13a 
great deep , as to lay under water an extensive and populous region, containing 
the cities of Astracan and Astrabad, and many other towns and villages. 
.... With the known facts, then, regarding this depressed Asiatic region 
before us, let us see whether we cannot originate a theory of the Deluge, free 
from at least the palpable monstrosities of the older ones. Let us suppose 
that the human family, still amounting to several millions, though greatly 
reduced by exterminating wars and exhausting vices, were congregated in that 
tract of country which, extending eastwards from the modem Ararat to far 
beyond the Sea of Aral, includes the original Caucasian centre of the race ; 
let us suppose that the hour of judgment having at length arrived, the land 
began gradually to sink, as the tract in the Run of Cutch sunk, in the 
year 1819, or as the tract in the southern part of North America, known 
as the “ sunk country,” sank in the year 1821 ; farther, let us suppose that 
the depression took place slowly and equally, for forty days together, at the 
rate of about 400 feet per day — a rate not twice greater than that at which 
the tide rises in the Straits of Magellan, and which would have rendered 
itself apparent as but a persistent inward flowing of the sea ; let us yet 
farther suppose, that from mayhap some volcanic outburst, coincident with 
the depression and an effect of the same deep-seated cause, the atmosphere 
was so affected that heavy drenching rains continued to descend during the 
whole time, and that though they could contribute but little to the actual 
volume of the flood— at most only some five or six inches per day — they at 
least seemed to constitute one of its main causes, and added greatly to its 
terrors, by swelling the rivers and rushing downwards in torrents from the 
hills. The depression, which by extending to the Euxine Sea and the 
Persian Gulf on the one hand, and the Gulf of Finland on the other, would 
open up by three separate channels the fountains of the great deep, and 
which included, let us suppose, an area of about 2,000 miles each way, 
would at the end of the fortieth day be sunk in its centre to the depth of 
16,000 feet, a depth sufficiently profound to bury the loftiest mountains 
of the district. . . . And when after 150 days had come and gone, 
the depressed hollow would have begun slowly to rise, and when after the 
fifth month had passed, the ark would have grounded on the summit of Mount 
Ararat — all that could have been seen from the upper window of the vessel, 
would be simply a boundless sea, roughened by tides now flowing outwards 
with a reversed course towards the distant ocean, by the three great outlets, 
which during the period of depression had given access to the waters. 
Noah would of course see, that £ the fountains of the deep were stopped,’ 
and ‘ the waters returning from off the earth continually,’ but whether the 
Deluge had been partial or universal, he could neither see nor know.” — 
( Testimony of the Rocks, p. 344.) 
Such, is Millers ingenious theory to show the possibility of 
a deluge which would overspread that portion of the globe 
which the antediluvians inhabited, and at the same time meet 
all the requirements of that Deluge, the account of which 
