The Deluge in the Light of Modern Science Part 1

The Deluge in the Light of Modern Science.

by William Denton.

If the Bible is G.o.d's book, we ought to know it. If the Creator of the universe has spoken to man, how important that we should listen to his voice and obey his instructions! On the other hand, if the Bible is not G.o.d's book, we ought to know it. Why should we go through the world with a lie in our right hand, dupes of the ignorant men who preceded us? It can never be for our soul's benefit to cherish a falsehood.

Science is, perhaps, the best test that we can apply to decide the question. Science is really a knowledge of what Nature has done, and is doing; and since the upholders of the divinity of the Bible believe that it proceeded from the Author of nature, if their faith is true, it cannot possibly disagree with what science teaches.

Science is a fiery furnace, that has consumed a thousand delusions, and must consume all that remain. We cast into it astrology and alchemy, and their ashes barely remain to tell of their existence. Old notions of the earth and heavens went in, and vanished as their dupes gazed upon them.

Old religions, old G.o.ds, have become as the incense that was burned before their altars.

I purpose to try the Bible in its searching fire. Fear not, my brother: it can but burn the straw and stubble; if gold, it will s.h.i.+ne as bright after the fiery ordeal as before, and reflect as perfectly the image of truth.

The Bible abounds with marvellous stories,--stories that we should at once reject from their intrinsic improbability, not to say impossibility, if we should find them in any other book. But, among all the stories, there is none that equals the account of the deluge, as given in the sixth, seventh, and eighth chapters of Genesis. It towers above the rest as Mount Was.h.i.+ngton does above the New-England hills; and, as travellers delight to climb the loftiest peaks, I suppose that many would be pleased to examine this lofty story, and see how the world of truth and actuality looks from its summit.

According to the account, in less than two thousand years after G.o.d had created all things, and p.r.o.nounced them very good, he became thoroughly dissatisfied with every living thing, and determined to destroy them with the earth. He thus expresses himself: "I will destroy man, whom I have created, from the face of the earth,--both man and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them." Again he says to Noah, "The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them, and behold I will destroy them with the earth."

Why should the beasts, birds, and creeping things be destroyed? What had the larks, the doves, and the bob-o-links done? What had the squirrels and the tortoises been guilty of, that they should be destroyed?

He proceeds to inform Noah how he will do this: "And behold I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth shall die." And we are subsequently informed that "every thing that was in the dry land died." But why not every thing in the sea? Were the dogs sinners, and the dog-fish saints? Had the sheep been more guilty than the sharks? Had the pigeons become utterly corrupt, and the pikes remained perfectly innocent? It may be, that the apparent impossibility of drowning them by a flood suggested to the writer of the story the necessity of saving them alive.

But Noah was righteous; and G.o.d determined to save him and his family, eight persons, and by their instrumentality to save alive animals sufficient to stock the world again after its destruction.

To do this, Noah was commanded to build an ark, three hundred cubits long, fifty broad, and thirty high. It was to be made with three stories, and furnished with one door, and one window a cubit wide. Into this ark were to be taken two of every sort of living thing, and of clean beasts and of birds seven of every sort, male and female, and food sufficient for them all.

There are differences of opinion about the length of the cubit: most probably it was about eighteen inches; but taking it at twenty-two inches, the largest estimate that I believe theologians have made, the ark was then five hundred and fifty feet long, ninety-one feet eight inches broad, and fifty-five feet high. Leaving s.p.a.ce for the floors, which would need to be very strong, each story was about seventeen feet high; and the total cubical contents of the ark were about one hundred and two thousand cubic yards. Scott, in his commentary, makes it as small as sixty-nine thousand one hundred and twenty yards; but the necessity for room was not as well understood in his day. Each floor of the ark contained five thousand six hundred and one square yards, and the three floors sixteen thousand eight hundred and three square yards, the total standing-room of the ark.

Into this were to be taken fourteen of each kind of fowl of the air or bird. How many kinds or species of birds are there? When Adam Clarke wrote his commentary, two thousand three hundred and seventy-two species had been recognized. Ornithology was then but in its infancy, and man's knowledge of living forms was very limited. Lesson, according to Hugh Miller, enumerates the birds at six thousand two hundred and sixty-six species; Gray, in his "Genera of Birds," estimates the number on the globe at eight thousand. Let us not crowd Noah, but take the six thousand two hundred and sixty-six species of Lesson. Fourteen of each of these would give us eighty-seven thousand seven hundred and twenty-four birds,--from the humming-bird, the little flying jewel, to the ostrich that fans the heated air of the desert,--or over five for every yard of standing-room in the ark. If s.p.a.ces were left for the attendants to pa.s.s among them, to attend to the supply of their daily wants, the birds alone would crowd the ark.

