On the Mosaic account of the Creation. 387 



that ee the record points out the period when the waters hav- 

 ing diffused themselves a second time over the globular sur- 

 face by the subsidence of the former continents, began to 

 abandon their ancient bed; from which they continued to 

 descend, until they left it a dry land as the former earth had 

 been rendered a dry land by the retirement of the waters. 

 That period was at the end of one hundred and fifty days, or 

 five months, from the commencement of the flood."* 



Now unfortunately again for Mr. Penn^s theories, we find 

 that existing geological facts give undoubted evidence that no 

 transport from tropical to northern regions could possibly 

 have taken place, but on the contrary, that there are strong 

 indications of the diluvian currents having passed from the 

 regions of the latter towards the former ; a circumstance 

 which goes far to prove that had the former earth been de- 

 pressed for the reception of the waters, we ought now to find 

 the exuviae of northern animals imbedded in the strata of the 

 tropics, or to seek them beneath the bosom of the present 

 sea.f But had the waves of the diluvian ocean met with a 

 steady and permanent barrier to their advance, such as we 

 see in the coast of the western continent, doubtless their 

 reflux might in some measure have had the effect ascribed 

 to it ; but as they were propelled, according to the shewing of 

 the Mosaic geologist, into a new bed purposely depressed for 

 their reception, it becomes evident that no steady barrier 

 existed to impede their progress, and thus no reflux of suffici- 

 ent force to effect the supposed transportation of animal 

 bodies would have been formed. For if occasional impedi- 

 ments had been met with in the alleged transfusion, still as 

 the former old earth had been depressed below the level of 

 the former ocean, those animal bodies which might have 

 been washed off by the reflux would never have had time to 

 reach the northern portions of our present earth, but would 



* Comp. Est. p. 268. 



t See De la Beche's Geological Manual, passim. 



