from a great and independent mind, even though they place the author in the painful position of direct opposition to the commonly received opinions of his church.
The eloquent and interesting manner in which this subject is treated by our author, together with the strong and apparently unanswerable objections which he presents to the commonly received doctrine of the universality of the deluge, will be a sufficient apology for the length of the extracts:
"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 question then arises, whence was this water derived, and how was it disposed of after its purpose was answered?" * * "It is scarcely needful to say, that all the rain which ever descends, has been previously raised, by evaporation, from the land and water that form the surface of the earth. The capacity of the atmosphere to absorb and sustain water, is limited. Long before it reaches the point of saturation, change of temperature and electrical agency must produce copious descents of rain. From all the surface below, evaporation is still going on; and, were we to imagine the air to be first saturated to the utmost extent of its capacity, and then to discharge the whole quantity at once upon the earth, that whole quantity would bear a very inconsiderable proportion to the entire surface of the globe. A few inches of depth would be its utmost amount. It is indeed the fact that, upon a small area of the earth's surface, yet the most extensive that comes within experience or natural possibility, heavy and continued rain for a few days often produces effects fearfully destructive, by swelling the streams and rivers of that district; but, the laws of nature, as to evaporation and the capacity of atmospheric air to hold
