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of the Almighty's intention to destroy the earth, as well as its in- 

 habitants, " God said Behold, I WILL DESTROY THEM WITH THE 

 EARTH *," conclude that all the strata of the antediluvian earth 

 were actually dissolved, and their constituent corpuscles separated 

 one from another; and that, in this state of separation, they were 

 mixed with a large quantity of water, so that the whole was reduced 

 to a fluid colluvies f. The attempt to determine what changes 

 were actually effected at this period, cannot be expected to prove 

 very successful ; but perhaps a near approach to truth would be, 

 the supposition that the force of this immense quantity of fluid mat- 

 ter must have been such, as to have destroyed the whole of the ori- 

 ginal surface, and to have considerably deepened and widened those 

 excavations which had contained the antediluvian waters ; whilst, 

 by the falling of vast subverted masses, other cavities would be 

 filled, and former channels choked up. By the violent agitations 

 which the waters must for a considerable time have endured, the 

 earthy matters they contained must have suffered the highest de- 

 gree of attenuation, and division; and, by their gradual deposition 

 in those situations in which the waters were less agitated, or where 

 they became stagnant, must have formed horizontal strata, where 

 the surface on which they were deposited was flat; and new moun- 

 tains, where this deposition was made on the elevated subaqueous 

 remains of former mountains. 



Possessing no other data from which we can infer what form the 

 surface of the antediluvian world bore, we can only rest on the 

 mention of its rivers, and its high hills, which give us reason to 

 suppose it might have borne some affinity with that which the pre- 

 sent surface of the earth presents to our view ; and the sides of the 

 hills, with their correspondent valleys, and the extended plains, it 

 may be concluded, were covered with their appropriate tribes of 



* Gen. vi. 13. t A Treatise on the Deluge, by A. Galcott, 1761. 



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