Natural Ilistojy, 187 



shells have been discovered in situations so ele- 

 vated, and under circumstances so remarkable, as 

 to prove that they were left there by a flood ex- 

 tending over the whole globe; and what confirms 

 this conclusion is, that shells, pecuhar to difl^erent 

 shores and climates, very distant from each other, 

 have been found in promiscuous heaps, plainly 

 showing that they could have been brought toge- 

 ther only by an extensive inundation. The bones 

 of elephants and of rhimceri have been found, in 

 a multitude of instances, far distant from the re- 

 gions in which they are found to live, and where, 

 from the nature of the climate, they could never 

 exist in the living state: and between the climates 

 which they might have inhabited, and the places 

 in which they are now found, too many mountains 

 intervene to suppose them carried thither by any 

 other means than a general deluge.'"' The most 

 patient and accurate examinations of detached 

 mineral substances^ and of the strata of the globe, 

 which late inquirers have made, afford every rea- 

 son to believe, that the earth was, for a consider- 

 able time, wholly overflowed with water. And, 

 to crown all, as voyagers and travellers have ex- 

 plored new regions of the earth, they have found, 

 every where, the indications of geological pheno- 

 mena confirmed and supported by the notices of 

 tradition. Accordingly, it is very remarkable, 

 that a great majority of modern theorists have em- 

 braced the Neptunian doctrines ; and even such of 

 them as rejected the Mosaic account of the deluge 

 have been compelled to seek for other means of 

 immerging the present continents in the ocean/" 



zu Kirwan's Geological Essays^ p. 54, et seq. 



X M. Bailly, of France, at first embraced the theory of the earth 

 proposed by Euffon; but finding the evidence arising from the investiga- 

 tions of natural history, and from universal tradition, so strongly to attest 

 the reality oi th? geaeral deluge, he abandojicd tJiat dclusiyc theory, an4 



