From 1106 to 1680 we find 574 years. 



" 531 1106 " 575 " 



" 43 " 531 " " 575 " 



As we have not reckoned the months or portions of years, these periods may 

 be regarded as equal to each other, and thence it becomes probable enough 

 that the comet of the death of Caesar, of 531, of 1106, and of 1680, have been 

 only the reappearances of one and the same comet, which, after having 

 run through its orbit after having made its complete revolution in about five 

 hundred and seventy-five years became again visible from the earth. Then 

 if the period of five hundred and seventy-five years is multiplied by four, we 

 have twenty-three hundred, which, added to 43, the date of Csesar's comet, 

 gives, with the difference of only six years, the epoch of the deluge, resulting 

 from the modern Hebrew text. In multiplying by five, the date of the Septua- 

 gint is found within eight years. 



If we recollect the marked differences of the comet of 1759 in the period 

 of its revolution round the sun, we shall acknowledge that Whiston might le- 

 gitimately have felt authorized to suppose that the great comet of 1680, or of 

 the death of Caesar, was near the earth at the period of Noah's deluge, and that 

 it had some part in that great phenomenon. 



I shall not stop to explain minutely the series of transformations by which 

 the earth, which, according to Whiston, was originally a comet, became the 

 globe we now inhabit. I shall content myself by saying that he considers 

 the nucleus of the earth as a hard and compact substance, which was the 

 ancient nucleus of the comet ; that the matters of various natures confusedly 

 mixed, which composed the nebulosity, subsided more or less quickly, accord- 

 ing to their specific gravities ; that then the solid nucleus was at first surround- 

 ed by a dense and thick fluid ; that the earthy matters precipitated themselves 

 afterward, and formed a covering over the dense fluid a kind of crust, which 

 may be compared to the shell of an egg ; that the water, in its turn, came to 

 cover this solid crust ; that in a considerable degree it became filtered through 

 the fissures, and spread itself over the thick fluid ; that, in fine, the gaseous 

 matters remaining suspended, purified themselves gradually, and constituted our 

 atmosphere. 



Thus in this system the great biblical abyss is supposed to consist of a solid 

 nucleus and of two concentric orbs. Of these orbs, that nearest to the centre 

 is formed of a heavy fluid which first precipitated itself ; the second is of water ; 

 it is, then, properly speaking, upon the last of these fluids that the exterior and 

 solid crust of the earth reposes. 



It is proper now to examine how, after that constitution of the globe to which 

 at least many geologists could oppose more than one difficulty, Whiston ex- 

 plains the two principal events of the deluge described by Moses. 



In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, says the book of Genesis, on the 

 seventeenth day of the second month, the same day were all the fountains of 

 the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. 



At the period of the deluge, the comet of 1680, says Whiston, was only nine 

 or ten thousand miles from the earth : it attracted, therefore, the water from 

 the great deep, as the moon at present attracts the waters of the ocean. Its 

 action, on account of that great proximity, must have tended to produce an 

 ' immense tide. The terrestrial shell could not resist the impetuosity of the 

 inundation ; it broke in at a great number of points, and the waters, then free, 

 spread themselves over the continents. The reader will here recognise the 

 rupture of the fountains of the great deep. 



The ordinary rains of our days, even continued for forty days, would have 

 produced but a small accumulation. In taking for daily rain that which falls 



