given the pleasures of existence to such hosts of instinctive beings, and though buried in the depths of the ocean, their enjoyments are not less than if watched by the inquisitive eye of man.

From the very low order of these animals in the scale of being, we should have little reason to expect they would exhibit any evident signs of intelligence; and yet as in other cases, we can here trace the most positive marks of design in the Great First Cause, in the adapta tion of the means to the end proposed.

These animals cannot work above the water, and as they chiefly inhabit an ocean, where the wind constantly blows from one quarter, they raise their structure in a perpendicular direction on the windward side, so that when they come near the surface of the water, where the rolling of the sea would a part of the time leave them naked, the waves are thus broken and they can continue their labors to the leeward. The effect of this arrangement is the erection of a barrier on the one side, so that these little animals can work with facility and comfort on the other, and under similar circumstances, all the reasoning and experience of man would have answered no better purpose, than the instinct of these little worms.

After the windward side has been protected, the next part raised to the surface is at some distance to the leeward. The whole, when first seen, consists of a chain of detached rocks usually placed in a circular form, including an area of various dimensions, but often of several hundred feet in diameter. In the progress of the work, the intermediate parts, whether circular or straight, are gradually filled up, so that on the outside, the walls are perpendicular, and the water deep, but within, the water. grows deeper from the margin towards the centre, producing a solid mass of rock, the upper part of which is in the form of a basin. This cavity is at first a kind of salt lake, but is gradually filled up by the labors of the animals, until finally the sea is so far excluded, that during calm weather the rain freshens the water in it, and thus at once end the labors and lives of these industrious creatures.

In process of time, when these animals continue their work around such a basin, so as to prevent the sea from dashing into it, and the rain has washed away all the salt, it becomes a pond of fresh water, forming a supply per

haps, for the otherwise perishing mariner, who happens to be wrecked on these bold shores. And this undoubtedly is but a part of that beneficent design and foresight, for which such myriads of these animals were brought into life.

The highest parts of these reefs being towards the wind, at certain seasons of the year, when the tides are low, these parts will be exposed to the force of the waves, which will break off the most slender parts, and wash them to the leeward, where the animals are still at work, and by whom these fragments are welded to the principal mass. In this manner, an island is raised permanently above the water, and by a continuance of the same process, considerable islands are gradually elevated above high water mark in the midst of the ocean.

It is not difficult to imagine how such islands may be clothed with vegetation. The seeds of plants are known to float thousands of miles, and still retain their vegetative powers. Such seeds taking root in the crevices of these rocks produce plants, which by their annual decay, together with the decomposed coral, soon form a soil fit for others. These in their turn decay, and in that warm climate, where vegetation is luxuriant, there is formed in a few years, a soil fit for shrubs and trees.

Many of these Islands are only four or five feet above high water mark; and it is apparent; that the mode of formation above described, would require many centuries to elevate them to any considerable height. Indeed, it is not probable that the parts near the shore would ever acquire any additional elevation, since occasional high tides would carry away the vegetable matter deposited there. But as some of these islands are far above the level of the sea, we must look for some other cause of elevation besides the waters of the ocean; and the decay of vegetation. Tongataboo is ten feet above high water, at the water's edge, and even this is higher than can be accounted for from the causes described. But this is a slight elevation when compared with that of many others; for one of the Tonga islands formed entirely of coral, is in some parts more than 300 feet high. It is hardly necessary to remark that this elevation cannot be accounted for by supposing a depression of the ocean, since this cause would have given all the other islands in that sea a similar height, and besides, it is well known that the sea has

not materially changed its level for the last 2000 years. We must therefore attribute the elevation of these islands to some force acting beneath them; and as we are unacquainted with any power, equal to such an effect, except that of volcanoes, so there can be little doubt but the force of submarine fire, was the active cause of their elevation. One of these islands, indeed, contains a volcano always on fire.

THE DELUGE.

No part of the Mosaic history has produced more ridicule, among infidels, or has been attacked with greater hopes of success, than that of the universal deluge.

"That the whole earth, (say these men,) was ever surrounded with water so deep as to cover all its mountains, is a supposition not only unphilosophical, but absolutely impossible. It is unphilosophical, because even admitting that there is a sufficient quantity of water in the sea to produce such a deluge; still no adequate cause can be assigned for the production of such mighty effects. But allowing a cause which might have moved the whole ocean out of its bed, and cast it upon the land, still such an effect could not have been produced as a universal flood, since it would have required many times more water than exists on the whole earth, to have covered all its mountains at the same time."

