ON THE DELUGE 



659 



nothing of the record I doubted : — and I mention this parti- 

 cularly, because I have conversed with persons fond of geology, 

 yet knowing no more of the Bible than I knew at that time. 

 Thus much I feel it necessary to say, in accounting for my 

 own approach to a subject in which all men feel deeply inte- 

 rested; and which has therefore been so well treated of, that these 

 remarks would be useless, were it not that they may reach the 

 eyes of young sailors, who have not always access to works of 

 authority. 



The Mosaic account of the Creation is so intimately con- 

 nected with that of the Deluge that I must ask my young 

 reader (whom alone I presume to address on this subject) to 

 turn to the first chapter of Genesis, and refer to a few verses 

 with me. We soon find a remarkable fact, which shows to my 

 mind that the knowledge of Moses was super-human : his 

 declaration in an early age that light was created before the sun 

 and moon, which must till then have appeared to be the 

 sources of light. In the fourth verse it is stated that " God 

 divided the light from the darkness.*" This may have been 

 effected by a rotation of the earth on its axis, turning each side 

 in succession to the light ; otherwise, had the earth remained 

 stationary, light must have been destroyed to admit darkness, 

 and there must have been repeated creations of light. The 

 light was called day — " and the evening and the morning were 

 the first day.*" Of course there could have been no morn- 

 ing previous to the creation of light ; and the first portion of 

 time, consonant to our present expressions, would have been 

 that which elapsed between light and darkness, or evening. 

 The length of a day being determined by the rotation of the 

 earth on its axis ; turning round once, so as to make an evening 

 and a morning to each spot on the globe ; the time occupied 

 by that rotation is a natural object of interest. In the l^th 

 verse it is said that grass, herbs, and trees, were brought 

 forth ; in the 14th and 16th, that lights were made to divide 

 the day from the night ; and that the greater hght was to rule 

 the day. It is known that neither trees, herbs, nor grass can 

 exist long without the light and heat of the sun, therefore the 



