that the eruptions took their direction, not so much from the low situation of the barrier, as from the nature of the rock of which it was constructed, being influenced by the weather, and from the rock itself being rent asunder. Be that as it may, the words with which Diodorus commences his narrative are remarkable, when he says, the Samothracian deluge happened earlier than those of other nations. It at least so far preceded others, that, in the estimation of the Greek historian, independent of the deluges of Ogyges and Deucalion, similar natural occurrences more or less authenticated were received as historical facts. Finally, the effects produced by the bursting of lakes or debacles do not appear to be out of proportion to the devastation mentioned by the traditions of nations. To abide by our former example, floods which could carry along with them masses of rock of 50,000 cubic feet, were in a situation to bury a whole people; and the few individuals who might be preserved would undoubtedly have handed down the memory of such an event to remote posterity. Other deluges may have arisen from other causes, at a time when, as is shewn by numerous vestiges, lakes and rivers had a much greater elevation than at present; and, therefore, every overflowing of them must have produced greater and more extensive ravages. From these last local eruptions of water, that is, from single limited districts, arose the mechanical precipitates known under the denomination of Alluvial Soil. Their situation, as the uppermost covering of the earth, as well as their origin, which takes place beneath our own observation, furnishes evidence of their being the most recent mineral formations; and it follows from their nature and connection that they were not produced by chemical means, but removed by the mechanical force of water. Since they, among other things, contain prostrate forests, and abundant remains of land animals, we conclude that they did not originate in the bed of the sea, but were floated and deposited upon the dry land by an overflow of land water. How is it conceivable that these precipitates have been covered by the ocean, since their deposition, and have, by means of an opposite change, become the dry land they are at present; and yet it must have been so, if they are to be considered as intimations of the Mosaic deluge.