(2.) While on the one hand we may not limit the miraculous power of the Almighty; on the other hand, it is not legitimate to assume an expenditure of miraculous power indefinitely beyond what the occasion demands.――――This objection is designed to apply, not specially to the supply of water requisite to flood the whole earth at once, for there is water enough in the oceans and seas to submerge the continents, provided only that the ocean beds be temporarily uplifted and the continents relatively depressed: but it does apply with great force to the preservation of the living animals and plants of the whole world. The narrative assumes that the deluge will destroy the land animals and the fowls of the air unless they are protected in the ark. It also gives us the dimensions of the ark, and leaves us to estimate proximately how many could be saved alive in it. The narrative, therefore, does not authorize us to resort to miracle for the preservation of these animal races.――――Now it is entirely certain that only an exceedingly small part of all the land animals, insects and birds of the whole world were saved in the ark. Men versed in natural science estimate the living species of vertebrate animals at 21,000; of articulates, 300,000――numbers by far too great to be provided for in Noah’s ark.――――Yet again: To a great extent the “fauna” (as they are called)――the animal species of the several continents――differ widely from each other. South America has its families, many of them unknown to other continents; Australia has its special group, and Africa its own. It is simply incredible that all or even the mass of these animals came to Noah and were preserved in the ark. If they had been destroyed by the flood, there should be traces of their sudden annihilation in the drift of that flood, and geological research might trace the introduction of new races by special creation to repeople those continents. No such line of proofs for a universal deluge is found. The absence of such traces of destruction and of new creation makes it far more than probable that the flood was limited in extent and not universal. Still further it is urged against a universal deluge――and for aught that appears conclusively――that volcanic cones exist――of Etna in Sicily and of Auvergne in Southern France――which, being composed of loose scoriæ and ashes, must have been washed away by any deluge that should reach them. The cones of Etna are estimated to be 12,000 years old.