Sect. IV.] <^^ology. 239 



support for revelation has been found. Marine 

 shells have been discovered in situations so ele- 

 vated, and under circumstances so reniarkaljle, as 

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

 tending over the whole globe ;. and what confirms 

 this conclusion is, that shells pecniiar to dillcrent 

 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 rhinoceroses 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 

 wdiich they might have ii)liabited, 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*. Tiie most 

 patient and accurate examinations of detached 

 mineral substances, and of the strata of the globe, 

 which late inquirers have made, allbrd evcr\^ rea- 

 son to believe that the earth was for a conside- 

 rable time wiiolly overflowed with water. And, to 

 crown all, as voyagers and travellers have explored 

 new regions of the earth, they have found, Q\e.Yy 

 where^ the indications of geological phenome-ua 

 confirmed and supported by the notices of tradi- 

 tion. Accordingly, it is verv remarkablr \\vd\ a 

 great majority of modern theorists haxc cinlkniccd 

 the Neptunian doctrines; and even suchof thrn^ as 

 rejected the Mosaic account of the d< luLiC iiuve 



* Kirwan's Gcoloqica! Essays, p. 54, et st.q. 



