arly efforts to create
a rational science of geology, spoke, with his wonted clearness and
vigour, of the social ostracism which pursued him after the publication
of the "Principles of Geology," in 1830, on account of the obvious
tendency of that noble work to discredit the Pentateuchal accounts of
the Creation and the Deluge. If my younger contemporaries find this hard
to believe, I may refer them to a grave book, "On the Doctrine of the
Deluge," published eight years later, and dedicated by its author to
his father, the then Archbishop of York. The first chapter refers to the
treatment of the "Mosaic Deluge," by Dr. Buckland and Mr. Lyell, in the
following terms:

Their respect for revealed religion has prevented them from
arraying themselves openly against the Scriptural account of it
--much less do they deny its truth--but they are in a great
hurry to escape from the consideration of it, and evidently
concur in the opinion of Linnaeus, that no proofs whatever of
the Deluge are to be discovered in the structure of the
earth (p. 1).

And after an attempt to reply to some of Lyell's arguments, which it
would be cruel to reproduce, the writer continues:--

When, therefore, upon such slender grounds, it is
determined, in answer to those who insist upon its universality,
that the Mosaic Deluge must be considered a preternatural event,
far beyond the reach of philosophical inquiry; not only as to
the causes employed to produce it, but as to the effects most
likely to result from it; that determination wears an aspect of
scepticism, which, however much soever it may be unintentional
in the mind of the writer, yet cannot but produce an evil
impression on those who are already predisposed to carp and
cavil at the evidences of Revelation (pp. 8-9).

The kindly and courteous writer of these curious passages is evidently
unwilling to make the geologists the victims of general opprobrium
by pressing the obvious consequences of their teaching home. One is
therefore pained to think of the feelings with which, if he lived so
long as to become acquainted with the "Dictionary of the Bible," he must
have perused the article "Noah," written by a dignitary of the Church
for that standard compendium and published in 1863. For the doctrine
of the universality of the Deluge is therein altogether given up; and I
permit myself to hope that a long criticism of the story from the point
of