uninjured, even on shipboard, from distant | highest mountains,-where, however, 'countries to our own. It is not too much to the density of the air, and, consequently, hold that, without special miracle, at least three-fourths of the terrestrial vegetation of the temperature, would have been much the globe would have perished in a universal the same as on the present surface of deluge, that covered over the dry land for a the earth, while the Flood lasted, year. Assuredly, the various vegetable centres or regions,-estimated by SCHOUW at twenty- since the effect of a universal rise five,-bear witness to no such catastrophe. of the waters would be to push out the Still distinct and unbroken, as of old, either air to a corresponding distance from no effacing flood has passed over them, or they the Earth's centre. were shielded from its effects at an expense of miracle many times more considerable than that, at which the Jews were brought out of Egypt and preserved amid the nations, or Christianity itself was ultimately estab lished. CHAPTER IV. GEN.VII.1-VIII.22. 1170. G.vii.4,12,17,viii.6. 1172. But, when the waters had retired from the Earth, i.e. for at least two months, according to the story, the air would scarcely have supported respiration, and all living creatures in the Ark must have been frozen to death. For the story evidently supposes that the Ark rested on the highest mountain-summit; since it says that The Jehovist here introduces the it rested on the seventeenth day of number forty,' which occurs so fre- the seventh month,' viii.4, and the quently in the subsequent history. mountain tops were not seen till 'the Thus Isaac and Esau were each forty first day of the tenth month,' viii.5, i.e. years old when they married, G.xxv.20, not till 73 or 74 days later. Now the xxvi.34. Forty days were fulfilled for highest summit of Ararat is 17,000 the embalming of Jacob, G.1.3. Moses feet high, more than 1,000 feet higher was in the mount forty days and forty than Mont Blanc (15,668 feet), and nights on each occasion, E.xxiv. 18, 3,000 feet above the region of perxxxiv.28. The spies were forty days petual snow,-above which, according in searching the land of Canaan, to the story, they must have lived, N.xiii.25: the people wandered forty from the seventeenth day of the years in the wilderness, N.xxxii. 13. So seventh month' to the twenty-seventh the land had rest' forty years on day of the second month,' viii. 14, on three occasions, Ju.iii.11, v.31, viii.28, which day they came out of the Ark and was delivered into the hand of the Philistines' forty years, Ju.xiii. 1. Eli judged Israel forty years, 1S.iv.18: Goliath presented himself forty days, 18.xvii. 16: David and his son Solomon reigned each forty years, 1K.ii.11,xi.42: Elijah 'went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights,' &c., &c. From these instances, it is plain that the number was used in a loose, indefinite, sense, to express a large number; just as we find, among other oriental nations, the forty sources of Scamander, and the forty pillars of Persepolis. · 1171. G.vii.19,20. And the waters were very, very, mighty upon the earth; and all the high mountains, that were under all the heavens, were covered. Fifteen cubits upwards the waters were mighty, and the mountains were covered.' Here the waters are said to have covered the Earth to the height of (15 cubits) 27 feet above the tops of the that is, for more than seven months. 1173. DELITZSCH describes Mount Ararat as follows, p.267:— Mount Ararat raises itself in two high summits above the plain of the Araxes, Great Ararat to 16,000 feet, and Little Ararat about 4,000 feet lower. Great Ararat forms a pretty regular cone: its snow-field descends 3,000 feet from its summit, and its dark base, 10,000 feet high, forms a majestic pyramid, visible far off with its snowy crown. declivity is connected by a narrow ridge, like a neck, with the little Ararat, which shows a clear conical form. F. PARROT, who, as head of a scientific expedition, set on foot by the Petersburg Academy of Science, first made The eastern the ascent of Great Ararat, Sept.26-8, 1820, found a slightly-curved, almost circular, surface of 200 feet in circumference, which at covered with eternal ice, interrupted by not a the edge went down sheer on every side, single block of stone, from which a wide panorama offered itself to the astonished gaze. On one of the summits of this mourtain was Noah's landing-place, the startingplace of new humanity, spreading itself over secondary summit, about 400 yards distant the whole earth. [PARROT describes a from the highest point, and on the gentle depression, which connects the two eminences, in the defective state of knowledge a century ago, but which, from the amplest evidence, 1175. Dr.. PYE SMITH'S words are these, Geology and Scripture, p.140: The mass of water necessary to cover the whole globe to the depth supposed, would be in thickness about five miles above the previous sea-level. This quantity of water might be fairly calculated as amounting to eight times that of the seas and oceans of the globe, in addition to the quantity already existing. The questions then arise, Whence was this water derived? And how was it disposed of, after its purpose was answered? These questions may, indeed, be met by saying that the water was created for the purpose, and then annihilated. That Omnipotence could effect such a work none can doubt. But we are not at liberty thus to invent miracles; and the narrative in the Book of Genesis plainly assigns two natural causes for the production of the diluvial water,-the incessant rain of nearly six weeks,-called in the Hebrew phrase, the opening of all the windows of heaven,' i. e. of the sky,-and the breaking up of all the fountains of the great deep,' By the latter phrase some have understood that there are immense reservoirs of water in the interior of the earth, or that even the whole of that interior, down to the centre, is a cavity filled with water, a notion which was excusable But Dr. SMITH, therefore, endeavours to maintain the notion of a partial Deluge, which, as we shall presently see, the Scripture itself, as well as scientific considerations, will certainly not allow. 