Sect. IV.] Geologi/. 00.-, 



This crust was the first inhabitable part of the 

 earth; and was level and uniform, without nu)ni\^- 

 tains, seas, or other ine(|ualities. In this state it 

 remained about sixteen centuries, when tlie heat of 

 the sun, gradually drying the crust, produced, at 

 first, superiicial fissures or cracks; i)iit, in ])rocess 

 of time, these fissures became deeper, and increased 

 so much in their dimensions, that at last they en- 

 tirely penetrated the crust. Immediately the whole 

 crust split in pieces, and fell into the abyss of 

 waters which it had formerly surrounded. This 

 wonderful event was the universal Deluge. Tiiese 

 masses of indurated earthy and oily matter, in 

 falling into the abyss, carried along with them \ast 

 quantities of air, by the force of which they dashed 

 against each other, accumulated, and divided in so 

 irregular a manner, that great cavities, filled with 

 air, were left between them. The waters gradually 

 opened passages into these cavities, and in j)ro- 

 portion as the cavities were filled with water,- parts 

 of the crust began to discover themselves in the 

 .most elevated places. At last the waters appeared 

 .no where but in those extensive valleys which con- 

 tain the ocean. Thus our ocean is a part of the 

 ancient abyss ; the rest of it remains in the inter- 

 nal cavities, with which the sea lias still a commu- 

 nication. Islands and rocks are the small Irag- 

 ments, and continents the large masses, of the an- 

 tediluvian crust: and as the rupture and fall of 

 the mass were sudden and confused, the present 

 surface of the earth is full of corresponding conlii- 

 siou and irregularity '^. 



•it Sullivan's View of Nature, vol. i, kticr o. 



