“_Oh! but the Bible says it was universal_,” says everybody. Yes; but that, you know, is just the question between us. The terms “all the earth” _seem_ to imply universality, but they do not necessarily involve this. “_All_ countries came to Egypt to buy corn;” certainly not all the world literally, but all the surrounding countries. So there were once dwelling at Jerusalem devout Jews “from out of _every nation_ under heaven;” but not _literally_ out of every nation, for the names of the nations are immediately given, and we find the nations to have been a few between Egypt and the Black Sea, and between Italy and Palestine. There are many other illustrations of a similar character: these will suffice: I only adduce these to show that at the beginning Scripture does not oblige us to consider “all” as meaning “every one;” or to understand literally “all the inhabitants of the earth” as meaning every creature. Now, looking at the structure and composition of the earth’s crust, especially its fossiliferous rocks, I am driven to one of three conclusions, each of them involving difficulty, I acknowledge, but the one that involves the least is, of course, the most preferable. Either I must admit— 1. That the fossils in these rocks were all deposited in order and in succession, without injury, through a crust of rocks ten miles in thickness, during twelve months’ violent diluvial action: 2. Or that they were all deposited there during the 15,000 or 16,000 years that had elapsed since the creation of man prior to the Deluge; that is, supposing the creation of man and the creation of the earth to have been synchronous. Or, lastly, which theory I accept— 3. That the date of the earth’s physical being is unknown to us, and that the fossiliferous rocks were deposited in decades of ages before the creation of man. For, on the other hand, let us suppose the flood to have been universal, in the strict and literal sense of the term; then let me suggest some of the consequences and difficulties of such a theory. 1. One consequence would be that some remains of man or of his works would have been found; but nothing of this kind has occurred. Even Armenia has been geologically examined, and no human remains have been found; and surely man’s bones would last as long as the shells of a trilobite or terebratula? 2. And, secondly, the organic remains, the fossils themselves, would have been found confusedly heaped together; whereas, the remains in the crust of the earth are as carefully arranged as the contents of a well-ordered cabinet. We know always to a certainty what fossils will be found in any rock before we examine that rock. 3. Besides which, some, at least, of the organic remains found ought to correspond with existing beings and species: yet the contrary is the case, except only a few fossils found near the surface of the earth, in that portion of the earth’s crust occupied by the tertiary system.