THE Proportion of Water for the Deluge being thus stated, the next thing to be done, is to enquire where this Water is to be found; if any part of the Sublunary World will afford us so much: Eight Oceans floating in the Air make a great Bulk of Water, I do not know what possible Sources to draw it from. There are the Clouds above and the Deeps below, and in the Bowels of the Earth; and these are all the Stores we have for Water; and _Moses_ directs us to no other for the Causes of the Deluge. _The Fountains (he saith) of the great Abyss were broken up, or burst asunder_, and the Rain descended for Forty Days, the _Cataracts_, or _Floodgates_ of Heaven being opened. And in these two, no doubt, are contain’d the Causes of the great Deluge, as according to _Moses_, so also according to Reason and Necessity; for our World affords no other Treasures of Water. Let us therefore consider, how much this Rain of Forty Days might amount to, and how much might flow out of the Abyss, that so we may judge whether these two in conjunction would make up the eight Oceans which we want. AS for the Rains, they would not afford us one Ocean, nor half an Ocean, nor the tenth part of an Ocean, if we may trust to the Observations made by others concerning the Quantity of Water that falls in Rain. _Mersennus_ gives us this Account of it, _Cog. Phys. Mech._ p. 221. “It appears by our Observations, that a Cubical Vessel of Brass, whereof we made use, is fill’d an Inch and an half in half an Hour’s Time; but because that sucks up nothing of the Moisture as the Earth doth, let us take an Inch for half an Hour’s Rain; whence it follows, that in the Space of Forty Days and Nights Rain, the Waters in the Deluge wou’d rise, at four Feet in 24 Hours, 160 Feet, if the Rains were constant and equal to ours, and that it rain’d at once throughout the Face of the whole Earth.” But the Rain of the Deluge, saith he, should have been 90 times greater than this, to cover, for Instance, the Mountains of _Armenia_, or to reach 15 Cubits above them. So that according to his Computation, the Forty Days Rain would supply little more than the hundredth Part of the Water requisite to make the Deluge. ’Tis true, he makes the Height of the Mountains higher than we do; but, however, if you temper the Calculation on all Sides as much as you please, the Water that came by this Rain would be a very inconsiderable part of what was necessary for a Deluge. If it rain’d Forty Days and Forty Nights throughout the Face of the whole Earth, in the Northern and Southern Hemisphere all at once, it might be sufficient to lay all the lower Grounds under Water, but it would signify very little as to the overflowing of the Mountains. Whence another Author upon the same Occasion hath this Passage, _Auct. cat. in_ Gen. 7. 4. “If the Deluge had been made by Rains only, there would not have needed Forty Days, but Forty Years Rain to have brought it to pass.” And if we should suppose