he was universally beloved by members of the established church, and by every denomination of dissenters. His worth was highly estimated by those in the world, as well as by those who profess religion. His memory is embalmed in the hearts of many. He walked with God, and he was not, for God took him.

WE do not hold ourselves answerable for the truth of every thing advanced in the following Essay. We insert it, because it gives a most triumphant answer to many of the novel objections, urged by modern Infidelity; and we hope that to many of our readers, it will afford information both new and interesting.

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Geological facts, corroborative of the Mosaic account of the Deluge, with an Inquiry into the Origin, Progress, and still permanent Consequences of that Catastrophe, by RICHARD KIRWAN, Esq. L. L. D. F. R. S. and M. R. I. A.

1st.

ACCORDING

ORDING to Don Ulloa, shells were found on a mountain in Peru, at the height of 14,220 feet. 2 Buff. Epoque, 268. Now I have already shown, (in a former Essay,) that no mountains higher than 8,500 feet were formed since the creation of fish; or, in other words, that fish did not exist until the original ocean had subsided to the height of 8,500 feet above its present level: therefore, the shells found at more elevated stations,

were left there by a subsequent inundation.

Now

an inundation that reached such heights could not be partial, but must have extended over the whole globe.

2dly. The bones of elephants and rhinoceri, and even the entire carcass of a rhinoceros, have been found in the lower parts of Siberia. As these animals could not live in so cold a country, they must have been brought thither by an inundation from a warmer and very distant climate, betwixt which and Siberia mountains of 900 feet high intervene. It may be replied, that Siberia, as we have already shown, was not originally as cold as it is at present: which is true; for probably its original heat was the same as that of many islands in the same latitude at this day; but still it was too cold for elephants and rhinoceri; and between the climates which they then inhabited, and the places they are now found in, too many mountains intercede, to suppose them brought thither by any other means than that of a general inundation. Besides, Siberia must have attained its present temperature, at the time those animals were transported, else they must have all long ago putrified.

3dly. Shells, known to belong to shores under climates very distant from each other, are, in sundry places, found mixed promiscuously with cach other. One sort of them, therefore, must have been transported by an inundation: the promiscuous mixture can be accounted for on no other supposition.

These appear to me the most unequivocal geological proofs of a general deluge. To other facts generally adduced to prove it, another origin may be ascribed thus, the bones of elephants, found in Italy, France, Germany, and England, might be the remains of some brought to Italy by Pyrrhus, or the

Carthaginians, or of those employed by the Roinans themselves some are said to have been brought to England by Claudius, 4 Phil. Trans. 2d Part, p. 242. When these bones, however, are accompanied with marine remains, their origin is no longer ainbiguous. Thus also the bones and teeth of whales, found near Maestricht, are not decisively of diluvian origin, as whales have often been brought down as low as lat. 48° 34. Roz 291. Nay, sometimes they strike on Italy, 1 Targioni Tozzetti, 386.

Yet to explain the least ambiguous of these phenomena, without having recourse to an universal deluge, various hypotheses have been formed.

Some have imagined that the axis of the earth was originally parallel to that of the ecliptic, which would produce a perpetual spring in every latitude, and consequently that elephants might exist in all of them. But the ablest astronomers having demonstrated the impossibility of such a parallelism, it is unnecessary to examine its consequences; it only deserves notice that the obliquity of the equator is rather diminishing than increasing. See Lalande in 44. Roz. 212. Besides, why are these bones accompanied with marine remains?

Others, from the nutation of the earth's axis, have supposed that its poles are continually shifting, and consequently, that they might have been originally where the equator now is, and the equator where the poles now are; thus, Siberia might have, in its turn, been under the equator. But, as the nutation of the earth's axis is retrogressive every nine years, and never exceeds ten degrees, this bypothesis is equally rejected by astronomers. 44 Roz. 210. 2 Bergum. Erde Kugel. 305. The pyramids of Egypt demonstrate that the poles have remained unaltered for three thousand years.

The third hypothesis is that of Mr. Buffon, to which the unfortunate Baily has done the honour of acceding. According to him, the earth having been originally in a state of fusion, and for many years red hot, at last cooled down to the degree that rendered it habitable. This hypothesis he was led to imagine from the necessity of admitting that the globe was, to a certain distance beneath its surface, originally in a soft state. The solution of its solid parts in water he thought impossible; falsely imagining that the whole globe must have been in a state of solution, whereas the figure of the earth requires the liquidity of it only a few miles beneath its surface, Epoques 10 and 35. If he had trod the path of experiments, he would have found the hardness and transparency, of what he calls his primitive glass, and thinks the primitive substance of the globe, namely, quartz, to be altered in a strong heat, with a loss of 3 per cent. of its weight; and that so far from its having been a glass, it is absolutely infusible. The loss of weight, he must have seen, could be ascribed to nothing else but the loss of its watery particles, and that therefore it must have been originally formed in water; he would have found that some feldt-spars lose 40 per cent.; and others at least 2 per cent. by heat; he would have perceived that mica, which he thinks only an exfoliation of quartz, to be, in its composition, essentially different. He certainly found their crystallization inexplicable, for he does not even attempt to explain it.

But waving this, and a multitude of other insuperable difficulties in his hypothesis, and adverting ly to the solution he thinks his theory affords of the phenomenon of the existence of bones of elephants, and the carcass of a rhinoceros in Siberia,

I

say it is defective even in that respect. For allowing his supposition, that Siberia was at any time of a temperature so suited to the constitution of these animals, that they might live in it, yet the remains lately found in that country, cannot be supposed to belong to animals that ever lived in it.

1st. Because, though they are found at the distance of several hundred miles from the sea, yet they are surrounded by genuine marine vegetables, which shows that they were brought thither together with these vegetables.

2dly. Because they are generally found in accumulated heaps; and it is not to be imagined that while alive they sought a common burial-place, any more than they at present do in India.

3dly. Because the rhinoceros was found entire and unputrified; whereas, if the country was warm when he perished, this could not have happened,

4thly. Because, in no very distant latitude, namely, that of Greenland, the bones of whales, and not of elephants, are found on the mountains; consequently, that latitude must have been in that ancient period sufficiently cold to maintain whales, as it is at this day; and that cold we know to be very considerable, and incompatible with the proximity of the climate suited to elephants. 17 N. Comment. Petropol. 576. 1 Stet. Petrolop. 55. Renov. 75. Therefore the animals whose remains are now found in Siberia, could not have lived in it.

The fourth hypothesis is that of Mr. Edward King, but much amplified and enlarged by Mr. De Luc. This justly celebrated philosopher is of opinion, that the actual continents were, before the deluge, the bottom, or bed of the ancient ocean; and that the deluge consisted in the submersion of the ancient continents, which consequently form