Dr Fleming on the Geological Deluge. 213 
the summits of the higher mountain chains ; and that Mongols, 
Caucasians, and Negroes may have escaped by different sides, 
or by different routes ; at another, that the bed of the antedilu- 
vian ocean is now the abode of the post-diluvian quadru- 
peds. 
4. The geological deluge, as interpreted by Professor Buck- 
land, was sudden, transient, universal, simultaneous, rushing 
with an overwhelming impetuosity, infinitely more powerful than 
the most violent waterspouts. In the history of the Noachian 
deluge by Moses, there is not a term employed which indicates 
any one of the characters, except universality, attributed to the 
geological deluge. On the contrary, the flood neither approach- 
ed nor retired suddenly. The waters rose upon the earth, du- 
ring the continuance of the rain, for forty days ; and they retired 
slowly, upon the rain being restrained. There is no notice taken 
of the furious movements of the waters, which must have driven 
the ark violently to and fro. On the contrary, there is reason 
to believe, from the writings of Moses, that the ark had not 
drifted far from the spot where it was at first lifted up, and that 
it grounded at no great distance from the same spot. 
5. The geological deluge, as interpreted by Professor Buck- 
land, excavated, in its fury, deep valleys, tearing up portions of 
the solid rock, and transporting to a distance the wreck which 
it had produced. On this supposition, the aspect of the antedi- 
luvian world must have been widely different from the present; 
lakes, and valleys, and seas, now existing in places formerly oc- 
cupied by rocks, and the courses of rivers greatly altered. In 
the Book of Genesis there is no such change hinted at. On the 
contrary, the countries and rivers which existed before the flood, 
do not appear, from any thing said in the Scriptures, to have 
experienced any change in consequence of that event. But if 
the supposed impetuous torrent excavated valleys, and trans- 
ported masses of rocks to a distance from their original reposi- 
tories, then must the soil have been swept from off the earth, to 
the destruction of the vegetable tribes. Moses does not re- 
cord such an occurrence. On the contrary, in his history of the 
dove and the olive-leaf plucked off, he furnishes a proof that the 
flood was not so violent in its motions as to disturb the soil, 
nor to overturn the trees which it supported; nor was the 
