DELUGE 
a ufe of this means (earthquakes) to produce that great 
a Halley afcribes the deluge to the fhock of a co 
or fome other fuch tranfient body, whereby the polar and 
diurnal rotation of the globe would be inftantly changed. 
The great agitation that muft have been occafioned by it in 
the fea, he obferves, would be fufficient to account for all 
ing vat quantities of 
beds of fhells, which were once 
: where 
none were before ock as this, impelling the folid 
al would occafion i. waters, and all fluid fubftances 
at were unconfined, as the fea is, to run violently with an 
pais towards that part of the globe where the blow was 
at with force fafficient to take with it the 
would change the length of 
the day and year, by altering the axis of the ae eu 
ing to the obliquity of the incidence of the I 
objefed to this fyitem, that fuch a fhock muft have brought 
on the deluge inftantaneoufly, and not Hee oe @s it is 
faid to aes ai nam Phil. Tranf. N° 383. p. 120, or 
abr. vol. v 
The inquifitve Me Whitton, in his “* New Theory of the 
Earth,”’ has a very ingenious hypothefis, fimilar to that fug- 
gefted by Dr. Halley, with refpe€t to the primary caufe of 
the deluge, but much more saad el applied and explained. 
from feveral r — ble ae iacanc that a 
ra. 
comet, when it came below the m 
digious, vaft, and ftrong tide, both in the {mall feas, which, 
according to his hypothefis, were in the antediluvian earth, 
for he allows no great ocean there, as in ours; and alfo in 
the aby{s, which was under the upper cruft of the earth ; 
and that this tide would rife, and increafe all the time of the 
approach of the comet ie the earth; and would be at 
its greateft height when met was at its leaft diftance 
from it. By the force of a. tide, and _ by the attraction 
ea comet, he judges, that the aby{s m 
r rather a oan oval fi 
fderably la 
he eat, nae on the vba muft accommo- 
date itfel€ to that figure, which it could not do while it re- 
mained folid and conjoined together. He concludes, there- 
fore, that ic muft of neceflity be extended, and at laft broke, 
the violence of the faid tides, and attraction ; 3 and tah 
{phere, and tail, for a confiderable time; and of confequence, 
it mutt have left a vaft quantity of ite vapours 
anded and condenfed, on its furface ; a great part of which 
n the earth: 
ees by the windows ¢ of heaven being opened ; and aay 
For as to the following. rain, which, 
of rain ing 3 an hundred and 
fifty days, Mr. Whifton cba it to the earth coming 
a fecond time within the atmofphere of he comet as the 
et was on its return from the fun. 
co From the comet’a. 
atmofphere and tail he derives one-half of the water, which, 
ferved for the deluge ; the other half, he fuppofes, was de- 
duced from the fubterraneous abyfs, the fluid of which, he 
on 
fays, was forced u 
gious preffure of the incum 
the comet’s atmofphere and tail, which, 
prefs downwards with a might ‘force 
would be forced aud raifed upon the furface of the e 
through the cracks and fiffures that were made in the crul 
95 ag ted height of three miles, that is, above the tops 
of t mountains, But he further fuppofes, that 
eile that water which was derived from the comet, nor 
a good quantity remained in the 
alveus of the great ocean, now firft made, and in leffer feasy. 
lakes, &c. 
o the credit of this theory, it muft be oS that it. 
t firft only propofed hypothetically : that is, the au 
fice only fuppofed fuch ae tert merely as it would. account 
well, and philofophically, for 
even unde 
ation, he has fince, he thinks, proved, ee there act b was 
a comet near the earth at that time, or 28t i mber, in 
nifton *s Theory,”? 
ore re philofophical than many 
able the Bu eee of a 
Heo ow- 
Fs 
acknowledges that it is much m 
others, and that he has rendered proba 
comet at the precife time of the deluge. 
e fuppofes, to 
nit. Hence 
make no cracks ae fiffures in the ae Ts on, ia 
explaining the great’ rains, which fell on the eal en 
the time of the deluge, affumes a propofition {carcely capa- 
ble of proof; wiz. that after the earth was involved in the 
comet’s atmofphere and tail, and had acquired a prodigious 
quantity of condenfed and expanded vapours that fell on its 
{urface, a great part of them being much rarefied would be 
again into 2 air, and afterwards defcend 
in violent rains. If we confider the incredible velocity 
i i ofe fe vapones defcended, being at the rate of 
t 
S68 miles in a minute, and the great refiftance they met 
with 
