VOL. XXXIII.] I'HILOSOI'HICAL TRANSACTIONS. 33 



The experiments were made in air ; its gravity therefore is to be added to 

 each number, in order to have the gravity of the liquors in vacuo. But the 

 specific gravity of air is to that of water, as 1 to 1000 nearly. 



Some Considerations about the Cause of the universal Deluge, laid before the 

 Royal Society, Dec. 12, 1 694. By Dr. Edmund Halley, F. R. S. 

 N° 383, p. 118. 



The account we have of the universal deluge is no where so express as in 

 the Holy Scriptures ; and the exact circumstances as to point of time, show 

 that some records had been kept of it more particularly than usual in those 

 things derived from remote tradition, wherein the historical minutiae are lost 

 by length of time. But it must be allowed, that length of time may have 

 added, as well as taken away many notable circumstances, as in most other 

 cases of the story of remote times and actions. 



This we may however be fully assured of, that such a deluge has been; and 

 by the many signs of marine bodies found far from and above the sea, it is 

 evident that those parts have been once under water : or, either that the sea 

 has risen to them, or they have been raised from the sea ; to explain either of 

 which is a matter of no small difficulty. 



To effect this, says Dr. Halley, a change of the centre of gravity, about 

 which centre the sea is formed, seemed not an improbable conjecture, till it 

 appeared that this centre of gravity was the necessary result of the materials of 

 which our globe consists, and not alterable while its parts remained in the same 

 position: and besides, this supposition could not drown the whole globe, but 

 only that part towards which the centre of gravity was translated, leaving the 

 other hemisphere all dry. 



I shall say nothing of Dr. Burnet's Hypothesis, nor of its many insufficien- 

 cies, as jarring as much with the physical principles of nature, as with the 

 Holy Scriptures, which he has undertaken to reconcile. Dr. Hook's Solution 

 of this Problem, as he has not fully discovered himself, I cannot undertake to 

 judge of; but his compression of a shell of earth into a prolate spheroid, 

 thereby pressing out the waters of an abyss under the earth, may very well 

 account for drowning two extreme opposite zones of the globe; but the middle 

 zone, being by much the greater part of the earth's surface, must by this 

 means be raised higher from the centre, and consequently arise more out of 

 the water than before ; and besides, such a supposition cannot well be accounted 

 for from physical causes, but require a preternatural digitus dei, both to (com- 

 press, and afterv\ ards restore the figure of the globe. 



VOL. VII. F 