But, beside the birds, there were to be taken into the ark two of every sort of unclean beast and fourteen of every sort of clean beast. The most recent zoological authorities enumerate two thousand and sixty-seven species of mammals, or, as they are commonly called, beasts.

Of cetacea, or whale-like mammals, sixty-five; ruminantia, or cud-chewers, one hundred and seventy-seven; pachydermata, or thick-skinned mammals, such as the horse, hog, and elephant, forty-one; edentata, like the sloth and ant-eater, thirty-five; rodentia, or gnawers, such as the rat, squirrel, and beaver, six hundred and seventeen; carnivora, or flesh-eaters, four hundred and forty-six; cheiroptera, or bats, three hundred and twenty-eight; quadrumana, or monkeys, two hundred and twenty-one; and marsupialia, or pouched mammals, like the opossum and kangaroo, one hundred and thirty-seven. If we leave out the cetacea, that live in the water, and the cud-chewers, which are the clean beasts, we have one thousand eight hundred and twenty-five species; and male and female of these, a total of three thousand six hundred and fifty.

But, besides these, there were to be taken into the ark fourteen of every kind of clean beast. And what are clean beasts? The scriptural answer is, animals that divide the hoof and chew the cud; and of these at least one hundred and seventy-seven species are known. Fourteen of each of these added, make a total of six thousand one hundred and twenty-eight mammals, from the mouse to the elephant. These beasts could not be piled one upon another like cord-wood; they could not be promiscuously crowded together. The sheep would need careful protection from the lions, tigers, and wolves; the elephant and other ponderous beasts would require stalls of great thickness; much room would be required to enable them to obtain needful exercise, and for the attendants to supply them with food and water; and a vessel of the size of the ark would be taxed to provide for these beasts alone; and to crowd in, and preserve alive, beasts and birds, was an absolute impossibility.

But there are of reptiles six hundred and fifty-seven species; and Noah was to take into the ark two of every sort of creeping thing. Two hundred of these reptiles are, however, aquatic: hence water would not seriously affect them; but crocodiles, lizards, iguanas, tree-frogs, horned frogs, thunder-snakes, chicken-snakes, brittlesnakes, rattlesnakes, copperheads, asps, cobras de capello, whose bite is certain death, and a host of others, must be provided for. It would not do to allow these disagreeable individuals to crawl about the ark; and nine hundred and fourteen of them would require considerable s.p.a.ce, whether they could obtain it or not.

By this time, the ark is doubly crowded; but its living cargo is not yet completed. A dense cloud of insects, and a vast army dest.i.tute of wings, make their appearance, and clamor for admission. The number of articulates that must have been provided for is estimated at seven hundred and fifty thousand species,--from the b.u.t.terflies of Brazil, fourteen inches from the tip of one wing to the tip of the other, to the almost invisible gnat, that dances in the summer's beam. Ants, beetles, flies, bugs, fleas, mosquitoes, wasps, bees, moths, b.u.t.terflies, spiders, scorpions, gra.s.shoppers, locusts, myriapods, canker-worms, wriggling, crawling, creeping, flying, male and female, here they come, and all must be provided for.

Nor are these the last. The air-breathing land-snails, of which we know four thousand six hundred species, could never have survived a twelve months' soaking; and they must therefore be cared for. The nine thousand two hundred of these add no little to the discomfort of the trebly-crowded ark.

Now let the flood come: all are lodged in the ark of safety, and are ready for a year's voyage. But we forget: the ark has not yet received one-half of its cargo. The command given unto Noah was, "Take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee; and it shall be for food for thee and for them;" and we are expressly told that "according to all that G.o.d commanded Noah, so did he."

Food for how long? The flood began in the "sixth hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month."

Noah, his family, and the animals, went in seven days before this time, and left the ark the six hundred and first year of Noah's life, the second month, and the twenty-seventh day of the month. They were therefore in the ark for one year and seventeen days.

