266 NICOLAUS STENO 



why should we not voluntarily grant the same freedom and the 

 same powers to the First Cause of all things ? 



In regard to the time of the universal deluge, secular history 

 is not at variance with sacred history, which relates all things 

 in detail. The ancient cities of Tuscany, of which some were 

 built on hills formed by the sea, put back their birthdays be- 

 yond three thousand years; in Lydia, moreover, we come 

 nearer to four thousand years: so that it is possible thence to 

 infer that the time at which the earth was left by the sea agrees 

 with the time of which Scripture speaks.^ 



As regards the manner of the rising waters, we could bring 

 forward various agreements with the laws of Nature. But if 

 some one say that in the earth the centre of gravity does not 

 always coincide with the centre of the figure, but recedes now 

 on one side, and now on the other, in proportion as subterra- 

 nean cavities have formed in different places, it is possible to 

 assign a simple reason why the fluid, which in the beginning 

 covered all things, left certain places dry, and returned again 

 to occupy them. 



The universal deluge may be explained with the same ease 

 if a sphere of water, or at least huge reservoirs, be conceived 

 around a fire in the middle of the earth ; thence, without the 

 movement of the centre, the pouring forth of the pent-up water 

 P. 73. could be derived. But the following method also seems to me 

 to be very simple, whereby both a lesser depth of the valleys 

 and a sufficient amount of water are obtained without taking 

 into account the centre, or figure, or gravity. For if we shall 

 have conceded (i) That by the slipping of fragments of certain 

 strata, the passages were stopped through which the sea pene- 

 trating into hollow places of the earth sends forth the water 

 to bubbling springs; (2) That the water undoubtedly enclosed 

 in the bowels of the earth, was, by the force of the known sub- 

 terranean fire in part driven toward springs, and in part forced 

 up into the air through the pores of the ground which had not 



^ Steno accepted the chronology of Archbishop Usher, which assigned the creation of the 

 world to the year 4004 B.C. In this connection, see also J. Woodward, An Essay Toward a 

 Natural History of the Earth and Terrestrial Bodies, Especially Minerals, etc., London, 

 first edition, 1695 ; J. Arbuthnot, An Examination of Dr. Woodward^s Account of the 

 Deluge. . . . With a Comparison between Siena's Philosophy and the Doctor^s in the Case 

 of Marine Bodies Dug out of the Earth, London, 1697. 



