that the entire earth had, at an unknown period, (as far as that word implies any determinate portion of time.) been covered by one general but temporary deluge. The opinion was not hastily formed. My reasoning rested on the facts which had then come before me. My acquaintance with physical and geological nature is now extended: and that more extended acquaintance would be entirely wasted upon me, if the opinions which it will no longer allow me to retain, it did not also induce me to rectify. New data have flowed in, and with the frankness of one of my predecessors, I do also now read my recantation."
"To Mr. Lyell is eminently due the merit of having awakened us to a sense of our error in this respect. The vast mass of evidence which he has brought together, in illustration of what may be called Diurnal Geology, convinces me that, if, five thousand years ago, a deluge did sweep over the entire globe, its traces can no longer be distinguished from more modern and local disturbances."
Such is the reluctant, but final and firm conviction of the best informed geologists upon this interesting question. The geological argument for the general deluge supposed to be described by Moses, may, therefore, be regarded as given up. Partial inundations have taken place at different times since the creation of man; but of the great deluge, which, if the words of Moses are to be taken in a literal sense, "prevailed exceedingly upon the whole earth; and all the high hills that were under the whole heaven, were covered;" of this there are no distinguishable geological indications.
But there are other difficulties in the way of a universal deluge, even more formidable than those which geology presents. These difficulties are so ably set forth by Dr. S., in the work before me, that I am disposed to avail myself of some further quotations from his article on that subject. I attach a peculiar value to these arguments, because I regard them as forced convictions of truth, breaking forth
