290 MEMOIR OF THOMAS BEWICK. 



Deity, and dwells awfully retired beyond the 

 reach of mortal eye. 



What Moses has said about the deluge, and the 

 destruction it occasioned to every living creature, 

 we are led to conclude must have been handed 

 down to him in ancient Eastern traditions, and it 

 requires no over-stretched credulity to believe that 

 a deluge happened which destroyed every living 

 creature on that part of the earth over which its 

 devastations were spread ; for it cannot be doubted 

 that this globe has undergone many such deluges, 

 convulsions, and changes, equally difficult to ac- 

 count for ; and geologists at this day feel convinced 

 of this, from the changes which they see matter has 

 undergone, but of which they are still left greatly to 

 conjecture as to the cause. They cannot, however, 

 doubt the power of a comet (if it be the will of the 

 Mighty Director) to melt the ices from the poles, 

 and to throw the sea out of its place, or to reduce 

 this globe instantly to a cinder a vitrifaction to 

 ashes, or to dust ; and that, in its near approach to 

 this our world, it may have occasioned the various 

 changes and phenomena which have happened, and 

 may happen again. The marine productions found 

 imbedded in the earth so many fathoms below its 

 surface, supply another source of wonder, and seem 

 either to confirm the foregoing hypothesis, or to 

 lead men to conclude that a great portion of the 

 earth has once been covered by the sea ; and it 

 may, perhaps, not be carrying conjecture too far 

 to suppose that nations have been overflowed and 

 sunk to its bottom, while others have arisen out of 

 it ; and that, in the apparently slow changes which 

 are continually operating upon all matter, new 

 nations may yet arise, and be now in progress to 



