half the sphere could be submerged at once. As the land in one hemisphere was sinking, the opposite part, where there was an opposite, was rising. On one side the shore was sunk, and part of the land became the bed of the sea; and on another side the bottom of the sea was by the same operation changed into upland. As the fragments of rock did not immediately drop from the under side of the land, the solid part was still encumbered with the weight of them, and the sea upon the old continent stood at the level of three or four hundred feet above its present surface, which is the height, where proper marine shells are found. Here it remained one or two centuries, till the shell fish were so multiplied, as to leave the beds of shells, now found there. The contrary took place in Peru and Chili, where the shells are the relics of the primitive ocean, which deserted its shores at that time. The country near the mouth of the Indus probably sunk the most. The antipode to that place is a small island in the South Sea, named Easter Island. The horizon of these two places will separate those parts of the world, which sunk from the others, which were rising. Those shells on the south side of the circle are antediluvian, and those on the north are postdiluvian. In the course of two or three centuries the fragments of rock were disengaged, and, falling down to the centre, formed a nucleus, which must be equal to a solid rock of many miles in diameter, as the weight is equal to a sphere of water four hundred feet thick, and surrounding the whole globe. I do not think of any principle, by which an estimate can be formed of the depth from the surface of the earth to that of the central abyss. The other substances, found at great heights, and in places remote from the sea, it remains to be proved, that they ever were inhabitants of the water.

The sea after the flood, upon the shore of the old continent, according to the estimated height of the shells, stood three or four hundred feet above the present lev◄ el. Of course on the shore of Chili it must have been as much lower. The present elevation of the shells in Chili, deducted from the present soundings of the Mediterrane

an, will show the primitive surface of that sea. The height, estimated for the Chilese shells, is between twenty and thir ty fathoms; the most usual soundings in the Mediterranean are of twenty four fathoms. Hence it is to be inferred, that the Mediterranean sea was before the flood a large river, emptying its waters into the ocean, instead of making large and continual draughts upon the ocean for its support. After the first two or three centuries from the flood the shore was but about forty feet above the present level, it having continued so far back, as we can trace by particular and sea marks, to fall at about one foot in a century. Small as this alteration is, it has since the christian æra added a belt of four miles wide to the shore all round the Mediterranean, and has rendered nearly all the ancient harbors in that part of the world useless, while new ones have been formed by the inequalities of the bottom, which the retreat of the sea has uncovered. But the sea did not probably get near its present level, till after the peopling of Egypt; the tradition being preserved by that nation, that the whole Delta had been formerly deserted by the sea. The tradition probably refers to the state of the country, when the first postdiluvian colony settled there.

It is well known, that animal bodies will float in water, when putrefaction is begun. As the inundation advanced within the tropics, the animals of those regions, living near the sea, were drowned. Those nearer the mountains endeavored to escape by getting on high ground. The flood pursue ed and at length overtook them. After some days the bodies began to float, and, when the water subsided, these were carried in every direction, till by the decay of their flesh, or the shallowness of the water, their relics were deposited, where they are now found.

The water in retiring formed many small lakes, where even large fish might live for some time. When these lakes failed, the fish failed with them. Hence we find bones of whales and other fish at distances from the sea, and perhaps from this cause many small fishbones at great elevations.

At the time of the flood the residence of Noah was at Dravira, near what is now the southernmost point of India. The ark was not launched, as vessels usually are in modern times, but waited for the water to lift it off from the stocks. The tide and rain together floated it in forty days. Its whole height from the floor timbers was thirty cubits, and half this depth was its draught of water; for we find that to be the depth, when it was stranded on the summit of AraThe water subsided with the same rapidity, as it rose, and in forty three days after the ark had struck, the tops of the neighbouring mountains began to be uncovered.

rat.