1176. However, geological facts are decisive against the possibility of an universal Deluge having ever taken place within recent ages of the world's history, that is, within a period long antecedent to the time of the Creation, as narrated in the Book of Genesis. Not only are there no indications of such an event,-though if the fountains of the great deep' were 'broken up,' and the windows of heaven opened,' and the waters covered the Earth for a whole year, we should expect to find numerous and distinct traces of such a stupendous occurrence in former days; but the researches of Geology absolutely deny and disprove the fact of such an event having ever taken place. 1177. On this point KALISCH writes, Gen.p.208. In the centre of France, in the provinces of Auvergne and Languedoc, are still the remains of several hundred volcanic hills and mountains. The craters, some of which are down to the sea-level; and in a few weeks more it existed but as a dangerous shoal. And such, inevitably, would have been the fate of the equally incoherent cone-like craters of Etna and Auvergne, during the seven and a half months, that intervened between the breaking up of the fountains of the great deep and the re-appearance of the mountaintops, had they been included within the area of the Deluge. 1179. Further, Mr. SCROPE says in his Volcanoes of Central France: higher than that of Vesuvius, ejected immense masses of lava to the heights of fifty, one hundred, and many more feet, and spreading over many miles of area. Distant periods separated the different eruptions. Distinct mineral formations, and an abundance of petrified vegetable and animal life, bespeak an epoch far anterior to the present condition of our planet. And yet, since these volcanoes ceased to flow, rivers have worked their way through that vast depth of lava; they have penetrated through basalt rocks one hundred and fifty feet in height, and have even considerably entered into the granite rocks beneath. The This amount of excavation can be attributed time required for such operations is immeasur-only to the river, which still flows there; ably slow. Centuries are required to mark because the undisturbed and perfect state of the least perceptible progress. The whole the cone of loose scoriæ demonstrates that no period, which was necessary for the rivers to denuding wave, deluge or extraordinary body overcome that hard and compact mass, is of water has passed over this spot since the large almost beyond the conception of man; eruption. (p.97.) all our measures of chronology are insufficient; and the mind stands amazed at the notion of eternal time. That extraordinary region contains rocks, consisting of laminated formations of siliceous deposits; one of the rocks is sixty feet in thickness; and a moderate calculation shows, that at least 18,000 years were required to produce that single pile. All these formations, therefore, are far more remote than the date of the Noachian flood; they show not the slightest trace of having been affected or disturbed by any general deluge; their progress has been slow, but uninterrupted; even the pumice-stone, and other loose and light substances, with which many of those hills and the cones of the volcanic craters are covered, and which would have been washed away by the action of a flood, have remained entirely untouched. The undisturbed condition of the volcanic cones, consisting of loose scoriæ and ashes, which actually let the foot sink ankle-deep in them, forbids the possibility of supposing any great wave or debacle to have passed over the country since the production of those cones. (p.206.) It is impossible to doubt that the present valleys of the Loire, and all its tributary streams within the basin of Le Puy, have been hollowed out since the flowing of lavacurrents, whose corresponding sections now fringe the opposite margins of these channels with columnar ranges of basalt, and which constitute the intervening plains. Yet these lavas are undeniably of contemporary origin with the cones of loose scoriæ which rise here and there from the surface, and which would necessarily have been hurried away by any 1178. HUGH MILLER says, Testimony general and violent rush of waters over this of the Rocks, p.341,342: The cones of volcanic craters are formed of loose incoherent scoria and ashes; and when exposed, as in the case of submarine volcanoes, such as Graham's Island and the island of Sabrina, to the denuding force of waves and currents, they have in a few weeks, or at most a few months, been washed completely away. And yet, in various parts of the world, such as Auvergne in Central France, and along the flanks of Etna, there are cones of long extinct