2. The apparent material impossibility of producing water in sufficient quantity to overflow the earth. The means by which the flood was produced are stated in the Mosaic narrative: the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened; that is, the water rushed out from the bowels of the earth, where it had been confined, and the clouds poured forth their rains. This would seem to be a sufficient explanation, if any explanation of an event clearly miraculous and supernatural be necessary at all. It has been discovered, however, that the Deluge might have been caused, and might at any time be repeated, by a very simple process. It has been demonstrated that the various seas and oceans which invest the two principal hemispheres, contain water enough to overflow the land and cover the highest mountains to the depth of twenty-two feet, were their temperature merely raised to a degree equal to that of the shallow tropical seas! Were the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans suddenly warmed to a point perfectly compatible with the maintenance of animal life, they would expand sufficiently to overflow the Cordilleras and the Alps. 3. The needlessness of a universal deluge, as a partial one would have answered all purposes. That the Deluge was universal is distinctly stated by Scripture. Had not God intended it to be so, he would hardly have instructed Noah to spend a hundred years in the construction of an ark: a spot of the earth yet uninhabited by man might have been designated, where Noah could have gathered his family; there would have been no necessity for shutting up pairs of all animals in the ark with which to re-stock the earth, for they could have been easily brought from the parts of the earth not overflowed into those that were. Then we are told that the water ascended twenty-two feet above the highest mountains,--a distinct physical proof that the whole earth was inundated, for water then, as now, would seek its level, and must, by the laws of gravity, spread itself over the rest of the earth, unless, indeed, it were retained there by a miracle; and in this case Moses would certainly have mentioned it, as he did the suspension of the laws of nature in the case of the waters of the Red Sea. Then, again, had the Deluge been partial and confined to the neighborhood of the Euphrates and Tigris, it would be impossible to account for the fact that in remote countries--in Italy, France, Germany, England, the United States--there have been found, in places far from the sea, and upon the tops of high mountains, the teeth and bones of animals, fishes in an entire condition, sea-shells, ears of corn, &c., petrified. The explanation of this has always been derived from the circumstance of a universal deluge. The fact, too, already mentioned, that the Chinese, the Greeks, and the Indians have traditions of a deluge, seems to be conclusive evidence that that terrible dispensation was not confined to