What a quant.i.ty of hay would be required, the material most easily obtained! An elephant eats four hundred pounds of hay in twenty-four hours. Since there are two species of elephants, the African and the Indian, there must have been four elephants in the ark; and, supposing them to live upon hay, they would require three hundred tons. There are at least seven species of the rhinoceros; and fourteen of these, at seventy-five tons each, would consume no less than one thousand and fifty tons. The two thousand four hundred and seventy-eight clean beasts,--oxen, elk, giraffes, camels, deer, antelope, sheep, goats, with the horses, zebras, a.s.ses, hippopotami, rodents, and marsupials--could not have required less than four thousand five hundred tons; making a total of five thousand eight hundred and fifty tons. A ton of hay occupies about eighteen cubic yards; and the quant.i.ty of hay required would fill a hundred and five thousand three hundred cubic yards of s.p.a.ce, or more than the entire capacity of the ark.

If these animals were fed on other substances than hay, the extra difficulty of obtaining and preserving those substances would counterbalance any advantage that might be gained by the economy of s.p.a.ce.

A vast quant.i.ty of grain would be necessary for thousands of birds, rodents, marsupials, and other animals; and large granaries would be required for its storage.

What flesh would be needed for the lions, tigers, leopards, ounces, wild-cats, wolves, bears, hyenas, jackals, dogs, and foxes, martens, weasels, eagles, condors, vultures, buzzards, falcons, hawks, kites, owls, as well as crocodiles and serpents! Not one but would eat its weight in a month, and some much more. A full-grown lion eats fifteen pounds of flesh in a day: there are two species of lions; and the four would eat twenty-two thousand pounds in a year. There would be, at least, three thousand animals feeding upon flesh; and, if we calculate that they averaged two pounds of flesh a day, this would give a total of more than two million and a quarter pounds of flesh to be stored up and distributed. And since dried, salted, or smoked meat would not answer, this flesh must have been taken into the ark alive. It would be equal to more than thirty thousand sheep at seventy-five pounds each; a great addition to the original cargo, and necessitating an extra quant.i.ty of hay for their food, till their turn came to be eaten.

Fish would be required for the otters, minks, pelicans, of which there are eight species, and must therefore have been fifty-six individuals in the ark; one hundred and five gulls, for there are fifteen species; one hundred and twelve cormorants, forty-nine gannets, one hundred and forty terns, two hundred and eighty-seven kingfishers, beside storks, herons, spoonbills, penguins, albatrosses, and a host of others; mollusks for the oyster-catcher, turnstone, and other birds.

The fish could not be preserved after death in any way to answer for food, and must therefore have been alive: large tanks for the purpose of keeping them would take up considerable of the ark's s.p.a.ce. The water in such tanks would soon become unfitted for the respiration of the fish, and there must have been some provision, by air-pumps or otherwise, for charging the water with the air essential to their existence.

Many animals live upon insects; and this must have been the most difficult part of the provision to procure. There are nineteen species of goatsuckers; and there must have been in the ark two hundred and sixty-six individuals. These birds feed upon flies, moths, beetles, and other insects. What an innumerable mult.i.tude must have been provided for the goatsuckers alone! But there are a hundred and thirty-seven species of fly-catchers; and Noah must have had a fly-catcher family of nineteen hundred and eighteen individuals to supply with appropriate food. There are thirty-seven species of bee-eaters; and there must have been five hundred and eighteen of these birds to supply with bees. A very large apiary would be required to supply their needs. But, beside these, insects for swallows, swifts, martins, shrikes, thrushes, orioles, sparrows, the beautiful trogans and jacamars, moles, shrews, hedgehogs, and a mult.i.tude of others, too numerous to mention, but not too numerous to eat. Ants, also, for the ant-eaters of America, the aard-vark of Africa, and the pangolin of Asia. The great ant-eater of South America is an animal sometimes measuring eight feet in length. It lives exclusively on ants, which it procures by tearing open their hills with its hooked claws, and then drawing its long tongue, which is covered with glutinous saliva, over the swarms which rush out to defend their dwelling. Many bushels of ants would be needed for the pair of ant-eaters before the ark landed on Ararat. How were all the insects caught, and kept for the use of all these animals for more than a year?

A hundred men could not catch a sufficient number in six months. And, if caught, how could they be preserved, together with the original stock of insects necessary to supply the world after the deluge? Some insects eat only bark; others, resinous secretions, the pith, solid wood, leaves, sap in the veins, as the aphid, flowers, pollen, and honey. Wood, bark, resin, and honey might have been supplied; but how could green leaves, sap, flowers and pollen, be furnished to those insects absolutely requiring them for existence? Thirty species of insects feed on the nettle, but not one of them could live on dried nettles. Rosel calculates that two hundred species subsist on the oak; but the oak must be in a growing condition to supply them with food. In no other way, then, could the insects have been preserved alive than by large green-houses, the heat so applied as to suit the plants of both temperate and tropical climates, and the insects so distributed among them, that each could obtain its appropriate nourishment.