or long slumbering volcanoes, which, though of at least triple the antiquity of the Noachian Deluge, and though composed of the ordinary incoherent materials, exhibit no marks of denudation. According to the calculations of Sir Charles Lyell, no devastating flood could have passed over the forest zone of Etna during the last twelve thousand years, for such is the antiquity which he assigns to its older lateral cones, that retain in integrity their original shape; and the volcanic cones of Auvergne, which enclose in their ashes the remains of extinct animals, and present an outline as perfect as those of Etna, are deemed older still. Graham Island arose out of the sea early in July, 1831; in the beginning of the following August it had attained to a circumference of three miles, and to a height of two hundred feet; and yet in less than three months from that time the waves had washed its immense mass tract of country. It is, indeed, obviously 1180. Lastly, Sir C. LYELL writes, Ant. of Man, p.192 : We behold in many a valley of Auvergne, within 50 feet of the present river channel, a volcanic cone of loose ashes, with a crater at its summit, from which powerful currents of basaltic lava have poured, usurping the ancient bed of the torrent. By the action of the stream in the course of ages, vast masses of the hard, columnar basalt have been removed, pillar after pillar, and much vesicular lava, as in the case, for example, of the Puy Rouge, near the Chalucet, and of the Puy de Tartaret, near Neckers. The rivers have even in some cases, as the Sioule, near Chalucet, not only cut through the basalt, which dispossessed them of their ancient channels, but have actually eaten 50 feet into the subjacent gneiss; yet the cone, an incoherent heap of scoriæ and spongy ejectmenta, stands unmolested. Had the waters once risen, even for a day, so high as to reach the level of the base of one of these cones,-had there been a single flood 50 or 60 feet in height since the last eruption occurred,-a great part of these volcanoes must inevitably have been swept away. CHAPTER V. WAS NOAH'S FLOOD A PARTIAL DELUGE? 1181. THERE are some, however, and as we have seen, HUGH MILLER among them, who endeavour to make it appear that the Flood in Noah's time was not universal, but partial. Not, however, that the difficulties already noticed, besides others yet to be named, will really be removed by this supposition. For it is just as inconceivable that the worms, and snails, and grasshoppers, should have crawled into the Ark, from different parts of some large basin in Western Asia (as HUGH MILLER imagines), as that they should have done so from different parts of the world. One small brook alone would have been a barrier to their further progress. Nor could Noah have provided for the wild carnivorous animals of those parts, which included the lion and leopard, the eagle and vulture. Besides, in such a case, what need would there have been to crowd the Ark with the fowls of the air by sevens'? G.vii.3, since birds, surely, might have made their escape easily beyond the boundaries of the inundation. 1182. And so writes Archd. PRATT, Scripture and Science, p.55: that there certainly never was an universal deluge. But STILLINGFLEET and POOL, doubtless, felt some of the other insurmountable difficulties of the case as strongly as we do, and were tempted to 'twist the Scripture accordingly, to suit the facts which 'required' it.] And as to the birds, Archd. PRATT writes, p.55: A better acquaintance with the habits of many of the non-migratory birds will convince an objector, that even in a local deluge, of the extent which we suppose the Deluge may have attained, many species would have become extinct but for their preservation in the Ark, as the surrounding regions could not have supplied them. [But why, on this account, should all the birds, &c., within this limited district have been preserved in the Ark, since most of them existed also beyond its boundary ?] 1183. But, surely, plainer words could hardly be used than the Scripture employs to show that the Deluge was universal : - vi.7, 'Jehovah said, I will destroy man, whom I have created, from the face of the Earth, both man and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fouls of the air.' vi.17, 'Behold I, even I, do bring a Flood of waters upon the Earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven, and everything, that is in the Earth, shall die.' vi.19, Of every living thing of all flesh,' &c. vii.4, Every living substance, that I have made, will I destroy from off the face of the Earth.' vii.15, Two and two, of all flesh wherein is the breath of life.' whole heaven, were covered. vii.19, 'All the high hills that were under the vii.21-23, And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, all, in whose nostrils was died. And every living substance was destroyed, the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, which was upon the face of the ground, both See also viii.21,ix.11,15. The words of Scripture, were there no facts [of Science], like those I have mentioned, to modify our interpretation, would by most [? all] persons, be understood as describing an universal flood of waters over the whole extent of the globe. There would be no cause 1184. Archd. PRATT, indeed, refers to for questioning this and therefore no grounds of D.ii.25, as a proof that the expression doubt. [The words of Scripture, consequently, would be taken in their