01 



wafers" how, let me ask, were the elevated waters 

 ever to return again ? 



Unless this vacuum was, in the wisdom of an al- 

 mighty providence, reserved for the subsidence of the 

 waters which once occupied it, the world might have 

 remained inundated to this day. 



To determine, with any degree of precision, what is 

 actually meant by the " fountains of the great deep'* 

 is extremely difficult, perhaps impossible. 



If the waters which caused the general deluge, or 

 Noatic flood, were contained in " the centre of the an- 

 tediluvian earth," and it could be ascertained from 

 what point or points the waters issued, we might 

 be enabled to determine what influence they could 

 have had in causing a general current across the conti- 

 nent of America, as well as the whole Atlantic Ocean, 

 which follows of course. 



But the circumstance is, of itself, so improbable, and 

 so completely enveloped in the most profound obscuri- 

 ty, that no inference can be drawn that is in favour of 

 a general current arising out of this cause. 



There is, however, one source, though not establish- 

 ed in the opinions of the philosophers of the present 

 day, which carries with it a great degree of plausibili- 

 ty if not probability. To it I shall refer, until a better 

 offers. 



It has been asserted by a writer of no common 

 celebrity, that the probable cause of the general deluge 

 was the entire melting of the ices at the two poles of 

 the earth and that this was occasioned by " the sun 



