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am afraid your Art will fail you in doing as much, for fome other Obje&ions againft his Books and Character. Now I pray, Sir, what do you think of his Hiftory of the Deluge? Don't you think this very odd, that the whole World should be drowned at the fame Time? For my Part, I can as foon believe, that a Man could be drowned in his own Spittle, as that the World fhould be deluged by the Water in it. Now Mofes fays exprefly, that all the high Hills under the whole Heaven were covered. Now to do this, we must have Water enough to reach up to the Top of the Pique of Tenariff, which is at prefent three Miles perpendicular, and at the Time of Noah much more, a confiderable Part of it being washed down by the Rains fince. Now where fhall we find Water to cover the Earth above three Miles high quite round? If the whole Ocean were circumfufed, it would do little or nothing towards this Effect, much lefs a Rain of forty Days. For the Water of the Sea, take one Place with another, is hardly a Quarter of a Mile deep; for tho' in fome Places in a deep Chanel it may be Half a Mile towards the Shore, it is but three or four Fathoms; fo that all together it is not more than a Quarter of a Mile deep. But if this were all pumped out of the Chanel of the Sea, and kept against its Nature by a Miracle ftagnating upon the higher Earth, it could cover the whole Earth no deeper in Water than the Sea is now, which is but a Quarter of a Mile; fo that there will want two Miles and three Quarters of the Hight which Mofes affigns to it. This is upon Suppofition that the Sea and the dry Ground are nigh of the fame Extent; but I believe an exact Survey of the Earth about the Northern and Southern Poles, would fhew that the Earth was much larger. But granting them of the fame Bignefs; to raise the Chanel of the Sea three Miles higher (that is, to the Tops of the highest Mountains) round the World, would take up twentyfour Times as much Water as there is now in the Sea, twelve Quarters of a Mile deep in Water (i.e. twelve Oceans) to be laid upon the Sea, and twelve more upon the Land. And then pray confider, what becomes of the

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pretended Inspiration of Mofes's Hiftory, when 'tis Demonftration that there is not the twentieth Part of Water in the World, as is fufficient to caufe fuch a Deluge.

Difficulties Cred. Your Gentlemen are often wont to call that Deof the De- monftration, which is oftentimes but lame Argument. For luge ac counted for. nothing can be Demonftration against the divine Power, but abfolute Incompatibility and Contradiction. And every Suppofition which fhews the Poffibility of the Thing, is fufficient to overthrow your Demonftration, as you call it. And therefore feveral learned and ingenious Gentlemen have of late Years fet themselves to confider how to give a philofophical Account of the Deluge; and have publifhed fome Hypothefes upon this Subject, which are full of fine Learning and curious Thought. The Main of all of them are good Argument against the Infidels, because each Hypothefis, fhews the Poffibility of that Deluge which they deny. As for the ancient Suppofiti ons, that this immenfe Quantity of Water was owing to the coming down of the fuperceleftial Waters, or the Condenfation of Air; they are, I think, a little too unphilofophical for this inquifitive Age, and are therefore like to do very little Good among the Unbelievers.

Remarks on the late

Theories,

&c.

The most agreeable, and furprising Book which, of late Years, has offered it felf to the World, was Dr. Burnet's Theory upon this Subject. The Defign whereof was fo Great and Noble, the Language fo exact, the Thought fo delicate; the whole Work fo uniform and of a Piece with it felf, and adorned with fuch variety of pleasant Learning; wherein were fuch ingenious Accounts given of the great Revolutions of Nature, of the Formation of the World, the Paradifiacal State, of the Antediluvian Longevity, the Deluge and Conflagration; that tho' there might want fome Degrees of Probability to make every Reader believe his Theory, exactly True, yet it pleafed most of them fo, as to think it was pity it was not. Far be it from me to detract from the ingenious Gueffes of that learned Man; but yet there are fome Things in that Hypothefis, which lie very difficult in my Mind, and do not Teem fo agreeable to the mechanical Laws he goes by, and

