DELUGE (del'ilj).
The narrative of a flood, given in the book of Genesis (vii, viii), by which, according to the literal sense of the description, the whole world was overwhelmed and every terrestial creature destroyed, with the exception of one human fam ily and the representatives of each species of ani mal, supernaturally preserved in an ark, con structed by Divine appointment for the purpose, need not here be followed in detail. The account furnished by the sacred historian is circumstan tially distinct, and the whole is expressly ascribed to Divine agency, but, in several of the particu lars, secondary causes, as rain 'the opening of the windows of Heaven' (vii :t t ), and the 'breaking up of the fountains of the great deep,' are mentioned, and again the effect of wind in drying up the waters (viii :t). It is chiefly to be remarked that the whole event is represented as both commencing and terminating in the most gradual and quiet manner, without anything at all resembling the catastrophes and convulsions often pictured in vulgar imagination as accom panying it. When the waters subsided, so little was the surface of the earth changed that the vegetation continued uninjured; the olive-trees remained from which the dove brought its token.
We allude particularly to these circumstances in the narrative as being those which hear most upon the probable nature and extent of the event, which it is our main object in the present article to examine, according to the tenor of what little evidence can he collected on the subject, whether from the terms of the narrative or from other sources of information which may be opened to us by the researches of science.
Much, indeed, might he said on the subject in other points of view, and especially in a more properly theological sense, it may be dwelt upon as a part of the great series of Divine interposi tions and dispensations which the sacred history discloses. We may allude to the fact that in al most all nations, from the remotest periods, there have prevailed certain traditional narratives and legendary tales of similar catastrophes. Such narratives have formed a part of the rude belief of the Egyptians, Chaldmans, Greeks, Scythians and Celtic tribes. They have also been discov ered among the Peruvians and Mexicans and the South Sea Islanders. (See Bryant, Ancient Mythology; Harcourt, On the Deluge; Ignatius Donnelly, Lost Atlantis.) The general results of geological researches show no evidence of any great aqueous revolution at any comparatively recent period having affected the earth's surface over any considerable tract. Changes have been produced, but on a compara tively small scale, and in isolated districts (Pye Smith, Geology and Scripture, p. 13o, 2d cd.). Universality, the author shows, must be taken in the sense of great extent; often, indeed, the very same phrase is applied to a very limited region or country, as in Gen. xli :56; Deut. ii :25 ; Acts ii :5, etc.). Thus, so far as the description goes, the expression may refer to a local deluge. (See ANTEDILUVIANS.)