Fruit would be necessary for the four hundred and forty-two monkeys, for the plantain-eaters, the fruit-pigeons of the Spice Islands that feed on nutmegs, for the toucans and the flocks of parrots, parroquets, c.o.c.katoos, and other fruit-eating birds. As they did not know how to can fruit in those days, and dried fruit would be altogether unsuitable, there must have been a large green-house for raising all manner of fruit necessary for the frugivorous mult.i.tude.

_How were the various animals obtained?_ The command given to Noah was, "Two of every sort shalt thou _bring_ into the ark."

Animals, as is now well known, belong to limited centres, outside of which they are never found in a natural state; and naturalists know that these centres were established ages before the time when the deluge is supposed to have occurred.

Thus, Hugh Miller, in his "Testimony of the Rocks," says, "We now know that every great continent has its own peculiar fauna; that the original centres of distribution must have been, not one, but many; further, that the areas or circles around these centres must have been occupied by their pristine animals in ages long anterior to that of the Noachian Deluge; nay, that in even the latter geologic ages they were preceded in them by animals of the same general type. There are fourteen such areas, or provinces, enumerated by the later naturalists;" and Cuvier, quoted by Miller, says, "The great continents contain species peculiar to each; insomuch, that whenever large countries, of this description, have been discovered, which their situation had kept isolated from the rest of the world, the cla.s.s of quadrupeds which they contained has been found extremely different from any that had existed elsewhere. Thus, when the Spaniards first penetrated into South America, they did not find a single species of quadruped the same as any of Europe, Asia, or Africa."

The white bear is never found except in the arctic regions; the great grizzly bear is only found in the neighborhood of the Rocky Mountains.

Nearly all the species of mammals found in Australia are confined to that country, as the wingless birds of New Zealand are confined to that, and the sloth, armadillo, and other animals, to South America.

A journey to the polar regions would be necessary to obtain the white bear, the musk-ox, of which seven would be required, since it is a clean beast; seven reindeer, likewise; the white fox, the polar hare, the lemming, and seven of each species of cormorant, gannet, penguin, petrel, and gull, some of which are as large as eagles, as well as mergansers, geese, and ducks, certain species of which are only found in the frigid zone. Noah or his agents must have discovered Greenland and North America thousands of years before Columbus was born: they must have preceded Behring, Parry, Ross, Kane, and Hayes in exploring the Arctic regions. They searched the ice-floes and numerous islands of the Arctic seas, snow-shoed, over the frozen _tundras_ of Siberia, to be certain that no living thing escaped them; then, after catching and caging all the animals, conveyed them, with all manner of food necessary for their sustenance, together with ice to temper the heat of the climate to which they were for more than a year to be exposed, returned to the nearest port, and, after a toilsome journey from the sea-coast to Armenia, arrived at their destination. How many of these animals would survive the journey? and, of those that did, how many would survive the change of climate and habits?

Another party must have visited temperate America; traversed New England in its length and breadth, forded wide streams, made their way through unbroken wildernesses, traversed the Great Lakes, roamed over the Rocky Mountains, and secured the black bear, cinnamon bear, wapiti or Canadian stag, the moose, American deer, antelope, mountain sheep, buffalo, opossum, rattlesnake, copperhead, and an innumerable mult.i.tude of other animals--insects birds, reptiles, and mammals, that are only to be found in the temperate regions of America.

A voyage to South America must have been made to obtain tapirs, pumas, peccaries, sloths, ant-eaters, armadillos, fourteen each of the llama, alpaca, and vicuna, beside monkeys, birds, and insects innumerable. A vessel nearly as large as "The Great Eastern" must have been employed, or a number of smaller ones, to accommodate the collectors, the animals, and food for a voyage across the Atlantic. There must have been, at least, a thousand men, wandering through the woods of Brazil, along the valley of the Amazon, the Orinoco, and the La Plata; paddling up the streams, scaling the mountains, roaming over the pampas, climbing the tall trees, turning over every stone and log, and exploring every nook, to discover the snails, bugs, insects, worms, reptiles, and other animals indigenous to South America, from the Isthmus to Tierra-del-fuego.

