displac’d and disorder’d, as they seem to lie at present; the heaviest and grossest Bodies in the highest Places, and the liquid and volatile kept below; an huge Mass of Stone or Rock rear’d into the Air, and the Water creeping at its Feet; whereas this is the more light and active Body, and by the Law of Nature should take Place of Rocks and Stones? So we see, by the like Disorder, the Air thrown down into Dungeons of the Earth, and the Earth got up among the Clouds; for there are the tops of the Mountains, and under their Roots in Holes and Caverns the Air is often detained. By what regular Action of Nature can we suppose things first produc’d in this Posture and Form? Not to mention how broke and torn the inward Substance of the Earth is, which of it self is an uniform Mass, close and compact; but in the Condition we see it, it lies hollow in many places, with great Vacuities intercepted betwixt the Portions of it; a Thing which we see happens in all Ruins more or less, especially when the Parts of the Ruins are great and inflexible. Then what can have more the Figure and Mien of a Ruin, than Crags, and Rocks, and Cliffs, whether upon the Sea-shore, or upon the Sides of Mountains? What can be more apparently broke, than they are? And those lesser Rocks, or great bulky Stones that lie often scatter’d near the Feet of the other, whether in the Sea, or upon the Land, are they not manifest Fragments and pieces of these greater Masses? Besides, the Posture of these Rocks, which is often leaning or recumbent, or prostrate, shews to the Eye, that they have had a Fall, or some kind of Dislocation from their natural Site. And the same thing may be observed in the Tracks and Regions of the Earth, which very seldom for ten Miles together have any regular Surface or Continuity one with another, but lie high and low, and are variously inclin’d sometimes one way, sometimes another, without any Rule or Order. Whereas I see no Reason but the Surface of the Land should be as regular as that of the Water in the first Production of it; and the Strata or Beds within lie as even. This I am sure of, that this Disposition of the Elements, and the Parts of the Earth, outward and inward, hath something irregular and unnatural in it, and manifestly shews us the Marks, or Footsteps of some kind of Ruin and Dissolution; which we shall shew you, in its due Place, happen’d in such a way, that at the same time a general Flood of Waters wou’d necessarily over-run the Face of the whole Earth. And by the same fatal Blow, the Earth fell out of that regular Form, wherein it was produc’d at first, into all these Irregularities which we see in its present Form and Composition; so that we shall give thereby a double Satisfaction to the Mind, both to shew it a fair and intelligible Account of the general Deluge, how the Waters came upon the Earth, and how they return’d into their Channels again, and left the Earth habitable; and likewise to shew it how the