DEL 
happened a great flood ; the fea breaking out beyond its 
bounds, fo that the land was covered with water, and 
all the people periflied. To this it is Ridded by the Gu- 
ancas, inhabiting the vale of Xaufea, and the natives of 
Chiquito, in the province of Callao, that forne perfons 
remained in the hollows and caves of the high eft moun¬ 
tains, who-again, peopled the land. Others affirm, that all 
periflied in a deluge, only fix perfons being faved in a float, 
from whom defcended all the inhabitants of that coun¬ 
try. In Nieuhoff’s voyages to Brafil, we are informed, 
that the mod barbarous of the Brafilians, inhabiting the 
inland countries, fcarcely knew any thing of religion or 
an Almighty Being : they have fume knowledge remain¬ 
ing of a general deluge ; it being their opinion that the 
whole race of mankind were extirpated by a general de¬ 
luge, except one man and his filter, who, being with child 
before, they, by degrees, repeopled the world. M. The- 
vet gives us the creed of the Brafilians, in this matter, 
more particularly. In the opinion of thefe favages the 
deluge was univerfal. They fay that Sommay, a Ca- 
ribbee of great dignity, had two children, named Tamen- 
donare and Ariconte. Being of contrary' difpofitions, 
one delighting in peace, and the other in weir and rapine, 
they mortally hated each other. One day Ariconte, the 
warrior, brought an arm of an enemy he had encoun¬ 
tered to his brother, reproaching him at the fame time 
with cowardice. The other retorted by faying, that it 
lie had been pofieffed of the valour he boafted, he would 
have brought his enemy entire. Ariconte on this threw 
the arm again!! the door of his brother’s houfe. At that 
infiant the whole village was carried up into the fky, and 
Tamendonare flriking the ground with violence, a vaft 
fiream of water iffued out from it, and continued to flow 
in fucli quantity, that in a fliort time if feemed to rife 
above the clouds, and the earth was entirely covered. 
The two brothers, feeing this, afcended the highelt 
mountains of the country, and with their wives got upon 
the trees that grew upon them. By this deluge all man¬ 
kind, as well as all other animals, were drowned, except 
the two brothers above-mentioned and their wives; who, 
having defcended when the flood abated, became heads 
of two different nations, &c. 
To thefe American teftimonies we may add another, 
from the remote and uncivilized ifland of Otaheite. Dr. 
Watfon, in his difcourfe to the clergy, informs us, that 
one df the navigators to the fouthern hemifphere having 
aflced fome of the inhabitants of that ifland concerning 
their origin, was anfvvered, that their fupreme God, a 
long time ago, being angry, dragged theVearth through 
the fea, and their ifland being broken off, was preferved. 
In the Eaft Indies, we are informed by Dr. Watfon, that 
the late fir William Jones had difcovered, that, in the 
oldeft mythological books of that country, there is fucli 
an account of the deluge as correfponds fufficiently with 
that of Mofes. 
The fad! being thus eftablifhed by the univerfal con- 
fent of mankind, that there was a general deluge-, which 
overflotved the whole world; it remains next to enquire, 
by what means it may reafonably be fuppofed to have 
been acconrpliflied. The hypothefes on thisfubjecl have 
been principally the following : It has been alferted, that 
a quantity of water was created on purpofe, and at-a pro¬ 
per time annihilated, by divine power. This, however, 
befides its being abfolutely without evidence, is direflly 
contrary to the words of the facred writer, whom the af- 
ferters of this hypothefis mean to defend. He exprefsly 
derives the waters, of the flood from two fources; firft, 
the fountains of the great deep, which he tells us were 
all broken up ; and, lecondly, the windows of heaven, 
which he fays, were opened: and, fpeaking of the de- 
creafe of the waters, he fays, the fountains of the deep 
and the windows of heaven were flopped, and the waters 
returned continually from off the earth. Here it is ob¬ 
vious, that Mofes was fo far from having any difficulty 
about the quantity of water, that he thought the fources 
2 
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from whence it came were not exhaufted ; fince both of 
them required to be flopped by the fame almighty hand 
which opened them, left the flood ihould increafe more 
than it actually did. 
