water come? The Scripture explanation
is sadly insufficient; the fountains of the great deep were broken up,
and the windows of heaven were opened, and the rain was upon the earth
for forty days and forty nights. The writer evidently thought that there
were great fountains at the bottom of the sea, capable of supplying
water in unlimited quantities from some central reservoir; but science
knows nothing whatever about them; nay, science tells us that the
internal reservoir, if there be one, must contain not water, but liquid
fire. If _this_ great reservoir poured its contents into the sea, the
result would be similar to that frightful catastrophe imagined by the
Yankee who wished to see Niagara Falls pour into Mount Vesuvius.

The supply from that quarter thus failing, we are forced back upon the
rain which descended from the windows of heaven, wherever they may be.
It rained forty days and forty nights. Forty days and forty nights!
Why forty million days and nights of rain would not have sufficed. The
writer was evidently in total ignorance of the laws of hydrology. The
rain which falls from the clouds originally comes from the waters of the
earth, being absorbed into the atmosphere by the process of evaporation.
The utmost quantity of water that can thus be held in suspense
throughout the entire atmosphere is very small; in fact, if
precipitated, it would only cover the ground to the depth of about
five inches. After the first precipitation of rain, the process of
evaporation would have to be repeated; that is, for every additional
descent of rain a proportionate quantity of water would have to be
extracted from the rivers, lakes, and seas below. Now, surely every sane
man must perceive that this pretty juggle could not add one single drop
to the previously existing amount of water, any more than a man could
make himself rich by taking money out of one pocket and putting it into
another. The fabled man who is reported to have occupied himself with
dipping up water from one side of a boat and emptying it over on the
other, hoping thereby to bale the ocean dry, must have been the real
author of this story of Noah and his wonderful ark.

Some Christian writers, such as Dr. Pye Smith, Dr. Barry, and Hugh
Miller, have contended that the author of the book of Genesis is
describing not a universal but a partial deluge; not a flood which
submerged the whole earth, out one that merely covered some particular
part of the great