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presented in the names, the occupations, the numbers of thoser 
who are represented as having been saved ; however inter- 
mingled the details may be with local deities, and local deluges, 
and local imagery ; the outstanding facts, stripped of their fanci- 
ful drapery, can be satisfactorily explained only from the stand- 
point of the truthfulness of the Old Testament record. That 
deity, prince, or patriarch saved when the whole wicked world 
besides was destroyed ; that Flood by which the corrupt race 
was swept away ; that boat, ship, or ark, in which those found 
a refuge who were saved ; that bird, sent forth when the 
waters began to abate ; that leaf or branch which it brought 
to the ark; these remarkable facts, which we find scattered 
with more or less distinctness throughout mythologies belong- 
ing to all nations and to almost all stages of civilization, 
admit of no explanation but that which regards them as dis- 
torted traditions of that catastrophe which might well imprint 
itself indelibly on the memory of the human race — the 
Noachian Deluge. 
GEOLOGICAL. 
Mythology, as we have just seen, supplies us with many 
interesting confirmations of the truth of the Mosaic narrative 
regarding the Deluge. Does Geology add to these confirma- 
tions, or the contrary ? Seventy years ago -this question 
would have been answered most confidently in the affirmative, 
even by those who marched in the van of Geological science. 
Were there not rocks in all countries, containing the remains 
of animals and plants ? Were there not superficial deposits 
of sand, clay, and gravel, manifestly the result of such a Flood 
as that which is identified with the history of Noah ? Were 
there not scattered over the face of the whole world immense 
boulders, removed by hundreds of miles from their parent 
rocks, which only a tremendous rush of water could have 
carried to the positions which they now occupy ? Were there 
not caves strewed with bones of animals, which had been car- 
ried on the face of the Deluge, till they were finally deposited 
in these rocky sepulchres .? Were there not shells, manifestly 
of various marine species, found in localities hundreds of miles 
from the sea ; nay, were they not frequently found far up the 
sides, and even sometimes on the summits, of lofty mountains ? 
With such extraordinary phenomena as these before them, 
our fathers were confident that a universal deluge could be 
denied only by those who were incapable of estimating cumu- 
lative evidence, perplexing from its very abundance. Nor is 
it to be forgotten, that among those who referred such pheno- 
