DELUGE. 
{pace of 40 days, the hardeft rocks and minerals were dif- 
folved by fimple water, and yet that thells, bones, and che 
productions of the fea, were able to hie a menitruum to 
which the moft folid materia!s had yielded ? 
Dr. Woodward afferts, that the atria of the different 
ftrata are arran nged ses to their fpecifi 
@ folid 
atin. and 
the 
upper ftratum was s bitumen, followed faces fy vely by ftrata 
of chalk, marl, clay, fand, ftone, marble, and ste it 
would, in that cafe, be pro aie a al thefe materials 
d been seal dues at once; an ar Wo = 
confidently affirm 
need only o 
the penomen of ified exuvie. 
antediluvian oat according to this author, had an 
endl fea, as well as ae with mountains, rivers, &c. and 
the deluge was effeGted by breaking the fubrerraneouscaverns, 
and pillars thereof, with dreadful be pee and caufing 
the fame to be for the mo part, if not wholly, abforbed 
and fwa!lowed up, and covered by the feas that we now 
have. aftly, this aan OF ours — out of the bottom of 
the a ee pe fea, and in its ro as many iflands 
are {wallo down, and ty thru up in — — 
Thi it has » is very agrecable to 
s ie m, 
Scripture, and jaar oe Ae one at aiffculties rie clog 
all the other hit 
and 
in mountains and vallies, ond the baa bowels of the earth: 
ediluvian fea; pial they 
were elevated with the hills and mountains, in thet 
at the 
sarees time, burft forth with great vioience a the 
fea, and raifed up the bottom of the ocean, fo as to pour 
out the waters over the face of what was before dry land, 
which by that means pelea the fea, and has fince continued, 
any ane which was before the bottom of the fea became 
pique thus occafioned will account, he 
epee for the ace of the deluge and the confufed dif- 
pofition of marine hapa in the poftdiluvian earth. 
Phil. Tra ae vol. lvii. p 
Mr. 
acts now covered ‘“ the At! 
It has been objeGted to this theory, 
* that it is inconfiftent with the Mofaic account of the deluge, 
which account thefe philofophers, however, admit. Mofes 
afcribes the deluge to two principal caufes, a rain of 40 days 
and the eruption of the waters of the great abyfs. Now 
o what purpofe, it has been queried, a rain of 40 days to 
overwhelm a continent, that was ky i rfe der a 
ae days, refted a 
another period of days, and oa nd. Do not thefe 
expreffions imply a permanent ground on which they in- 
creafed and refted, and from which they afterwards dohe ea 
As the retreat followed the advance, is it not clear that t 
retreated from the came {pace on which they had before ade 
vanced and refte 
A, de Luc ae that in the 13th verfe of the fixth 
fervations already al it Is eae that Mofes did not un- 
derlta a de s fhould caufe it to page 
or 
cubits over the hi heft mountains ; and as he has no ee 
mentioned the antediluvian mountains, but has taken notice 
of the poftdiluvian, it is plain that his narrative relates to 
thefe, and thefe, he fays, were at the time of the deluge coe 
vered with water, and uncovered when the waters diminifhed: 
Neah himfelf did not believe that a 
ancient continents were deftroyed, for he took the appears 
ance of an olive-hranch to be a fign of the diminution of the 
flood ; that he certainly Tent to have grown on the an- 
cient continent, and could not ae it to have fhot up 
from the bottom of the fea. M. de Luc indeed fays, 
that this olive grew on an ciel ifland, and ya 
en iflands being part of the antediluvian ocean, were 
: but it is plain from the hiftory, that Noah thought 
other or elfe he could not pea inferred that the ape 
pearance of the olive was a fign a of the 
anew But where is it mention a, 6 or what renders it ne« 
ceffary to conclude that iflands uel before the flood? 
Tf iflands did exilt, and were to efcape the flood, fo might 
their inhabitants alfo, in dire&t penne to the facred 
hiftory. ould it not have been muc ore convenient 
for Noah, his family and animals, to have taken refuge in 
tb 
iS 
one of cm: than to have remained pent in the ark ? 
Moreover, M informs us, that at the oho: of the 
flood = le apie of the de ere fto or : 
nents finking fate the deep, the 
fi 
rom their fources upon thofe continents, and again returned. 
ee Kirwan’s Remarks, ubi infra 
Mr. Thi tehurft in his ‘* Inquiry into the Original State 
and Formation of the Earth,” &c. (4to. 1786) has attempted 
to account for the univerfal deluge in the following mannere 
“It is a truth,” he fays, *¢ univerfally known that all bodies 
expand with heat ; and that the force or power of that law 
is un'imited ; now, asfubterraneous fire gradually increafed, 
in like manner its expanfive force phere until it became 
ual to the incumbent weight. avity and expanfion 
saa sae ae oa and the latter souenuig to increafe, 
every day, m nd more, became fuperior to the incum 
bent weight, ee diftended the ftrata as a bladder forcibly 
blown. Now, if fire thus generated was furrounded by a 
fhell or crutt, of equal thicknefs, and of equal denfity, the 
incumbent weight muft have been equal: on the contrary, 
if the furrounding fhell, or cruft, was unequally denfe, the 
incumbent weight ut fince the 
incumbent weight of the iflands 
being greater than that of the ocean, the bottom of the fea 
DY the € expantive forcebelow, feoner 
{, bei ing t the 
than the iflands. The bot: tto 
4 incumbent 
