Origin of Springs. 317 



When Philofophy difcovered this Abyfs, her motives 

 were praife-worthy, Vv^hatever we may think of her Lo- 

 gick. Infidehty had often attacked the Scriptural ac- 

 count of the Deluge, on the ground, that all the wa- 

 ter on the globe was not fuflicient to cover its furface 

 to the depth reprefented by Moses. This objection, if 

 the facl it aflferts were true, would rett on the unfound- 

 ed principle, that the CREATOR of all things is de- 

 pendent on the things that are made for the accomplilli- 

 ment of his purpofes. Some well meaning friends of 

 the Penteatuch, alarmed for the credit of Moses, devi- 

 fed this Abyfs as the receptacle, in which the waters of 

 the Deluge were gathered, that they might no more over- 

 fiozv the face of the Earth. Several philofophers, who 

 had been put to great difEculty to account for the Ori- 

 gin of Springs, finding, in their fubterranean refearch- 

 es, fo copious a refervoir prepared to their hands ; im- 

 mediately feized upon it as the fource, whence they 

 were fupplied with water. 



The bell account I have feen of this Abyfs, and of 

 the manner in which fountains are fed by it, is found 

 in Cat COT Ts Treatife on the Deluge : a work declared 

 by Jones and Adams, two diftinguifhed philofophers 

 of Great Britain, one of the laft, the other of the pre- 

 fent century, to be " the moft critical and fatisfaclory 

 difcourfe extant on the origin of Springs and Rivers." 



Mr. Catcott explains his own view of the internal 

 ftruclure of the Earth, as it has exifted iince the De- 

 luge, by an engraving, reprefenting the plane of one of 

 its Great Circles, " At the centre we find,'* to ufe his 

 own language, " a folid ball, or Nucleus, of terreilrial 

 matter, formed from what the water of the Deluge, 

 in its defcent from the furface and pafTage through the 

 fi:rata of the Earth, tore off, and carried down with it 

 into the Abyfs, and repofited at the loweft place. A- 

 round this Nucleus is the great Abyfs of water, with 

 which all feas, lakes and rivers communicate. This A- 

 byfs contains fo large a quantity of water, that only a 

 fmall part of it was ufed at the Deluge. Laftly, we 



