It is true, we have an old doctrine revived, and supported by respectable authority, that mountains were formed originally by those eruptions we call volcanos. The votaries of this theory pronounce the hollows and cavities on the tops and sides of mountains, Craters, or the cups of extinguished volcanos; and if the stone of the mountain be of a bluish colour, then it is declared Lava; and the proof of a volcano having existed there becomes incontrovertible! History, however, affords us very few instances of mountains so formed. Yet this doctrine seems to have received very just authority from the last scientific circumnavigators. The rocks which surround the islands of the Pacific Ocean, generally break off perpendicularly about a mile out at sea, which makes their approach very difficult and dangerous; and as the stratum immediately under the loam of the surface has an ashy, or lava-like appearance, the voyagers very naturally concluded, that the immense number of small islands which stud that extensive ocean, were the product of subaqueous eruptions. Still if I might be allowed to hazard an opinion against such respectable authority, I should rather apprehend that the Pacific Ocean had been once a continent, and that at the Deluge, when the Earth’s surface was disarranged and broken up by the violent motion of the waters, the general body of it sunk beneath the level, or was washed away to other parts, leaving only the more elevated and solid part remaining. For volcanos throw up matter piece-meal; islands, therefore, formed by them, would have a sloping, or gradually sinking shore: whereas the islands of the Great South Sea are surrounded by perpendicular rocks, that sink in that direction to an almost unfathomable depth in the sea. Besides, how can we account for that similarity of manners, customs, colour, and even, language, among the inhabitants of islands so distant, that no mode of navigation they practice could ever make them acquainted, or have any communication with one another? If these islands were thrown up from the bottom of the sea, their inhabitants would not be thrown up with them, and all with the same custom and language. Now if this immense part of the globe was a continent before the Deluge, the inhabitants might be alike; and if the elevated parts were above the subsiding water, (a circumstance more than probable) inhabitants might be saved upon them, with every circumstance of similarity we find among them; for that revolution is not of so remote a date, but remains of antediluvian manners might exist at this time. * * * * *