That powerful agency, rendered extensively operative at two successive and distant periods, would probably have left correspondent and permanent vestiges of its operation, during both those periods, in the materials of the crust of the globe; and accordingly, the mineral geology has found, that, in some regions of the earth, “ the principal "seat of the subterraneous fires appears to be be"neath the transition or fragmentary rocks';" that is, beneath those rocks which were first fractured to form the primitive sea-bed; whilst, in other regions, "the volcanic formations appear "to have been formed between the epochas of "the secondary and tertiary formations;" that is, between the last tranquil sedimentary formations in the primitive sea, and the tumultuary formations during the diluvial transfusion of that

sea.

1 HUMBOLDT, Superpos. of Rocks, p. 33.

2 Ib. p. 416.

CHAPTER III.

THUS, then, from the terms of the divine menace, and from the concurring testimony of the ancient Jewish church, we are to conclude by critical induction, antecedently to all minute investigation of monuments or phenomena; that it was the determination of Almighty God to destroy, not only man and every living creature, but likewise, THE EARTH ITSELF that EARTH, upon which He had pronounced His CURSE. To give effect to this tremendous design of His counsels, the order of things which He had established was to undergo a temporary suspension and alteration; and, His Almighty agency was to resume an immediate operation, in the works of His terrestrial creation.

By a new exercise of His incomprehensible power, and by a new direction of the instruments and agencies which He had provided, He caused the irruption of violent inundations, sufficient to commence the work of destruction, and, at the same time, to raise and float the Ark from the station on which it had been constructed; the direction of which fabric, was thenceforth taken under the immediate care of His own divine providence. Vast causes were put in action, and vast effects produced, which are expressed generally in the record, by "the fountains of the great deep being

"broken up," and "the windows of heaven being opened;" phrases, which plainly imply, the inroad of the sea upon the land, and the descent of violent rains from the heavens.

But, here it is asked by the mineral geology; "to what purpose a rain of forty days, to overwhelm "a continent that was to be immersed under a whole "ocean1?" Doubtless, if the immersion of a continent under an ocean, as a mere physical effect, was the whole design of the revolution of the deluge, a rain of forty days was a very superfluous agent. But, since the chief end to be attained by the operation was not a physical, but a moral end, and, since the physical effect was wholly subservient to that moral end; the rain of forty days was a necessary, and a most efficient agent. The condemned race of mankind, were to witness the progress of the vast scheme of destruction which their wickedness had provoked. They were to be taught experimentally, that their place of habitation was passing away from them, and was no longer to remain a dwelling accommodated for the service of animal life; that it was at length to receive the consummation of the curse, pronounced at the disobedience of their first parent, and confirmed by the divine foreknowledge of their incorrigible wickedness. They were to be terrified by the sight of the various instruments of vengeance, by which the power of God was able to execute

1 KIRWAN'S Geol. Essays, p. 63.

His curse; and, they were to foretaste destruction, in every stage of its advance, until its actual and ultimate arrival. They were They were "to call upon "the mountains to cover them, and upon the hills to

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fall on them!" Great, therefore, was the purpose, and equal must have been the effect, of the terrific prelude of a rain of forty days, and of all the accompaniments of horror which attended it; which are thus awfully represented by the learned Jew Philo, either by reasonable inference, or (which is more probable) from national tradition: "The vast ocean (says this writer) being "raised to an height which it had never before

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attained, rushed with a sudden inroad upon the "islands and continents. The springs, rivers, "and cataracts, confusedly mingling their streams, "contributed to elevate the waters. Neither was "the air quiet; dense and continuous clouds covered "the whole heavens; violent hurricanes, thunders, "and lightnings, were blended with unintermitting "torrents of rain; so that it seemed, as if all

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parts of the universe were resolving themselves "into the single element of water: until, the fluid

mass having at length accumulated from above "and from below, not only the lower lands, but "even the summits of the highest mountains, were submerged, and disappeared. For, every

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part of the earth sunk beneath the water-sou xať idaros - and the entire and perfect system of the “ world — ὁ κοσμος ὁ παντελης και ὁλοκληρος became (what it is not lawful either to speak or to

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think) mutilated, and deformed by a vast AMPUTA

TION ! — ακρωτηριασθεντα μεγαλῳ ΤΜΗΜΑΤΙ λελωβησθαι.

But, (it has been asked,) what was the cause which first put these powerful agents in motion? "If we would discover the cause of this cata

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strophe, (says the mineral geology,) we must "look for a cause foreign to our globe, foreign "to the whole solar system, capable of inundating "continents, and giving to the waters of the deep unexampled impetuosity." This is most truly observed; but, wherefore does it subjoin "this

-

is a point on which I forbear to give any opinion?" Is it, upon the same principle on which De Luc would abstain from introducing the mention of creation in a treatise of physics? The opinion which Newton would have given, without an instant's hesitation, respecting such a cause as is here described, is fully evidenced by the general tenour of his arguments in his Letters to Bentley. Since he ascribed the tendency of the sea towards the equator, to the laws of planetary motion; and since he ascribed the first impulse of that planetary motion, to "the Divine Power, the Divine

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Arm," immediately; he would have deemed it unphilosophical, and irrational, to ascribe the first impulse determining that preternatural action of the waters, to any other cause than the same "Divine

1 PHILO de Abrahamo, p. 7. See above, vol. i. p. 59.

2 GREENOUGH'S Geology, p. 196, 8.

Letters to BENTLEY, 1, 2, and 4.