C 48 ] 
cannot well be accounted for, but by fuppofing the 
waters, in which thofe fhell-fifh lived, to have covered 
the countries where they are now found, for a long 
time, and even for ages. 
The fuppofition therefore, which I am about to 
advance, founded on thefe fads, is this j that origi- 
nally Almighty God created this earth with fea and 
land nearly in the fame proportion as they now remain, 
and that it continued in that ftate for many ages, 
during which the bottom of the fea became covered 
with fhells, and various heterogeneous bodies ; 
that from the firffc of its creation there were alfo 
many fubterraneous fires found within the bowels of 
the earth ; and that, at the appointed time, thefe 
fires burfting forth at once with great violence, under 
the fea *, 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 became fea, and has 
perhaps continued fo ever fince, as that which was 
before the flood the bottom of the fea, probably from 
that time has continued to be continent and dry 
land -f*. 
* Mr. Mitchell has ftiewn, in his paper on the caufes 
of earthquakes, that fuch fubterraneous fires are at all times very 
liable to make eruptions under the fea, and that when they do fo, 
the earthquakes confequent upon fuch eruptions are more exten- 
five than any whatever. 
f I do not mean by this to infinuate that all that part of the 
globe which is now fea was dry land before the flood : or that the 
antediluvian ocean was merely of the extent of our prefent conti- 
nent. I apprehend, on the contrary, that there was always a 
greater proportion of water on the face of the earth than of 
continent; and I would only be underftood to mean, that all that 
which was dry land before the flood is now buried under the 
fea, whilft that which was a part of the bottom of the antediluvian 
This 
I 
