1 60 Natural History. 



other, of different materials, and of different den- 

 sities. The air, the lightest substance of all, sur- 

 rounds the outer coat, and the rays of the sun, 

 making their way through the atmosphere, pro- 

 duced the light which Moses tells us first obeyed 

 the divine command. The hills and valleys are 

 formed by the mass of which they consist pressing 

 with greater or less weight upon the outer coat of 

 the earth; those parts which are heaviest sinking 

 lowest into the subjacent fluid, and making valleys^ 

 and those which are lightest, rising higher and 

 forming mountains. 



Such Mr. Whiston supposed to be the state of 

 the globe we inhabit before the Deluge. Owing 

 to the superior heat, at that time, of the central 

 parts, which have been ever since cooling, the 

 earth was more fruitful and populous anterior to 

 that event than since. The greater vigour of 

 the genial principle was more friendly to animal 

 and vegetable life. But as all the advantages of 

 plenty and longevity which this circumstance pro- 

 duced, were productive only of moral evil, it pleased 

 God to testify his displeasure against sin, by bring- 

 ing a flood upon a guilty world. The flood was 

 produced, as this theorist supposed, in the follow- 

 ing manner. A Comet., descending in the plane 

 of the ecliptic to its perihelion, made a near ap- 

 proach to the earth. The approximation of so 

 large a body, raised such a strong tide, and pro- 

 duced such powerful commotion in the abyss con- 

 cealed under the external crust, that the latter was 

 broken,, and the waters which had been before 

 pent up, burst forth with great violence, and were 

 the principal means of producing the deluge. In 

 aid of this, he had recourse to another supposition, 

 which was, that the comet, while it passed so near 

 the earth as to produce these effects by the force 

 of attraction, also involved our globe in its atmos- 



