Narrative of the surveying voyages of his majesty's ships Adventure and Beagle (vol.2): between the years 1826 and 1836 : describing their examination of the southern shores of South America, and the Beagles's circumnavigation of the globe

ON THE DELUGE. 669 swept over and destroyed Callao, is evident from the present position of a pillar erected soon after that event to mark the place to which the waves advanced inland.* This pillar now stands so low, that waves, such as those which ruined Talca- huano, would inevitably reach its base ; again destroying the whole of Callao, still situated on a flat, very few feet above the sea, near where old Callao stood. I have now mentioned the principal facts connected with the Beagle*'s voyage, which I am desirous of noticing with reference to the Deluge. Want of space prevents my adding others : I have hardly room left to lay before my young readers some general considerations, arising partly out of these facts, which I hope may interest — perhaps be useful to them. When one thinks of the Deluge, questions arise, such as " where did the water come from to make the flood ; and where did it go to after the many months it is said to have covered the earth ?''' To the first the simplest answer is " from the place whence the earth and its oceans came :"" — the whole being greater than its part, it may be inferred that the source which supplied the whole could easily supply an inferior part : — and, to the second question, — " part turned into earth, by combi- nation with metallic bases ; part absorbed by, and now held in the earth ; and part evaporated."-|- We know nothing of the state of the earth, or atmosphere surrounding it, before the Flood ; therefore it is idle and unphilosophical to reason on it, without a fact to rely on. We do not know whether it moved in the same orbit ; or turned on its axis in a precisely similar manner ; — whether it had then huge masses of ice near the poles ; — or whether the moon was nearer to it, or farther off*. Believers in the Bible know, however, that the life of man was very much longer than it now is, a singular fact, which seems to indicate some difference in atmosphere, or food, or in some other physical influence. It is not so probable that the consti- tution of man was very different (because we see that human peculiarities are transmitted from father to son), as it is to sup- pose that there was a difference in the region where he existed. • In 1746. + Electricity may have acted a prominent part in these changes.