Genre:

Extract, Travelogue

Publications extracted:

[Best] 1826

Subjects:

Geology, Biblical Authority, Scientific Practitioners, Infidelity

    Discusses the evident separation of the Rock of Avignon from the hills on the other side of the Rhone, observing that its cause 'is a question that might puzzle a writer of theories on the formation of the earth'. Remarks: 'If we can believe, what philosophers would readily enough believe were not the fact asserted in the bible,—that the earth was at one time covered with water, even the tops of the mountains,—and if we can suppose also that currents existed in this deluge; then, on the subsiding of the waters, these currents might meet with the summits and ridges of hills, and work and wear for themselves a passage, the waters of the deluge gradually retiring, but, in the mean time, sustaining the currents at the requisite height'. Urges 'humility in Scriptural interpretation'. (150)