383 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [ANNO I767. 



waters, is, that they gradually subsided from off the face of what is now conti- 

 nent and dry land, as of course they would do on the elevation of it, agreeable 

 to the foregoing hypothesis. And indeed, if the deluge was effected in the way 

 here supposed, we can then give a rational and easy account how all the water 

 came to drain off the ground, and to leave it dry so soon as is recorded ; which 

 otherwise is a circumstance in this piece of history very perplexing. It is evident 

 that such a violent earthquake, or bursting forth of the subterraneous fire, as is 

 here supposed to have raised the bottom of the then sea (the present continents), 

 at once as high or higher than what was before dry land, must in a very short 

 time have drowned and overwhelmed the antediluvian earth, by pouring out the 

 waters upon it ; and it is also evident, that for some time the bottom of the sea, 

 so raised, would continue covered with the waters, which, till the vast agitation 

 into which they were flung subsided, would continue flowing backwards and for- 

 wards. But, by degrees, and very easily within the time mentioned in scripture, 

 the water would drain off from all the higher parts, and leave the new land quite 

 dry, and in the state we now find it, with strata of shells, and sand, and stones, 

 and other bodies, lying just as the sea had by accident many ages before placed 

 them. Whereas, were the deluge occasioned only by an addition of water suf- 

 ficient to raise the surface of the sea higher than the land and mountains, in that 

 case, it is impossible to imagine any means, at all consistent with the course and 

 laws of nature, by which such an immense body of water could be evaporated or 

 conveyed away in so short a space of time. And besides, in that case, the shells, 

 &c. flung upon the land by the concussion of the waters, and subsiding there 

 within so short a space of time, would rather be found lying according to their 

 specific gravities : a fact which Dr. Woodward supposed certain, but which is by 

 no means true. Nor indeed, according to the conjectures here advanced, is it 

 at all necessary that it should be so. For, as I imagine the shells and other ma- 

 rine bodies, which are now found on various parts of the dry land, to have been 

 placed there gradually during a succession of ages, while it was at the bottom of 

 the sea ; it will follow, that they must be found just as the sea, by its washing and 

 motion, laid them ; which would of course first wash many of them together, 

 and then wash gravel, or sand, or clay, or other substances over them ; after 

 which, more shells or other bodies would be deposited, and then more stones or 

 gravel, &c. according to the nature of the soil. In short, whatever was speci- 

 fically heavier than water, would, after its removal by any agitation, soon subside, 

 and remain fixed, whether the substances underneath it were specifically heavier 

 than itself or not ; it is sufficient that they were only specifically heavier than 

 the water. 



Another objection may perhaps be made by saying, if all the antediluvian earth 

 was at once overwhelmed, and of course all its plants with it, whence came it to 



