436 ON THE UNIVERSAL DELUGE. 



have handed down the memory of such an event to 

 remote posterity. Other deluges may have arisen from 

 other causes, at a time when, as is shewn by numerous ves- 

 tiges, lakes and rivers had a much greater elevation than 

 at present ; and, therefore, every overflowing of them 

 must have produced greater and more extensive ravages. 



From these last local eruptions of water, that is, from 

 single limited districts, arose the mechanical precipitates 

 known under the denomination of Alluvial Soil. Their 

 situation, as the uppermost covering of the earth, as well 

 as their origin, which takes place beneath our own obser- 

 vation, furnishes evidence of their being the most recent 

 mineral formations ; and it follows from their nature and 

 connection that they were not produced by chemical 

 means, but removed by the mechanical force of water. 

 Since they, among other things, contain prostrate forests, 

 and abundant remains of land animals, we conclude 

 that they did not originate in the bed of the sea, 

 but were floated and deposited upon the dry land by an 

 overflow of land water. How is it conceivable that these 

 precipitates have been covered by the ocean, since 

 their deposition, and have, by means of an opposite 

 change, become the dry land they are at present; and 

 yet it must have been so, if they are to be considered 

 as intimations of the Mosaic deluge. 



The view now given, which is that of Henger in his 

 Beitrage, is also advocated by other naturalists, and has 

 lately been brought forward in an interesting manner in 

 the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal*. We have been 

 frequently requested to give the two views, in regard to 



Vol. xiv. p. 205. 



