ocean, instead of the earth, the same smoking hills would have arisen therein, and formed a cluster of islands, each similar to Jamaica, with its hot springs, porous rocks, and crustaceous surface? By the eruption of such imprisoned fires, when the waters of the Deluge flowed in upon them, the Charaibbean Archipelago was probably torn from its adjacent lands, crumbled into islands, and its inclosed valley overwhelmed by the bubbling tide.

Many minor revolutions and volcanic convulsions have, however, changed the face of these islands since the days of Noah; earthquakes have shaken them to their very foundations, tropical floods have swept away their outlines, leaving them the sport of hurricanes, and the but of waves. They will remain the shattered monuments of miraculous fury, until the eternal fires which still rage beneath shall have recruited strength sufficient to rend asunder their mighty caverns, and produce another stupendous change.

During the memorable earthquake which happened in Jamaica in the year 1692, the convulsions were observed to continue longer, and were more sensibly felt, on the mountains than on the plains, and the former, in some instances, bore evident marks of depression in their height, while numerous huge masses of disjointed rock, with many a yawning chasm and mural precipice, which we are now apt to consider as coeval with the Deluge, perpetuate the memory of that tremendous explosion *. In the

* See Note IV.

island of Nevis, which consists but of a single mountain, gently rising from the bosom of the deep, there are traces of a volcano; and on its summit the crater is still visible, while hot sulphureous springs, with sulphur itself in substance, are found in the neighbouring clefts and chasms. At both ends of the Blue Mountain chain of Jamaica are also to be discovered the traces of extinct volcanoes, and a hot sulphureous spring rises near the highest summit. The longitudinal direction of this elevated ridge, and that, indeed, of all the mountains with which the Antilles are covered, corresponds with that which the islands relatively preserve amongst themselves. This connected uniformity is so regular, that, in considering only the summits of the mountains, without any reference to their bases, they form, as before observed, a regular chain, dependent on the continent, at Caraccas and at East Florida; while it is further remarkable that, in the Windward Islands, all the springs and rivulets which flow from this chain, fall on their western sides.

We need not go far from home, however, nor resort to remote ages, for a proof of the vast changes which earthquakes, or the more silent sappings of the ocean, have effected: well-attested instances of which are beneath our notice at St. Omers, Old Romney in Kent, and Rye in Sussex †.

The Isle of Wight was probably divided from

Dugdale's "History of Draining,” p. 173.

Hampshire by an inroad of the sea, long since the Deluge yet the most remote historians make no further mention of the actual occurrence than this: "Nomen enim hoc insulæ ab antiquis Britannis multis ante seculis, quam Getæ, sive Vitæ, (si lubeat sic vocare) illuc accesserint datum est; qui illam GUYTH nominârunt, quod divortium significat, quia ex maris eruptione à continente divulsa sit cujus olim (ut antiqui tradunt) pars erat"*. If, then, in erat” such places as have been long beneath our observation, the most obvious mutations have been effected, while yet the time or circumstance of them is utterly lost, much more may similar, or even greater, revolutions have occurred, without record, in the unknown, remote, and vast marine tracts of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and yet have been posterior to the Deluge.

Besides the foregoing arguments, which support the assumption that Jamaica, and the larger islands of the Antilles, though detached from the continent upwards of four thousand years ago, have since undergone very many and mighty revolutions, other evidence of a different nature may be adduced. For instance, the islands of Tobago, Marguerita, and Trinidad spontaneously produce the same species of vegetation as characterises the continent to which they are contiguous; while such plants are not to be found, at least not in native abundance, in the islands

Sherringham, "De Angl. Gentis Origine," p. 42, edit. Cantab. 1670.

which compose the other extremity of the chain, as Jamaica, Hispaniola, and Cuba. These afford nearly the same productions as Florida, whence they seem more immediately to have been detached. The difference of climate produces, no doubt, the difference of vegetation between the two extremities of the insular chain; and the like gradation of dissimilitude is equally observable between the two corresponding latitudes on the adjacent continent. Acosta also observes of the Antilles, that "Quoyqu'elles fussent fertiles, et de grande étendue, il n'y avoit aucune sorte d'animaux de service quand les Espagnols y arrivèrent." This curious fact can be accounted for only by supposing that the revolution of nature, which detached the Antilles, occurred at the period of the Deluge, which convulsion cut off terrestrial animals, and precluded the possibility of their natural return there. That these islands had previously possessed their share, is proved by the fossile bones still frequently discovered.

Besides the fact that volcanic remains are distinctly to be traced in the island of Jamaica, the general outline and prominent features of the country bear evident marks of convulsive violence, in that abrupt irregularity which meets the eye, in the shape of fissured cliffs, mural precipices, cavernous pits, and rocky vallies, phenomena which the dynamic effect of the distribution of the floods during the Deluge, or the gradual subsidation of its waters, could not alone have caused.

CHAPTER II.

POPULATION OF AMERICA.

How the fourth quarter of the globe was supplied with inhabitants is a question which has puzzled mankind ever since its discovery. Some have ventured to apply the dream of Esdras to the origin of the American population, but it is as easy to conceive that it received its inhabitants, as all the rest of the world did, direct from Eden. Reason and Relidescended from a

gion teach us that we are all common parent. That parent received an order from Heaven to people the earth; and the earth was peopled: it became necessary to overcome difficulties; and they were overcome. The Omnipotent Being who created man could doubtless furnish him with the means of fulfilling the purposes of his creation. Was it more easy for mankind to transport themselves from the extremities of Asia, of Africa, and of Europe, to the distant islands of the Southern and Pacific Oceans, than to pass from thence to America? Certainly not. Navigation, though apparently brought to perfection within the last few years, was probably as perfect in former ages at any rate we cannot doubt but that it was advanced far enough to answer the purposes of the Almighty in furnishing the earth with those beings