From the facts that have now been detailed, it appears that on no subject of science connected with religion have men been more positive and dogmatical than in respect to Noah's deluge, and that on no subject has there been greater change of opinion. From a belief in the complete destruction and dissolution of the globe by that event, those best qualified to judge now doubt whether it be possible to identify one mark of that event in nature.
I shall now proceed to state, in a more definite form, the views of this subject entertained by the most enlightened judges of its merits at the present day.
_In the first place, most of the cases of accumulations of drift, the dispersion of bowlders, and the polish and striæ upon rocks in place, occurred previous to man's existence upon the globe, and cannot have been the result of Noah's deluge._
From the arguments for sustaining this position I shall select only a part.
The first is, that the organic remains found in the alluvium considerably above the drift, which always lies below the alluvium, are many of them of extinct species. Whether the genuine drift--a heterogeneous mass of fragments, driven pellmell together--contains any organic relics, is to me very doubtful. But if the stratified deposits subsequent to the drift present us with beings no longer alive on the globe, much more would the drift. Now, the presumption is, that extinct animals and plants belong to a creation anterior to man, especially if they exhibit a tropical character,--as those do which are usually assigned to the drift,--since we have no evidence of a tropical climate in northern latitudes till we get back to a period far anterior to man.
Secondly. No remains of man or his works have been found in drift, nor indeed till we rise almost to the top of the alluvial deposit. Even ancient Armenia has now been examined geologically, with sufficient care to make it almost certain that human remains do not exist there in drift, if drift is found there at all; of which there may be a question.
Thirdly. The agency producing drift must have operated during a vastly longer period than the three hundred and eighty days of Noah's deluge. It would be easy to show to a geologist that the extensive erosions which are referrible to that agency, and the huge masses of detritus which have been the result, must have demanded centuries, and even decades of years. Nor will any supposed increase of power in the agency explain the results, without admitting a long period for their action.