Dr. Burnet, in his Tdluris Thcoria Sacra, endeavours to 
(hew, that all the waters in the ocean are not fufficient 
to cover the earth to the depth ailigned by Mofes. Sup- 
pofing the fea drained quite dry, and all the clouds of the 
atmofphere diflolved into rain, we Ihould ftill, according 
to him, want much the .greateft part of the water of a 
deluge. To get clear of this difficulty, Dr. Bit.rnet and 
others have adopted Defcartes’s theory. That philofo- . 
pher will have the antediluvian world to have been per¬ 
fectly round and equal, without mountains or valleys. 
He accounts for its formation on mechanical principles, 
by fuppofing it at firft in the condition of a thick turbid 
fluid replete with divers heterogeneous matters ; which, 
lubfiding by flow degrees, formed themlelves into dif¬ 
ferent concentric ftrata, or beds, by the laws of gravity. 
Dr. Burnet improves on this theory, by fuppofing the 
primitive earth to have been no more than a fliell or cruft,- 
invefting the furface of the water contained in the ocean, 
and in the central abyfs which he and others fuppofe to 
exift in the bowels of the earth. At.the time of the 
floodfthis outward cruft, according to him, broke in a 
thoufand places ; and confequently funk down among 
the water, which thus fpouted up in vaft catarafts, and 
overflowed the whole furface. He fuppofes alfo, that 
before the flood there was a perfect coincidence of the 
equator with the ecliptic, and confequently that the an¬ 
tediluvian world enjoyed a perpetual fpring ; but that 
the violence of the Ihock by which the outer cruft was 
broken, fliifted alfo the pofition of the earth, and pro¬ 
duced the prefent obliquity of.the ecliptic. This theo¬ 
ry, it will be "obferved, is equally arbitrary with the 
former. But it is, befides, direCtly contrary to the words 
of Mofes, who allures us, that all the high hills were 
covered ; while Dr. Burnet affirms that there were then 
no hills in being. Other authors, fuppofing a'fufficient 
fund of water in the abyfs or fea, are only concerned for 
an expedient to bring it forth : accordingly fome have 
recourfe to a fliifting of the earth’s center of gravity, 
which, drawing after it the water out of its channel, over¬ 
whelmed the feveral parts of the earth fucceflively. 
The inquifitive MivWhifton, in his Theory ofahe 
Earth, fliews, from feveral remarkable coincidences, mat 
a comet defcending in the plane of the ecliptic, towards 
its perihelion, palled juft before the earth on the firft day 
of the deluge ; the conlequences whereof would be, firft, 
that this comet, when it came below the moon, would 
raife a vaft and ftrong tide, both in the fmall feas, which, 
according to his hypothefis, were in the antediluvian 
earth, (for he allows no great ocean there as in ours,) and 
alfo in the abyfs which was under the upper cruft of the 
earth. And this tide would rife and increafe all the 
time of the approach of the comet towards the earth ; 
and would be at its greateft height when the comet was 
at its lead diftance from it. By the force of which tide, 
as alfo by the attraction of the comet, he judges, that 
the abyfs mud put on an elliptical figure, whole furface 
being confiderably larger than the former fpherlcal one, 
the outward cruft of the earth, incumbent on the abyfs, 
mull accommodate itfelf to that figure, which it could 
not do while it held folid, and conjoined together. He 
concludes, therefore, that it mult of neceflity be extend¬ 
ed, and at laft broken, by the violence of the laid tides 
and attraction ; out of which the included water ilfuing, 
was a great means of the deluge : this anfvvering to what 
Mofes fpeaks of the “ fountains of the great deep being 
broke open.” Again, the fame comet, he Ihew’s, in its 
defcent towards the fun, paffed fo dole by the body of 
the earth, as to involve it in its atmofphere and tail for 
a confiderable time ; and of confequence left a vaft quan¬ 
tity of its vapours, both expanded and condenfed, on its 
furface : a great part of which being rarified by the lolar 
