to the condi- 

 tions stated. That there are indications on the crust of the earth 

 which prove that many parts of the continents, now elevated to 

 considerable heights above the level of the sea, were at some former 

 epoch submerged, is incontestable. The researches of geologists 

 have established this fact. But the manner in which these marine 

 deposits are found to be disposed is not such as a change 

 in the earth's axis or in its time of rotation would explain. 

 These deposits are frequently horizontal, of great breadth, 

 very thick, and very regular. The varied and often very small 

 shells found in them have preserved their most delicate points, 

 their most brittle parts, unbroken. Every circumstance, then, 

 dissipates the idea of a violent transposition ; everything shows 

 the deposits to have been formed on the spot. What now remains 

 to complete the explanation without having recourse to an eruption 

 of the sea ? It must be admitted that the mountains and undu- 

 lating grounds upon which they are based have risen up from 

 below, like mushrooms ; that they have grown up through the 

 bosom of the waters. In 1694, Halley already cited this hypothesis 

 as a possible explanation of the presence of marine productions 

 upon the sides and on the summits of the highest mountains. 

 This explanation is at present generally admitted. A comet 

 which should perceptibly alter either the movement of rotation or 

 the progress of translation of the earth would, without any doubt, 

 occasion terrific convulsions in the shell of the globe ; but, it must 

 be repeated, these physical revolutions would differ in a thousand 

 circumstances from those which are at present the objects of 

 geological research. 



14. Has the geographical condition of the earth been ever disturbed 

 by the near approach of a comet ? Can the biblical deluge have been 

 produced by such a cause ? 



A remarkable comet appeared in the year 1680, which has been 

 rendered memorable by the attempt of Whiston to prove that it 

 was periodic, and that on one of its former visits it was the 

 proximate cause of the Mosaic deluge. Arago, in his essays on 

 comets, has discussed fully the question raised by Whiston. 



Whiston proposed to show not only in what manner a comet 

 might have occasioned the deluge of Noah, but was desirous, 

 moreover, that his explanation should agree minutely with all the 

 circumstances of that great catastrophe as related in Genesis. Let 

 us see how he has succeeded in his object. 



The biblical deluge happened in the year 2349 before the 

 Christian era according to the modern Hebrew text ; or the year 

 2926, after the Samaritan text, the Septuagint, and Josephus. Is 

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