6. The account of the flood is very embarrassing. It is described as the effects of natural agents in the hands of God. It rained; no mention is made of waters created for the purpose. The deluge was universal; all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered; and it ceased, not by the annihilation of the waters, but they were evaporated by a wind. Now from whence came the water? The weight of the whole atmosphere, with all its vapours, is equal to no more than a hollow sphere of three or four and thirty feet thickness, environing the whole globe, and consequently the whole of its contents, if condensed into water, could not deluge the earth to the height of an ordinary house. It is to no purpose to break open the fountains of the abyss, or great deep, if any such fountains there are; for gravity would prevent the waters from issuing out; neither can we easily persuade infidels, that the windows of Heaven were opened, while they know it has no windows; so that we have but three or four and thirty feet of water to deluge the highest mountains, some of which are more than fifteen thousand feet high.* * The Indian Alps are 20,862 feet above the level of the ocean. Editor. See Col. Kirkpatrick's History of Nepaul, and Asiatic Researches, Vol. VIII. 7. The weak in faith find themselves equally at a loss respecting the ark. It seems strange to them, that so vast an assemblage of animals could be inclosed in an ark or chest, which had but one window, (which window was kept shut for more than five months,) without being stifled for want of air: it appears equally remarkable that Noah and his three sons could unstow and serve out the daily allowance of provisions and water to the passengers; and if their wives were supposed to help them, the work to be done is still prodigious. The lions and other carnivorous animals must have lived on salt provisions; which, no doubt, they were glad of, as seafaring people are not very nice, especially in long voyages. 8. If God set his bow in the clouds, as a token of his covenant with mankind after the flood, ought we not to conclude, that he, at that time, established the law of the various refrangibility and reflexibility of the rays of light, and consequently, that before the flood many optical experiments, which are common with us, would not then have succeeded? For example, a man could not have made a rainbow by spouting water out of his mouth; Mr. Dollond's achromatic telescopes would have then been no better than common ones; natural bodies must have appeared all of one colour, &c. &c.