readily retrace her course, and estimate the distance accomplished in her voyage. For 110 days, he says, impelled by winds and currents, she continued to plough the deep, and finally, on the 30th day of September, grounded upon the mountains of a country known in Moses' day as Ararat. As the ark drew but fifteen cubits, of course the mountain tops she rested upon must have been at that time that far beneath the surface; and here it should be remembered that the waters have risen no higher, not a single inch, than they were on the 9th day of June-the last of the forty days of rain. The facts thus precisely stated, with others to be noticed, clearly indicate, and can only be explained by, what geologists term "subsidence and upheaval," instances of which have often occurred, on a limited scale, within modern times. The ancient Adamland has gradually sunken down beneath the ocean to become its bed; whilst the bottom of the former deep has been as gradually upheaved, to form a new earth for man and beast to live upon. In this suggestion, except as to its proportions, there is not the slightest novelty; for the fact is well established that such mutations are frequent in the great field of nature; that islands have been known to sink and disappear, and others have suddenly emerged from the deep, and that portions of our continents are steadily undergoing changes in their elevation; whilst one exhibits a continual subsidence, another shows an equally constant upheaval. The phenomenon of Noah's day differs from those of modern times only in the grandeur of its dimensions. The ark was built and rested upon the shores of a former world—that "dry land," that on the third day of the creation was upheaved or emerged from the then single great ocean. The last of that "dry land" was seen on the 9th day of June in the year of the world 1656. The world that then existed utterly perished, with every living thing upon it. The present earth, at that time, existed only as the ocean's bed, and did not constitute any part of the land that by God was pronounced corrupt, and by him visited with destruction. As that one vast continent sank beneath the waters, its immense weight pressing down upon the liquid interior of the globe, forced up the present continents that now surround its former site. Scripture, science, and the voice of nature, all proclaim that the great Pacific, beset with submarine mountains, and sunken shoals, studded with hosts of coral reefs and islands, and illumined on every side by volcanic fires, is the resting place of the world destroyed. There, beneath its tranquil waters, repose the relics of the ancient dead, where, from Noah's day, the little, considerate madrepores have been busily engaged in erecting monuments to their memory "How mournfully this burial ground " The ark must have at first reposed upon the coast of the ancient Adamland, or else Noah could never have seen the fountains of the deep. There upon the western shore he had his home, raised his grapes, his figs and olives, enjoyed the lullaby lays of the sea breeze, watched the ebbing and flooding tides, and learned that an easterly wind would blow the waters from off the earth. He too, no doubt, had noticed for one hundred and twenty years that the ocean was regularly encroaching upon the land, had made his marks, and erected objects at the water's edge, for the confirmation of his belief. Assurances thus derived, strengthened his faith in his Maker's word, and nerved his arm to build the ark, notwithstanding the continual jibes and jeers of his incredulous workmen, and the scoffing jests and sneers of unbelieving friends and neighbors. But where was the ark built? From what point or place in the Pacific did she come? To answer the question with absolute precision, may be impossible; yet as the ark was not impelled either by steam or sails or oars, and only yielded to the constant laws of Deity, as invariable as their Maker, a solution of the problem may be obtained, sufficiently near to truth, to satisfy the mind of rational faith, and perhaps unsettle even the sceptic's doubts. To ascertain the course and distance of the voyage accomplished, it will be necessary to appreciate several distinct elements, each of which played their part on that occasion; and to arm the reader properly, we shall devote a few pages to their consideration. We select first the tides, and as Professor Johnston has luminously discussed the subject, and presented us with a supposititious statement as to their order, such as really existed then, and therewith combined an account of things as they are at present, we transcribe from his Physical Atlas, prepared in 1848, a part of what he has written: THE TIDES." If the earth presented a uniform globe, with a belt of sea, of very great and uniform depth, encircling it round the equator, we should have a rise of tide or high water following the sun every day, from east to west after midday, and another succeeding it after midnight, when the sun had passed the meridian of our antipodes. This phenomenon, Sir Isaac Newton deduced from the laws of gravitation to each other of the mass of the sun, the mass of the earth, and the mass of the water. In like manner each transit of the moon over the meridian would bring after it, also, a tide or high water; and, owing to the smaller distance of the moon, its effect would be greater in raising the water than the effect of the sun, in a proportion nearly sixfold. In this state of matters we might expect four tides a day. These, however, would so modify each other as to produce only two great tides compounded of the four. When the transit of the sun and moon took place together, their joint effect would raise a tide measured by the sum of the effects; that is, the lunar tide would be increased one-sixth by the solar tide. But on the other hand, when the transit of the moon was about six hours later or earlier than the sun's, the low water of the one would diminish the high water of the other, and so the lunar tide would be diminished by one-sixth. Thus the mean tidal elevation of high water would vary nearly in the proportion of 5 to 7. At new and full moon, the tides would range higher-forming spring tides; and at the first and third quarters, the tides-forming neap tides-would range lower. When there were twenty-one feet of rise of high water above low water at springs, there would only be fifteen at neaps. Had the earth been formed as we have supposed, with a great equatorial canal, or central belt of ocean, the phenomena might have taken place as we have stated, with great regularity; and we should not have required to form a tidal map or chart, for the crest of high water would have been nearly-not exactly a meridianal line, following the sun and moon at certain very simple intervals. This simple case is, however, very different from the fact; the heights of successive tides and their intervals vary much in the way we have described, but the direction of motion and the epoch or date of high water are exceedingly various; so different, indeed, that no adequate notion of tidal phenomena can be formed without some such tidal charts as accompany this paper. Looking at the chart of the world, we observe that there is no great equatorial sea extending east and west round the globe. On the contrary, the great continents cross the equator nearly at right angles; the Atlantic running nearly north and south between Europe, Africa and the Americas. The chief region of water appears in reality to surround the South pole; and if we recollect how peculiar the nature of the Pacific is; how much it is intercepted with coral reefs and islands and irregular continents, we shall readily perceive, how far it is removed from the condition of an equatorial canal of uniform, unimpeded depth; presenting, on the contrary, a coral barrier nearly impervious to tidal action. The source of the tides is therefore to be sought in the great reservoir round the Southern pole. This polar reservoir is agitated on opposite sides by the moon, in its alternate lower and upper transits; and by the sun in a less degree. Here the great central agitation seems to commence, and hence on all sides it seems to flow northward. From the South pole this great agitation flows into the Indian Ocean, and proceeding northward, the great tidal wave strikes with violence on the shores of Hindostan, and finally breaks in the mouth of the Ganges, where it expends its force on the shores, in the form of the well known and terrific "bore" of the Hoogly. The Atlantic in like manner receives from the Southern reservoir its great wave of tide, which passes north with impetuosity, and expends its force on the shores of Britain |