192 
ON THE CREATION AND 
“ Over all the face of earth 
Main ocean flow’d, not idle, but with warm 
Prolific humour soft’nin^ all her globe. 
Fermented the great mother to conceive. 
Satiate with genial moisture, when God said, 
* Be gathered now ye waters under heaven 
Into one place, and let dry land appear.’ 
Immediately the mountains huge appear 
Emergent, and their broad bare backs upheave 
Into the clouds, their tops ascend the sky; 
So high as heav’d the tumid hills, so low 
Down sunk a hollow bottom broad and deep. 
Capacious bed of waters.” 
It is not necessary, in a lecture like this, to discuss the different 
hypotheses, how or in what manner the waters w’ere gathered 
together, as it is, I believe, the general opinion of geologists, that 
the present appearance of the earth’s surface confirms the Mosaic 
description. The highest dry surface on the globe must, there¬ 
fore, have been the earliest inhabited ; and here Nature, or rather 
her Creator, would have planted the first people, whose multiplica¬ 
tion and extension must have followed the continual decrease of 
the water. 
We may fancy to ourselves this first tribe, endowed with all 
human faculties, 
“ God-like, erect, with native honour clad. 
In naked majesty seem’d lords of all; 
And worthy seem’d, for in their looks divine 
The image of their glorious Maker shone;” 
but not possessing all knowledge and experience, the subsequent 
acquisition of which is left to the natural operation of time and 
circumstances. As Nature would not unnecessarily expose her 
first-born and unexperienced son to conflicts and dangers, the 
place of his abode would be so selected, that all his wants could 
be easily satisfied, and every thing essential to the pleasure of 
his existence readily procured. He would be placed, in short, 
in a garden or Paradise— 
A heaven on Earth: for blissful Paradise 
Of God the garden was, by him in th’ east 
Of Eden planted.” 
‘‘ Such a country is found,” says Mr. Lawrence, in central 
Asia, between the 30th and 50th degrees of north latitude, 
and the 90th and 110th of east longitude (from Ferro); a spot 
which, in respect to its height, can only be compared to the 
lofty plain of Quito in South America. From this elevation, of 
which the great desert Gobi, or Shamo, is the vertical point, 
Asia sinks gradually to all the four quarters. The great chain 
