confidered by many, both of the learned and unlearned, as a proof of an univerfal deluge. To the many confiderations oppofing this opinion, the following may be added. The atraof- phere, and all its contents, whether of water, air, or other matters, gravitate to the earth; that is to fay, they have weight.
Experience tells us, that the weight of ail thefe together never exceeds that of a column of mercury of 31 inches height, which is equal to one of rain water of 35 feet high. If the whole contents of the atmofphere then were water, inftead of what they are, it would cover the globe but 35 feet deep; but as thefe waters, as they fell, would run into the feas, the fuperficial meafure of which is to that of the dry parts of the globe, as two to one, the feas would be raifed only 52T feet above their prefent level, and of courfe would overflow the lands to that height only. In Virginia this would be a very fmali proportion even of the champaign country, the banks of our tide-waters being fre- quently, if not generally of a greater height. Deluges beyond this extent then, as for inflance, to the North mountain or to Kentucky, feem out of the laws of na- ture. But within it they may have taken place to a greater or lefs degree, in pro- portion to the combination of natural caufes which may be fuppofed to have produced them. Hiftory renders proba- ble fome inftances of a partial deluge in the country lying round the Mediter- ranean fea. It has been often* fuppofed, and is not unlikely that that fea was once a lake. While fuch, let us admit an ex- traordinary coUeftion of the waters of the atmofphere from the other parts of the globe to have been difcharged over that and the countries whofe waters run into it. Or without fuppofing it a lake, admit fuch an extraordinary colleclion of the waters of the atmofphere, and an influx of waters from the Atlantic ocean, forced by long continued weftern winds. The lake, or that fea, may thus have been fo raifed as to overflow the low lands ad- jacent to it, as thofe of Egypt and Ar- menia, which, according to a tradition of the Egyptians and Hebrews, were over- * z. Buffon Epoques, 96, flowed about 2300 years before the Chrif- tain aera; thofe of Attica, faid to have been