[ 5 & ] 
be fuppofed, but that on the firft great eruption, 
which poured the waters of the ocean upon the dry- 
land, there mud have been a violent agitation for 
fome time, by their flowing backward and forward ; 
during which interval, the bodies of many terreftrial 
animals (floating on the water) would be walked to 
different parts of the new-raifed continent, and be 
left there as the water fublided. 
Some little objection perhaps may arife, from its 
being obferved, that the fea at prefent covers a much 
greater part of the globe than the dry land does. 
But I apprehend this was alfo the cafe before the 
flood; and it may eafily be conceived, that fome 
part of the bottom of the antediluvian ocean 
might be flung in the manner fuppofed in this 
paper, and not the whole ; and that the bottom of 
the prefent ocean confifts not only of what was before 
the flood dry land, but alfo of fome part of what 
was, even from the beginning, the bottom of the 
fea. 
I will therefore only juft add, that probably the 
fame fubterraneous fires (which originally railed the 
continents and iflands that now appear, and have 
ever lince been making great changes in the bowels 
of the earth, and producing thofe tremendous earth- 
quakes, which have happened from time to time) may 
in the end break forth with redoubled violence, and 
deftroy it, in the manner foretold in Scripture. 
It may not be amifs to add, in confirmation of the 
foregoing hypothecs, that the beds of fhells, difco- 
vered in chalk pits, gravel pits, and other places, 
confid generally of one or two, or at mod: of a very 
few 
