8o

Consequences of the Deluge, I

nutiono’f the Mountains I stiall not (ay much Jin tiiis place , but taking it tor granted at Ipresent ; only in brief intimate the Causesot it, assigned by that learned MathematicianJofephits Blancanus , which are partly Rain'water, and partly Rivers, which by coslti'nual fretting by little and little, walli awayand eat out both the tops and fides and feet |of Mountains, and fill up the lower places of -

the Valleys, making the one to cncreafe, and

.the other to decreale; whereby it appea^(faith Dr. Hakems) that what the Mountainlofeth the Valley gains ; and conlequently<that in the whole Globe of the Earth nothingis lost, but only removed from one place toanother to that in process of rime the high'est Mountains may be humbled into Val' jleys: and again (which yet I will not as jlow him) the lowest Valleys exalted into ,Mountains. He proceeds, Anaxagoras ( ilSDiogenes Laertius reports in his Lite) beinAdemanded what he thought, Whether th eMountains called Lapfaceni would in tim®be covered with Sea? answered Yes, unitytime it self fail ; which answer of his ibetfl*to confirm the opinion of Blancanm De idi falrica, cap. 4. where he maintains,Th 3t jif the World should last long enough , hfreason of this continual decreale of the Mod? 1 'tains, and the levelling of the Valleys,