the Sea would stand gaping without Water, when all the Earth was overflow’d, and the tops of the Mountains cover’d. And so for subterraneous Cavities, if you suppose the Water pumpt out, they would suck it in again when the Earth came to be laid under Water; so that upon the whole, if you thus understand the _Abyss_, or _great Deep_, and the breaking open its _Fountains_ in this manner, it doth us no Service as to the Deluge, and where we expected greatest Supply, there we find none at all. WHAT shall we do then? Whither shall we go to find more than seven Oceans of Water that we still want? We have been above and below; we have drained the whole middle Region, and we have examined the Deeps of the Earth; they must want for themselves, they say, if they give us any; and, besides, if the Earth should disgorge all the Water that it hath in its Bowels, it would not amount to above half an Ocean, which would not at all answer our Occasions. Must we not then conclude, that the common Explication of the Deluge makes it impossible? There being no such Quantity of Water in Nature as they make requisite for an universal Deluge. Yet to give them all fair Play, having examined the Waters above the Earth or in the Air, the Waters upon the Earth, and the Waters under the Earth; let us also consider if there be not Waters above the Heavens, and if those might not be drawn down for the Deluge. _Moses_ speaks of Waters _above the Firmament_, which though it be generally understood of the middle Region of the Air, yet some have thought those to be Waters plac’d above the highest Heavens, or _Super-celestial_ Waters; and have been willing to make use of them for a Supply, when they could not find Materials enough under the Heavens to make up the great Mass of the Deluge. But the Heavens, above, where these Waters lay, are either solid or fluid; if solid, as Glass or Crystal, how could the Waters get through them to descend upon the Earth? If fluid, as the Air or Æther, how could the Waters rest upon them, for Water is heavier than Air or Æther? So that I am afraid, those pure Regions will prove no fit Place for that Element, upon any Account. But supposing these Waters there, how imaginary soever, and that they were brought down to drown the World in that vast Quantity that would be necessary, what became of them, when the Deluge ceased? Seven or eight Oceans of Water, with the Earth wrapt up in the middle of them, how did it ever get quit of them? How could they be dispos’d of when the Earth was to be dry’d, and the World renew’d? It would be a hard Task to lift them up again among the Spheres, and we have no Room for them here below. The Truth is, I mention this Opinion of the Heavenly Waters, because I would omit none that had ever been made use of, to make good the common Explication of the Deluge; but otherwise, I think, since the System of the World hath been better known, and the Nature of the Heavens, there are none that