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have already referred. In the account of the plagues of Egypt, we are first 
told that in the plague of the murrain all the cattle of Egypt died, and then 
we are told that afterwards the cattle were destroyed by the succeeding 
plague of hail, which also destroyed every herb of the field. Subsequently 
we read that the locusts ate up all the herbs and green things which the hail 
had left. It is evident that these expressions must be taken together, and 
so taken, they explain what the writers of the books of Scripture understood 
and meant by the expressions “all” and “every.” We gather that they 
used these expressions in a comprehensive, and not in a universal sense ; and 
that is exactly what Professor Challis has suggested with respect to the 
preservation of the animals in the ark. 
[Mr. Charleswoiith having disagreed with the Paper, and objected that 
the large amount of rain that must have fallen to cause the Deluge would 
have destroyed the fish in the seas, who could not exist in fresh water,] 
The Hon. Secretary. — Mr. Charlesworth cannot have noticed that his 
objection is one most satisfactorily answered in the Paper. Professor 
Challis speaks of the sea coming up on the land by reason of its sub- 
sidence, a phenomenon which is going on even in our own day. I 
find in America Professor Dawson, in his annual address for 1874, before 
the Natural History Society of Montreal, gives an account of the rapid 
subsidence of the eastern coast, and the rise of the western coast of 
the northern continent of America. In the Baltic we find somewhat 
similar changes going on, and Dr. Beke mentioned, after his last trip, 
that he had noticed that the whole land of the Gulf of Akaba was 
rising, and the sea-shore showed a recent elevation of 40 feet. These 
changes are now gradual, but is there reason to doubt that in earlier 
times such changes may not have been catastrophic ? Indeed, Professor 
Challis mentions some in our day — referable to volcanic action, and I may, 
perhaps, be permitted to add to the instances he gives by mentioning 
that in Iceland the Skapta Jokul, in 1783, in forty days threw out a 
mass of lava which, if conical, would have covered London, and reached 
to a height of 13,000 feet ; again, Mouna Loa, a few years ago, in ten 
minutes, threw out a pile of lava 3 miles long, 1 broad, and 20 to 30 feet 
deep. It is somewhat interesting to note the disturbing influences of 
atmospheric changes in the case of earthquakes. Milner states that “ It is 
a well-established result of home and foreign observation, that earthquakes 
are preceded and accompanied by barometrical depression, indicating the 
diminished pressure of the atmosphere. Hence the occurrence of the greater 
number in the winter months, when the average height of the barometer 
is always the lowest, and is also subject to greater fluctuation than in the 
opposite season of the year. It may, therefore, be considered as highly 
probable that, while the causes of earthquakes are still shrouded in mystery, 
they are intimately connected in their occurrence with atmospheric 
vicissitudes. When the barometer is at 31 inches, the atmosphere presses 
on the surface of Great Britain with a weight = 291,793,239,406 tons ; 