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other Phanomena, which are obfervable in Nature. The Oval Figure, which he afcribes to the Antediluvian Earth, feems inconfiftent with the prefent Figure which it is found to be of; that is a Prolate Spheroide, or an Oval turned about its leffer Axis, (i. e.) of the fashion of a Loaf. Which was a prudent Defign of Nature to make it of this Figure, becaufe the additional Heaps of Ice and Snow, which are continually lodged at the Poles, by the Vapours conftantly flying North and South, fhould never increase the Globe beyond a Circle. His excluding the Annual Motion of the Earth, and its Mo tion of Parallelifm to the Poles of the World, allowing it only a fimple Motion round an Axis Parallel to the Poles of the Ecliptick, and confequently taking away the Viciffitude of Seafons, which is one of the greatest Beauties of the World; and leaving the greater Part of it uninhabitable, is a Matter which one cannot fo eafily comply with; efpecially when the firft Chapter of Genefis fays, that the Stars fhall be for Times, and for Seafons, and for Days, and for Years. And fo is his Exclufion from thence of the the Seas, Hills, and great Rivers, allowing only fome trilling Streams from the Poles. For the World withou the Sea, would be but a Prifon, where Men would be lockt up from one another without Intercourfe, would have no Communication in Commerce, Arts, Invention; but People must be content to live uncomfortably ar Home, upon their own Stocks, and their own Improvements. Without Hills, Men would be bereaved of the Ornament and Convenience of Metals, of the Usefulness of Minerals and Stones; and Men would have wanted Money, domeftick Utenfils, Phyfick, and Buildings; nay, without Hills to drain off the Mifts and Rains, and Seas to evaporate the Mifts and Rains from, it is unac countable to me, how there fhould be fuch a Thing as a River in the World; and I fancy the eafy Defcent upon the Declivity of an Oval as big as the Earth, is not agreeable to the Laws of Hydrostaticks, and the ufual Current of Waters. Nor is it lefs difficult to me to imagine, how a Cruft of fo vaft a Thickness, as that of the Earth muft

be,

be, should be broken by any natural Force, especially being fupported equally by the fubterraneous Waters; or as for any Fiffures or Cracks by the Heat of the Sun, they are demonftrated in the hotteft Countries, not to go many Yards into the Ground; and as for any Earthquakes raised by Evaporation of the Abyss below, every Ditcher can tell, that the Heat of the Sun-beams does not go fo many Inches under Ground, as this Hypothefis muft fuppofe Leagues; and befides Earthquakes, and fubterraneous Eruptions are not caused by rarefied Vapours, but by the Accenfion of fulphureous Damps, which like Gun-powder, rend and tear, and carry all before them, and are often wont to break out in vifible Flame. Nay further, thofe vaft Fiffures and ugly Gaps would have been more inconvenient and unfightful in the Antediluvian Earth, than the most barren Mountains and rougheft Seas are with us. Neither does the ufual Depth of the Chanels of the Sea, feem to answer to the Depth of the Abyss; nor the Regularity of the Mountains to the accidental Fragments of fuch a Cruft. There would then appear frequently prodigious Wells and Gaps, where the Fragments did not exactly meet, and fuch horrid and naked Apices, which could not by this Time, have been any Thing fmoothed by Rains, or covered with Grafs or Herbs: Nay, even in the very Situation of the Mountains, and greatest Hills, there appears wife Contrivance, and not accidental Fracture; for to go no farther than our own Country, all our great Ridges of Hills, in England, run Eaft and Weft, fo do the Alps, in Italy, and in fome Measure, the Pyrenees; fo do the Mountains of the Moon, in Africk, and fo does Mount Taurus, and Cauca fus. And further there appears a prudent Forefight, in not making the Ridges of Hills, continued, but by breaking them off into Tumuli, or Heads, part of each of which lies obliquely behind another, and generally admits a skew Paffage between. For unless there was fuch a Ridge of Hills frequent from Eaft to Weft, the Vapours would all run Northward, and there would be no Rains in the Mediterranean Countries, but the Rivers dried up, and the

Sea

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Sea it Telf in time evaporated and frozen into polar Ice. And unless the Hills were divided into these oblique Breaks, fo as to keep back the Vapours and let in the Northern Air, the World would be far more liable to Peftilences and Putrefaction than now they are, and all Places as unhealthy as Scanderoon. These things, with the Deduction of the Americans from another Race than Noah, and fome other Matters of lefs confequence, are my Reafons why I cannot fubfcribe to that learned Doctor's Solution of the Noachical Deluge; and therefore must beg his leave to caft about and fee if I can find á better elsewhere, that I can more eafily acquiefce in.

Dr. Woodward, to whom the World is for ever indebt ed, for his curious and diligent Obfervations of Shells and Minerals, and other fubterraneous Phænomenas, has promifed in his Effay, a more natural Hypothesis; but one of the Grounds which he defigns to build his Theory upon, does feem to me fo precarious and impoffible, that I muft fee a great deal of good Proof, before I can affent to it. For it does not appear to me, how it is poffible that the Waters continuance à few Months upon the Face of the Earth should diffolve the Compages of the most rigid Foffils, and fufpend the Particles of them all in the circumfufed Water, except only conchous Subftances; and that, when the Waters were withdrawn, they should be let down to fix and be compacted again. For if it was poffible that Water in fo fhort a Space could diffolve Marbles and Adamants, yet methinks the fame fhould more easily diffolve Oyfter-fhells and Cockles, which are of a more tenuious Compofition, and more eafy of Dif folution.

Mr. Whifton, in his Theory, has avoided most of the Difficulties which were chargeable upon the First, and has given the World a Tafte of the extraordinary mathe matical and philological Learning he ftands poffeft of. The chief Fault I find in him is, that he has ftuck more to Mr. Newton's than Mofes's Philofophy, and feems too fond and credulous of his ingenious Hypothesis of the Comer. Nay, the imputing this great Catastrophe S

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