DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.8#0054
( 53 )
We know the dreadful effects even of a partial
inundation : in these days, we frequently hear of the
turbulent element sending down such impetuous torrents
of rain, as to force away trees and cottages, and harrow
up the verdent sod, blending the soil, the loam, the clay
and sands, with it's rapid current, as it rolle to distant
vales, and lets down the stolen burthen, when once at
rest. How awfully and more violently did all this take
place in the wrathful flood that deluged the earth :
when the windows of the skies were opened and the
gushing torrents fell precipitate on land and seas, tearing
up the natural strata, disturbing the sandy-beds of
rivers, hurrying away promiscuously heaps of corn,
shrubs, lofty elms and oaks, with the fostering glebe,
which cherished them, into distant vallies, and buried
all with heterogenous matter, forced up by sudden
bursts of mountain-like torrents, from the angry clouds!
What wonder then, the appropriate and natural stratum
of rich soil, which, at first, clothed this extensive rock
and displayed a beauteous verdure, should then be torn
off and driven, partly, perhaps, to the Nile and to other
rivers, and partly to the seas and distant vales : and the
stripped rock, after the waters ceased to rage, received
from their sediment, in place of it's former coating, a
cumbersome burthen of blended shells and sands, to
become in after times, when dissolved and pulverized
by the calcining heat of the sun, the imperceptible
employment of the busy winds.
These sands, on the subsiding of the waters, were
probably very near the summit of the Pyramid. Nor do
I doubt but the apex was severed from it by the impe-
tuosity of the waters, while in their unabated rapidity,
and thus left the flat, which has furnished various
G 2 conjectures
We know the dreadful effects even of a partial
inundation : in these days, we frequently hear of the
turbulent element sending down such impetuous torrents
of rain, as to force away trees and cottages, and harrow
up the verdent sod, blending the soil, the loam, the clay
and sands, with it's rapid current, as it rolle to distant
vales, and lets down the stolen burthen, when once at
rest. How awfully and more violently did all this take
place in the wrathful flood that deluged the earth :
when the windows of the skies were opened and the
gushing torrents fell precipitate on land and seas, tearing
up the natural strata, disturbing the sandy-beds of
rivers, hurrying away promiscuously heaps of corn,
shrubs, lofty elms and oaks, with the fostering glebe,
which cherished them, into distant vallies, and buried
all with heterogenous matter, forced up by sudden
bursts of mountain-like torrents, from the angry clouds!
What wonder then, the appropriate and natural stratum
of rich soil, which, at first, clothed this extensive rock
and displayed a beauteous verdure, should then be torn
off and driven, partly, perhaps, to the Nile and to other
rivers, and partly to the seas and distant vales : and the
stripped rock, after the waters ceased to rage, received
from their sediment, in place of it's former coating, a
cumbersome burthen of blended shells and sands, to
become in after times, when dissolved and pulverized
by the calcining heat of the sun, the imperceptible
employment of the busy winds.
These sands, on the subsiding of the waters, were
probably very near the summit of the Pyramid. Nor do
I doubt but the apex was severed from it by the impe-
tuosity of the waters, while in their unabated rapidity,
and thus left the flat, which has furnished various
G 2 conjectures