THE PRODROMUS 265 



flood. But when those mountains, of which Scripture in this 

 connection makes mention, were formed, whether they were 

 identical with mountains of the present day, whether at the 

 beginning of the deluge there was the same depth of valleys 

 P. 71. as there is to-day, or whether new breaks in the strata opened 

 new chasms to lower the surface of the rising waters, neither 

 Scripture nor Nature declares. 



The fourth aspect, when all things were sea, seems to cause 

 more difficulty, although in truth nothing difficult is here pre- 

 sented. The formation of hills from the deposit of the sea bears 

 witness to the fact that the sea was higher than it is now, that 

 too not only in Tuscany but in very many places distant enough 

 from the sea, from which the waters flow toward the Mediter- 

 ranean ; nay, even in those places from which the waters flow 

 down into the ocean. Nature does not oppose Scripture in 

 determining how great that height of the sea was, seeing 

 that: 



1. Definite traces of the sea remain in places raised several 

 hundreds of feet above the level of the sea. 



2. It cannot be denied that as all the solids of the earth 

 were once, in the beginning of things, covered by a watery 

 fluid, so they could have been covered by a watery fluid a sec- 

 ond time, since the changing of the things of Nature is indeed 

 constant, but in Nature there is no reduction of anything to 

 nothing. But who has searched into the formation of the 

 innermost parts of the earth, so that he dare deny that huge 

 caverns may exist there, filled sometimes with a watery fluid, 

 sometimes with a fluid akin to air.? 



3. It is wholly uncertain what the depth of valleys at the 

 beginning of the deluge was ; reason, however, may urge that 

 in the first ages of the world smaller cavities had been eaten 

 out by water and fire, and that in consequence not so deep 

 breaks of strata followed from this cause; while the highest 



P. 72. mountains of which Scripture speaks were the highest of those 

 mountains which were in existence at that time, not of those 

 which we see to-day. 



4. If the movement of a living being can bring it to pass 

 that places which have been overwhelmed with waters are 

 arbitrarily made dry, and are again overwhelmed with waters, 



