GEOLOGICAL FEATURES OF OUR GLOBE. 
483 
longevity; as there would, under such circumstances, be no 
sudden transitions from heat ‘to cold, so there would be no 
condensation of vapor to cause rain ; and Scripture does not 
speak of any, but expressly states, the earth was watered by a 
mist which went up from it. But though, under these altered 
circumstances, there was no rain, wind, or clouds, and con- 
sequently no rainbow, during that period which intervened 
from the restoration of the globe, when it was without form 
and void, to the time of the deluge, still it by no means 
follows that there were none of these natural phenomena 
during the preceding states of the earth, but when the 
deluge took place, then was the vapory ocean suspended 
above the atmosphere, condensed, and precipitated upon the 
earth, thus terminating the peculiar state which prevailed 
during the antediluvian epoch ; then the wind arose, clouds 
were formed, rain fell, and the phenomenon of the rainbow 
first appeared to Noah, as an assurance that there should 
never again be such a flood. 
The vast increase of the ocean, so far exceeding the present 
continental extent of the world, and even the existence of so 
many islands which are fragments of former continents, can 
only be accounted for by the waters of the Deluge submerging 
by their weight, large portions of the earth's surface, and in 
their recoil, forming the pointed ends of so many continents. 
A large portion of the earth’s surface must have long 
remained covered with the waters of the Deluge, and thus 
the heat of the earth been so greatly lowered, that a glacial 
climate would naturally be produced; several allusions to this 
altered state are made in Scripture : Job, even in those warm 
regions where he is supposed to have resided, speaks of the 
“ stream of brooks which are blackish by reason of the ice, 
and wherein the snow is hid”;* from other parts of Scripture 
the same fact is apparent. All these allusions bear strong 
testimony to the truth of the Deluge being far more extended 
than many allow, but which universal tradition asserts, and 
general decrease of climatic heat proves. f 
* Job. vi. 16. See also Job xxxviii. 29, 30 ; i. 11, 12. 
f In Mexico there is a representation of a man and woman in a kind of ark, 
if 2 
