"being overruled by divine influence. These "all floated together, in the same ark, so long as the waters were upon the earth.*":

We have already remarked, that the same person was intended by a diversity of names; and Grotius says, that "Seisithrus, Ogyges, "and Deucalion, are all names signifying, in "other languages, the same as Noah does in "the Hebrew, the language in which Moses "wrote." Now it is a fact well known, that the ancient writers, in copying from any original, did not give in their translation the names used in that original: but changed them for some other that had the same meaning in the language into which they translated them, as the original names had in that, from which they transcribed. For instance, Alexander the his torian, writing concerning Isaac in Greek, does not adhere to the original name, but calls him Telota (Tara) or "Laughter:" which is the interpretation of the Hebrew name Isaac; and was given him by Sarah in remembrance of some circumstances relating to his birth. Thus,

* Lucian, libro de Deâ Syriâ, et de templo vetustissimo quod erat Hierapoli.

+ Grotius de Verit, Relig. Christ. §16 notes: where also these extracts from Lucian and others, are quoted at length, with many similar ones. For both the above quotations, see note 5, at the end of this Lectare.

by the different names used in the accounts which different nations give of the deluge, the same person is intended-and that person is Noah. Diodorus says, it is the tradition of the Egyptians, that "Deucalion's was the univer"sal deluge." Plato corroborates this testimony by saying, " that a certain Egyptian

priest, related to Solon, out of their sacred "books, the history of the universal deluge; "which took place long before the partial in"undations known to the Grecians." There is another remarkable coincidence and correspondence with the Mosaic account: the very day fixed by Moses as the beginning of the deluge, agrees exactly with the day in which, Plutarch tells us, Osiris went into the ark, the seventeenth of Athyr; which is the second month after the autumnal equinox, the sun then passing through Scorpio.It is thus that the evidence of the universal deluge, in this particular branch of it, corresponds with that of the creation: that it is equally the subject of tradition; and that tradition, varying a little in circumstance, is equally prevalent over the face of the whole earth. This fact is farther proved by,

2. THE EXISTENCE OF VAST QUANTITIES OF MARINE PRODUCTIONS UPON THE TOPS OF MOUNTAINS, AND UNDER THE SURFACE OF THE GROUND, TO CONSIDERABLE DEPTHS, OVER THE

WHOLE EARTH, AND AT ALL DISTANCES FROM THE SEA. The earthquake that shakes the towering palace, and the proud battlements of the city, to the ground, rends the bosom of the earth, and discloses the shells and teeth of fishthe bones of animals-intire or partial vegetables-evidently transported thither from their respective elements, by some grand and universal commotion, affecting at one and the same time, the sea and the dry land, and destroying the limits of their mutual separation. This was considered as a decisive argument till the recent hypotheses of some modern philosophers have furnished an evasion of it's force*. It has been proved that volcanoes are capable of forming mountains of very considerable magnitude: that the fire of them lies deep, and often below the waters of the ocean itself. On this account, marine substances may be found at all depths in these volcanic mountains, and yet afford no proof of a deluge. There would be some weight in this argument if these marine substances were found only in the neighbourhood of volcanoes: but with all it's plausibility, it is incapable of universal application. It may be thought to account for marine substances lying deep in vol

* Sir William Hamilton.

canic mountains, or lands stretching along, the borders of the ocean, and liable to volcanic irruptions: but it will furnish no satisfactory reason, for their existence in an inland country, free from volcanoes, and hundreds of miles, dis tant from the sea, There are also appearances of desolation presented in nature, which cannot be accounted for, even on the supposition of earthquakes; nor be deemed the consequence of any convulsion, less powerful than that of an universal deluge.

Another hypothesis is, levelled against the system which we espouse, Some philosophers have supposed, that a perfect transposition of the order of things has taken place: that what is land was once sea; and that where the ocean rolls his proud waves, the earth presented her fair and cultivated face. If this, indeed, was the case, as the sea is liable to the same volcanic irruptions, the existence of marine productions, on every part of the globe, may be accounted for, without the admission of an universal deluge: since we may easily imagine, that when the waters retreated, they left some of their spoils, deeply implanted, behind. The observations, which we have made, and are ca

* Buffon.

pable of making, in the contracted sphere of our personal knowledge and the changes which are effected on the face of nature, in the narrow circle of the few years allotted to us may not perhaps be deemed any thing: but those of ages and generations long since rolled by, and which are recorded on the faithful page of impartial history, ought to be duly appreciated. The inroads which the sea has made upon the land, recorded by those who have measured and watched it's boundaries, in the remembrance of our fathers, have been comparatively inconsiderable: nor will any authentic history of the most remote periods, furnish us with matters of fact to justify, or even to countenance, an hypothesis so extravagant. Every instance which can be produced of the ground gained by the waves upon the shores of the globe, is so trifling, and the conquest was so slowly acquired, that the system proposed must suppose an antiquity of the world, very little different, as it respects the objections that lie against it, from the hypothesis which maintains it's eternity; the answer to which fell under the department of the preceding Lecture. This wild opinion, moreover, seems to suppose islands only the tops of mountains: but over the whole face of our present continents is there no such mountain, or chain of mountains, in shape or