7 8 NATURAL HISTORY 
the fea now proftrate at the foot of cliffs and mountains, was raifed 
and enabled to overflow the higheft hills and afterwards gradually 
laid down to reft; in it’s ufual bed. This is a part of natural hiftory 
too extenfive to be thoroughly difcufled here, let it fuffice to hint, 
what may one time or other, perhaps, be proved to the fatisfa<ftion of 
the curious ; I advance it only as a conjecture at prefent, that it being 
determined to extirpatethe human race, except one family, by over- 
flowing the earth with water, the fea was the appointed inftrument 
of deftruction ; that in order to raife the Sea to a fufficient height, 
the bottom, the bed, the chanels of the fea, were t-o be lifted up, and 
the wrinkles of the earth fmoothed ; that when the divine decree was 
accomplifhed, the fame, firft, almighty caufe, which conducted the 
waters to their neceflary height, withdrew that power which occa- 
fioned the elevation, and the chanels of the fea retreated again to 
their wonted level: But this return was not uniform, exacft, 
and univerfal in all parts of the world, but general, and fufficient 
to all the purpofes of animal and vegetable life; confequently, far 
the greateft part of the up-lifted bottom, returned to the place from 
whence it came ; part refted in it’s moft elevated ftation, hence the 
lands, pebbles, and fhells, on the higheft hills ; part funk fomewhat, 
tho’ fome hundred yards fhort of it’s former depreflion, as was the cafe 
at St. Agnes hill, and part funk till it came within a few feet of the 
common level of the fea, whence the pebbles, fands, and fhingle 
of Por’nanvon cliffs, and places which exhibit the like remarkable 
phasnomena, are found fo near full-fea mark. 
This method of railing the fea waters, fo as to deluge the earth, 
will appear at firft fight, I imagine, too operofe and unnatural to 
be chofen by an all- wife agent; it may be fo; but let us enlarge 
our conceptions, let it be confidered, that the higheft mountians are 
no greater prominencies from the furface of our globe, than the duft 
upon a globe of one foot diameter ; that the fea is no deeper than the 
furrows, nor the mountains higher above the earth, than the ridges in a 
fheet of paper. Suppofing then thefe furrows to contain a fufticiency 
of water, and a determined refolution to make that water over- 
whelm the ridges of this paper for awhile ; would it not prefently 
occur, and feem the eafieft and moft eligible method to raife thefe 
furrows fo as that the moifture contained might overflow fuch ridges, 
and afterwards, by letting them drop again, to reftore both the 
ridges and furrows to their firft intended fttuation ? The dili- 
gent enquirer (befides the feafibility of this method, and the egre- 
gious absurdities of an abyfs, apertures , difruptions of the fhell , and the 
like, which are the infuperable difficulties of all other fchemes for Rip- 
plying water fufficient to deluge the whole earth) will recollecft a 
great variety of phasnomena in the prefent ftru&ure of the earth, 
which 
