ARX OP NOAH. 577 



fc-amy says, that it was an hundred and ten feet longer than the 

 church 1 of St. Mary at Paris, and sixty four feet narrower; to 

 \vfiich his English translator adds, that it must hare been longer 

 than St. Paul's church in London, from wt-t to east, broader (linn 

 that church is high in the inside, and about fifty-four feet in height 

 of our measure. 



The things contained in the ark were, besides eight persons of 

 Noah's family, one pair of every species of unclean animals, and 

 seven pair of every species of clean animals, with provisons for them 

 all, during the whole year. The former appears, at first view, al- 

 most infinite : but if come to a calculus, the number of species of 

 animals will be found much smaller than is generally imagined ; 

 out of which, in this case, 1 are to be excepted such animals as can 

 live in the water j and Bishop Wilkins imagines, that only seventy, 

 two of the quadruped k net needed a place in the ark. 



It appears to have been divided into three stories; and it is 

 agreed on, as most probable, that the lowest story was destined 

 for the beasts, the middle for the food, andtlu- upper for the birds, 

 with Noah and his family ; each story being subdivided into dif- 

 ferent apartments, stalls, &c. Though Joseplius, Philo, and other 

 commentators, add a kind of fourth story, under all the rest ; 

 being, as it were, the hold of the vessel, to contain the ballast, and 

 receive the filth and fasces of so many animals. 



Drexelius makes three hundred apartments; father Fournier, 

 three hundred and three ; the anonymous author of the Questions 

 on Genesis, four hundred ; Buteo, Temporarius, Arias Montanus, 

 Wilkins, Lamy, and others, suppose as many partitions as there 

 were different sorts of animals. Pt-iletitr only makes seventy .two, 

 viz. thirty-six for the birds, and as nnny for the beasts : his reason is, 

 that if we suppose a greater number, as three hundred and thirty. 

 three, or four hundred, each of the ei^ht perons in the ark must 

 have had thirty-seven, foity-om , or fifty stalls to at'em! and cleanse 

 daily, which he thinks impossible. lV.it there is not much in this; 

 to diminish the number of stalls, without a diminution of the ani. 

 rnals, is vain ; it being, pprhaps, more difficult lo take care of tliree 

 hundred animals in seventy. two stalls, than in time hundred. 



Buteo computes, that ail the animals coiitaitm! in i!.,- a.k 

 could not be equal to five hundr- d lioi^s : lie even reduces the 

 whole t the tli of liftv-six |>a>r o 1 ' oxen. Fatlie- l.niuy 



enlarges it to sixty. lour pair, or an hundred aud twenty-eight 



VOL. vi. 2 v 



