[ 53 ] 
except fome of their (hoots and feeds; which might 
juft as well take root on the new continent, on the 
fubfidingof the waters, as on the old. And in the 
next place, I anfwer, that there are not a few inftances 
(as is (liown in Stillingfleet’s tra&s*)of barren rocks 
and plains becoming by degrees well covered with 
verdure, though very remote from any places that 
might apparently furnifh feeds. They have firft 
borne a kind of mofs, and afterwards other plants of an 
higher order (the feeds being brought there by 
accident, and by the various and admirable means of 
conveyance, which the Creator has given them), till 
at laft they have been covered with rich verdure. To 
which may be added a very extraordinary fadt, now 
well known, namely, that if a piece of ground which 
has not been cultivated be turned up, and the clods 
loofened, it will very foon produce a variety of plants, 
fome of which were never known to grow there 
before. We find that one acorn is fufficient to pro- 
duce a foreft, and it is by no means to be fuppofed 
(let the deluge have happened how it would) that, 
immediately after it, the earth was as well cloathed 
with verdure, as it has become fince. Probably it was 
for a time in general very barren, except fuch parts as 
Noah and his fons cultivated, with feeds which they 
had preferved in the ark. 
As to the leaf which the dove brought in •f*, that 
might be found on fome plant which had taken frefti 
root immediately on the fubfiding of the waters, or it 
* Stillingfleet’s Trafts, p. 78, and alfo p. 45, where an inftance 
is produced, much to the purpofe,ofmar(hes becoming by degrees 
fine meadows. 
+ Genefis, ch, viii. v. 11. 