We shall not stop to answer these objections, but proceed to show, that notwithstanding these and many more have been urged against the probability of the Noachian flood, still no fact can be better established, since it has the concurrent testimony of sacred, natural, and civil history in its favor.

The period of the deluge is fixed by chronological writers at the year 1656, after the creation, corresponding to the year 2348 before the Christian era. These two sums make the period of the creation, 4004 years B. C. According to Mr. Blair, on the 10th day of the second month, which was on Sunday, Nov. 30th, B. C. 2347, God commanded Noah and his family to enter into the ark; and on the next Sunday, December 7, it began to rain, and continued to rain forty days, after which the deluge pre

vailed 110 days, making its continuance 150 days from the beginning. On Wednesday, May 6th, 2348 B. C. the ark rested on Mount Arrarat. The tops of the mountains became visible on Sunday, July 19th, and on Friday, November 18th, Noah and all they that were with him came forth out of the ark.

Without reference to sacred history, we never could have known the time when this great flood happened— the fact itself, although we ought to require nothing more than the word of that history to establish its truth, is still capable of the strongest proof from the appearance of the earth's surface. Baron Cuvier, after having spent a large portion of a long life in investigating the natural history of the earth, comes to the following conclusions on the subject of the universal deluge.

"I can concur," says he, "with the opinions of M. M. De Luc and Dolomieu, that if there be any thing determined in geology, it is that the surface of our globe has been subject to a vast and sudden revolution, not longer ago than five or six thousand years; that this revolution has buried and caused to disappear, the countries formerly inhabited by man, and the species of animals now most known; that, on the contrary, it has left the bottom of the former sea dry, and has formed on it the countries now inhabited; that since this revolution those few individuals whom it spared, have propagated and spread over the lands newly left dry, and consequently it is only since this epoch, that our societies have assumed a progressive march; have formed establishments; raised monuments, and combined scientific systems."Cuvier Revolu. Globe, 180. The effects of that grand and awful cataclysm are still to be traced in every country, and in nearly every section of country on the globe. Vast accumulations of rounded, or water worn pebbles, huge blocks of granite, and immense beds of sand and gravel, are found in places where no causes now in operation ever could have placed them; and still that they have been moved is evident from the circumstances, or the places where they occur. In the whole course of my geological travels," says Prof. Buckland, "from Cornwall to Caithness, from Calais to the Carpathians; in Ireland, in Italy, I have scarcely ever gone a mile without finding a perpetual succession of deposites of gravel, sand or loam, in situations that cannot be referred to the action of modern torrents, rivers or

lakes, or any other existing causes. And, with respect to the still more striking diluvial phenomena of drifted masses of rock, the greater part of the northern hemisphere, from Moscow to the Mississippi, is described by various geological travellers, as strewed on its hills as well as its valleys, with blocks of granite, and other rocks of enormous magnitude, which have been drifted (mostly in a direction from north to south,) a distance, sometimes many hundred miles from their native beds, across mountains, valleys, lakes and seas, by a force of water, which must have possessed a velocity to which nothing that occurs in the actual state of the globe, affords the slightest parallel." -See Reliquia Diluviana.

If it be inquired how it can be ascertained that blocks of granite have been transported from a distance, and that they do not belong to disrupted mountains in the vicinity, it is answered that there is a peculiarity in every formation or range of rocks or mountains, by which the mineralogist can readily distinguish them. Thus the calcareous rock of Gibraltar, and the iron ore of Elba, specimens of which every collection contains, are readily distinguished even by the most common observer from all other minerals. To the practised eye of a mineralogist, combined with the analysis of the chemist, no difficulty occurs in identifying any specimen with the rock to which it belongs.

On the secondary mountains of Jura, particularly on the slopes facing the Alps, a great many loose fragments of primitive rock, some of them containing a thousand cubic yards, occur. These are strewed over the surface, at the height of two thousand, five hundred feet above the level of the lake of Geneva. They no where stand higher, or are more numerous than opposite to the largest, and deepest valleys of the Alps. They have undoubtedly travelled across the line of these valleys, their composition proving clearly, the mountain ridges from which they came. We may hence infer, that at the period of their transfer from the Savoy Alps, the lake of Geneva did not exist, otherwise they must have remained at its bottom, instead of being found on its opposite boundary mountain. -Ure's Geology, p. 362.

In estimating the transporting power of water, it must not be forgotten, as already noticed, that a solid, when immersed in a fluid, becomes lighter by the weight of the