the whole middle Region condens’d into Water, it would not at all have been sufficient for this Effect, according to that Proportion some make betwixt Air and Water; for they say, Air turn’d into Water takes up a hundred times less Room than it did before. The Truth is, we may reasonably suppose, that all the Vapours of the middle Region were turn’d into Water in this Forty Days and Forty Nights Rain, if we admit, that this Rain was throughout the whole Earth at once, in either Hemisphere, in every Zone, in every Climate, in every Country, in every Province, in every Field; and yet we see what a small Proportion all this would amount to. HAVING done then with these superior Regions, we are next to examine the inferior, and the Treasures of Water that may be had there. _Moses_ tells us, that the Fountains of the great Abyss were broke open, or _clove asunder_, as the Word there us’d doth imply; and no doubt in this lay the great Mystery of the Deluge, as will appear when it comes to be rightly understood and explained; but we are here to consider what is generally understood by the great _Abyss_, in the common Explication of the Deluge; and ’tis commonly interpreted either to be the Sea, or subterraneous Waters hid in the Bowels of the Earth: These, they say, broke forth and rais’d the Waters, caus’d by the Rain, to such an Height, that together they over-flowed the highest Mountains. But whether, or how this could be deserves to be a little examined. AND in the first Place, the Sea is not higher than the Land, as some have formerly imagin’d, fancying the Sea stood, as it were, upon a heap, higher than the Shore; and at the Deluge a Relaxation being made, it overflow’d the Land. But this Conceit is so gross, and so much against Reason and Experience, that none I think of late have ventured to make use of it. And yet on the other Hand, if the Sea lie in an equal Convexity with the Land, or lower generally than the Shore, and much more than the Midland, as it is certainly known to do, what could the Sea contribute to the Deluge? It would keep its Channel, as it doth now, and take up the same Place: And so also the subterraneous Waters would lie quiet in their Cells. Whatsoever Fountains or Passages you suppose, these would not issue out upon the Earth, for Water doth not ascend, unless by Force. But let’s imagine then that Force us’d and apply’d, and the Waters both of the Sea and Caverns under Ground drawn out upon the Surface of the Earth, we shall not be any whit the nearer for this; for if you take these Waters out of their Places, those Places must be fill’d again with other Waters in the Deluge; so as this turns to no Account upon the whole. If you have two Vessels to fill, and you empty one to fill the other, you gain nothing by that, there still remains one Vessel empty, you cannot have these Waters both in the Sea and on the Land, both above Ground and under; nor can you suppose the Channel of