The same

The twen

The theory, which has now been stated, and in the opinion of the writer proved, is very ancient. But it has come down to us in a mutilated form, as the illustrations, at first used to explain it, have been misunderstood. The Chaldeans supposed the earth to be hollow, like a boat.* A very small degree of attention will show, that they could not compare it to a boat in shape, but only in buoyancy. The Hindoo books say, that one of the forms of their god, Vishnu, or the preserver, is that of a tortoise. Heaving his broad and convex back above the great abyss, he preserves men. theory was current among the ancient Hebrews. ty fourth Psalm, ascribed to David, begins with this opinion. "The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof; the "world, and they, that dwell therein. For he hath found"ed it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods." The same opinion is alluded to in the third verse of the hundred and fourth Psalm. It is agreed, that it was not a primary intention of the scriptures to teach men physics; but to render us happy by amending our lives. Yet the writers of that invaluable volume may be well admitted to prove the currency of opinions at the time, when they wrote; and, if the opinions are by any other evidence proved to be true, every such instance enhances the character of the book. How mankind in the infancy of society came by such a theory, Baillie Hist. de l'Astron. Ancienne, tom. iv, p. 366.

Asiat. Res. vol. i, p. 16 and p. 216, 8vo edit.

before any long voyages were made, is a different question, upon which all of us shall reason in our own modes. They probably obtained it the same way, that they got the knowledge of the order of creation, and other things, inscrutable to human view. All, that the present writer has endeavored, was to restore this ancient theory to its proper form.

CHAP. IV.

Comprehending the first century after the flood.

IN consequence of the flood some geographical changes were produced, which are worthy of notice.

The

India was before the flood more extensive, than it has been since that event. The Carnatic, or eastern shore of the hither peninsula, extended farther into the bay of Bengal, and the island of Ceylon was attached to the main. Cape Comorin, the point now at the southern extremity of that peninsula, was before that time far within land. The continent stretched at least as far, as the equator; and the western shore, now called the coast of Malabar, comprehended the Maldivia islands, and a long chain of others, that now lie scattered in a line, parallel to that coast of the Arabian gulf, and reaching nearly to the present mouth of the Indus. A proportional change took place on the sides of Arabia and Mekran. straight of Ormus was consequently only a part of the united stream of Euphrates and Tigris, or Pasatigris, as the united river has since been called, and the course was continued in a southeastern direction, till its conflux with the Indus, in about ten or twelve degrees of northern latitude. A part of the waters of the Ganges, from a more local operation not yet explained, but which we shall presently have occasion to mention, then and for some time afterward continued to flow into the Indus, and thus joined the Euphrates. The western branch of the Ganges left the main river somewhere between Hurduar and Delhi. All the rivers at that time were broader and shallower, than at present. The minor

branches straggled over a vast extent of country, increasing both its beauty and fertility. But the continual flux of water down the principal channel deepened the bed of it, and by consequence the surface was lowered, till' the ramifications were called in to supply the body of the river. Gradually the principal river became one majestic stream, and a considerable portion of land became a desert. In this manner the western branch of the Ganges was adopted into the principal stream, and the union of that river with the Indus ceased.

Before the flood, by the same course of reasoning, which has been applied to the western part of India, the eastern peninsula was joined to that vast cluster of islands, now called the Indian Archipelago. The eastern shore of the bay of Bengal was joined to the range, now known as the Nicobar and Andaman islands. Thus the whole continent of India in each peninsula extended beyond the equator.

In the Mediterranean the changes were not less, than in Asia. The reasons were stated in the last chapter for thinking, that this sea was before the flood only a very large river. But it was a river,* exceeding any other in the whole world. The Niger, Nile, Eridanus, Danube, and Don, which are even now mighty streams, were then only branches of one still mightier, than they. The continent of Greece comprehended all the islands of the Archipelago, saving however a sufficient channel among them to convey away the water, which now stagnates, and forms the Euxine.

In Egypt was a great bay after the flood, occupying the whole of lower Egypt, and joining the Mediterranean to the Red Sea. The other changes there we shall speak more of hereafter.

* The resemblance of the names Atlas, Italy, and Ætolia implies a common origin from some common circumstance. That probably was their bordering on this great river. In Hebrew hyn, Etolé, is a great watercourse. In Mexican Atl is water.

(To be continued.)