71 
reiteration with which it is affirmed that the continuation of 
every kind of animal life on the earth's surface after the Flood 
was owing to the intervention of the ark. may be taken to 
denote that this, the only means which for the time could be 
stated in consistent and intelligible terms, embraced symboli- 
cally all actual means of preservation. The sacred writers not 
unlrequently use words of universal import to denote the com- 
prehensive character of an affirmation. 
I do not think that more need be said on the miraculous 
element in the Scripture narrative, and shall, therefore, now 
proceed to discuss, in a second division of the essay, the 
physical causes that might have produced the phenomena of 
t e eluge, taking these phenomena exclusively as they have 
been inferred in the first division from the record in the Book 
or Genesis. 
. preliminary to the main argument, reasons will be 
given for concluding that the interior of the earth is in a 
hquid state. By experiment it is found that when a quantity 
o ice in small fragments is inclosed in a vessel and violentlv 
compressed, the separate solidity of the different portions 
can be obliterated, and the whole be converted into a single 
solid mass From this fact it may reasonably be concluded 
that the difference between the solid and the liquid states of 
the same homogeneous substance depends onlv on difference 
in ie mechanical conditions of the parts constituting a very 
hin superficial stratum of the substance, and that the par- 
ticular condition characterizing the solid state may be got rid 
of by pressure. The same effect, as is well known, may be 
produced on ice, and many other solid substances, by heat. 
ow in the interior of the earth both these causes operate in 
a very high degree, the pressure being due to the weight, 
increasing with the depth, of the superincumbent materials, 
and the heat to the increase of temperature with descent below 
the earth s surface, which is shown by thermometrical obser- 
yations m deep mines, to take place at the rate of one degree 
of Fahrenheit for every 90 feet. Thus on both accounts the 
interior of the earth may be assumed to be in the condi- 
tion ot a liquid. It is true that this liquid must be supposed 
to be enveloped by a solid shell, the elevated parts of which 
are hi Is and mountains, and the depressed parts valleys or 
solid basins containing seas and oceans. But there is reason to 
say that the non-liquid state, whether solid or viscous, extends 
o°nnn C -1 ver - v , s ™ a11 compared to the earth’s diameter of 
8,000 miles, and that the whole of this crust, together with 
the contained watery parts, constitutes comparatively a very 