plain, obvious, mean-under the whole heaven' may mean ing, as any simple-minded reader would under- not the whole globe, but only Palesstand them.] But, when the new facts become tine and the countries in its immediate known, as they are at present, then [the words of Scripture must be twisted to meet them, or, as Archd. PRATT puts it,] the question is started, Does the Scripture language present any insuperable obstacle to this more limited interpretation? That it does not, may be inferred from the fact that two of our celebrated commentators on ScripPOOL, both in the 17th century, long before the discoveries of natural science required it, advocated this view (!). [Modern science has proved, by pointing to the hills of Auvergne, ture, Bishop STILLINGFLEET and MATTHEW neighbourhood.' But, first, this is not the only expression, which is employed here to denote the universality of the catastrophe; and secondly, in the very passage quoted, the expression is plainly used to express all nations on the face of the whole earth: 'This day will I begin to put the dread of thee and the fear of thee upon the nations that are under the whole heaven, who shall hear report of thee, and shall tremble, and be in anguish because of thee.' I am now pursuing, while thus endeavouring to set the plain facts of the 1185. It appears, then, to be impossi- case, in a clear, strong, light, before ble to doubt, if only the expressions of the eyes of the reader. I feel it to be the Bible are to be regarded, and not my duty to do this, to the best of my the incredibility, which in that case power; nor ought I to be deterred by will attach to the story, as is freely being told that I am treating the Bible confessed by such a well-informed geo-with unwarrantable freedom, that I am logist as HUGH MILLER, (1169.) using a 'vulgar' and 'coarse' kind of that the Scripture speaks distinctly criticism, and delighting 'like a successof an universal, and not a partial, ful fiend' in dwelling upon the details Deluge. of the sacred narrative. 1186. However, let us suppose that 1189. It is absolutely necessary that the Deluge was partial, and that, in- thoughtful persons should be called to stead of the eight thousand species of look at these things from a practical beasts and birds (1162), leaving out every-day point of view, that they of consideration the reptiles, insects, should be induced to think for them&c.-only eight hundred-nay, only selves about the details involved in eighty-needed to be received into the the Scripture statements, and see for Ark, and that, of these, twenty were themselves that the notion of such a species of clean animals, and sixty of Flood' as that described in these unclean. Then the whole number of chapters of Genesis, whether it be reanimals taken into the Ark would have garded as a universal or a partial been 20 × 24 + 60 × 2=400. And now Deluge, is equally incredible and imlet any person of common-sense picture possible. If this be so, then it will to himself what would be the condition also follow plainly, that, by believing of a menagerie, consisting of four hun- ourselves, or teaching others to believe, dred animals, of all kinds, confined in in this account of Noah's Flood,' as a a narrow space, under these circum-statement of real historical matter-ofstances for more than twelve months! fact, merely because the Bible records 1187. We must first suppose, of it as such, we shall be sinning against course, that Noah and his wife and chil- God and the Truth, and simply making dren were occupied every day, and all an idol of the Bible. day long, incessantly, in taking to these 400 creatures, two or three times a day, their necessary supplies of dry food and water, bringing fresh litter, and clearing away the old. But, shut up together closely in this way, with scarcely any light and air, is it not plain that, in a very short time, every part of the ship would have been full of filth, corrupting matter, fever, and pestilence? 1188. But the ship may have been kept clean, and the air pure, and the animals healthy, though shut up without light and air, by a miracle. Yes, certainly: by multiplying miracles ad infinitum, of which the Bible gives not the slightest intimation,-which, rather, the whole tenor of the story as plainly as possible excludes, -if this is thought to be a reverent mode of dealing with Scripture, or at all more reverent than a course of criticism of the kind which 1190. But, indeed, the waters of a Deluge, that could cover 'the high hills, that were under the whole heaven,' and the mountains' in Armenia, must have found their level on the surface of the whole Earth,-such a partial Deluge must have become universal,-unless the Law of Gravitation was suspended, by another stupendous miracle, for the space of twelve months. 1191. DELITZSCH observes on this point, as follows, p.260 : The absolute generality of the Flood, if it was to be expressed at all, could not be expressed more clearly. It seems as if we must imagine the Flood to have covered the highest peaks of the Himalayas and Cordilleras, reaching to a height of 26,843 ft. [28,178 ft.] But v.20 makes that impossible: Fifteen cubits mountains were covered.' That can only be upward the waters were mighty, and the a concise datum from a particular stand-point; and this stand-point is in that case the Great Ararat, by far the highest mountain-summit of the neighbourhood, upon which the Ark grounded immediately after the highest state |