A FEW REMARKS 



over, and landed among other recent compositions. In what 

 other way coidd such a mass of these animalcules be heaped 

 together ? 



There are also effects of existing causes which authors have 

 only mentioned by name, in reference to the Deluge, with- 

 out explaining that the effects alluded to would have been 

 enormously increased at that time ; — I mean the tides. — In 

 the Aj^pendix to this volume is a short statement of the man- 

 ner in which tides may act — upon the principles of the ocean 

 oscillating in its bed ; and of tides being caused, partly by 

 the water being elevated by the moon and sun, partly by a 

 westward momentum given to it by their attraction, and partly 

 by the oscillation caused by the return of the fluid after being 

 elevated. If this globe were covere,d with water to the height 

 of a few miles above the present level of the ocean, three more 

 particular effects would take place : an enormous pressure upon 

 the previously existing ocean, and on all low land ; a dimi- 

 nished gravity in the uppermost waters, resulting from their 

 removal from the earth's centre ; and immense tides, in conse- 

 quence of the increased depth of the mass, the diminished 

 weight of the upper fluid, and the augmentation of the 

 moon'*s attraction. As the waters increased on the earth, the 

 tides would also increase, and vast waves would rush against 

 the sides of the mountains, stripping off all lighter covering, 

 and blowing up,* or tearing down, enormous masses of rock. 

 Similar effects would take place as the diluvial ocean decreased, 

 until it became bounded by its proper limits. Such oscillations 

 I conceive to be alluded to by the words " going and return- 

 ing,'"t and by the expression, " they go up by the mountains ; 

 they go down by the valleys J which exactly describes the 

 rushing of enormous waves against high land. When a wave 

 strikes against a rock, it dashes up every projection that 

 opposes it ; but — its impetus at an end — down the water runs 



* By the extraordinary poWer, or principle, called the hydrostatic 

 paradox. 



f Gen. viii.,v, 5, marginal translation. 

 X Psalm civ. ver. 8. 