There must have been obtained four elephants, for there are two species, the Asiatic and the Indian; fourteen rhinoceroses, one of which is found only in South Africa, another in the island of Java, and a third in Sumatra; two hippopotami, and possibly four, for some authorities say there are two species. Fourteen giraffes, since they are clean beasts, must have been caught and driven from Central Africa (many more, indeed, must have been caught, that the required number might reach the ark and be preserved); twenty-eight camels, two hundred and eighty oxen (for there are twenty species, and they are clean); and no less than thirteen hundred and eighty-six deer and antelope, of which there are ninety-nine species recognized: these to be collected in various parts of Europe, Asia, Northern and Southern Africa, and America.

New Zealand must have been visited to obtain its wingless birds; Mauritius for its dodo, then living; Australia for its marsupials and other peculiar animals; and every large island, and most of the small ones, to obtain those forms of life that are only to be found in each.

From the island of Celebes, they must have taken the eighty species of birds that are confined to it, which would require them to catch, cage, feed, and convey eleven hundred and twenty specimens: a no small job of itself. Ten men that could accomplish that, and carry them safe to Armenia, would do all that men could do in ten years. From the Philippine Islands, the seventy-three species of hawks, parrots, and pigeons, peculiar to them; which would require, since fourteen of every kind of bird were to be taken into the ark, no less than one thousand and twenty-two specimens. From New Guinea, and the neighboring islands, two hundred and fifty-two of the magnificent birds of paradise, since there are eighteen species.

A faint idea of the difficulties encountered and overcome by Noah's agents may be gathered from what Wallace, in his recent work on the Malay Archipelago, informs us respecting these birds of paradise. "Five voyages to different parts of the district they inhabit, each occupying in its preparation and execution the larger part of a year, produced me only five species out of the fourteen known to exist in the New-Guinea district." If it took Wallace, with all the a.s.sistance that he had from various officials, five years to obtain five species, represented by dead birds, how long did it take Noah's agents to obtain eighteen species represented by two hundred and fifty-two live birds? Wallace could only obtain two alive, and for these he had to pay five hundred dollars.

If the antediluvian sinners were any thing like the modern ones, Noah must have been richer than the Rothschilds, or he never could have obtained their services; which he must have done, or it could never be truthfully said, "according to all that G.o.d commanded him, so did he."

The collection of the land-snails alone would be no small tax.

Seventy-four are peculiar to Great Britain: hence there must have been a hundred and forty-eight snails collected from that island. Six hundred species are found in Southern Europe alone, and twelve hundred must have been collected from there; eighty in Sicily, ten in Corsica, two hundred and sixty-four in the Madeira Islands, a hundred and twenty in the Canary Islands, twenty-six in St. Helena, sixty-three in Southern Africa, eighty-eight in Madagascar, a hundred and twelve in Ceylon, a hundred in New Zealand, and others on every large and some of the small islands of the globe. The world must have been circ.u.mnavigated many times before the vessel of Magellan was built, and every island visited and ransacked ages before the time of Captain Cook. But it seems surprising, since these voyages must have been performed by the sinful antediluvians, that they did not save themselves in their s.h.i.+ps when the flood came; for vessels that could perform such voyages would certainly have survived the flood more readily than the clumsy ark.

But was it really done? A thousand men in ten years, with all the appliances of modern art,--steamboats, railroads, ca.n.a.ls, coaches, and express companies,--could not accomplish it in ten years; nor ten times the number of men keep all the animals alive in one spot for one year, if they were collected together.

"But," says the Christian, "Noah never did collect them: no intelligent person in this day ever supposes that he did." What then? "The Bible expressly declares that 'they went in unto Noah into the ark.' By instinct, such as leads the swallow to take its distant flight at the approach of winter, they came from all parts of the globe to the ark of safety."

It is true that one account does say that they came in unto Noah, for there are two very different stories of the deluge mixed up in those chapters of Genesis; but, although flying birds might perform such a feat as going twelve thousand miles to the ark, which would be necessary for some, how could other animals get there? It would be impossible even for some birds. How could the ostriches of Africa, the emus of Australia, and the rheas of South America, get there,--birds that never fly? There are three species of the rhea, or South-American ostrich; and forty-two of these would have a journey of eight thousand miles before them, by the shortest route: but how could they cross the Atlantic? If they went by land, they must have traversed the length of the American continent, from Patagonia to Alaska, crossed at Behring's Strait when it was frozen, and then travelled diagonally across nearly the whole continent of Asia to Armenia, after a journey that must have required many months for its completion. The sloths, that have been confined to South America ever since the pliocene period at least, must have taken the same route. How they crossed the mountain streams, and lived when pa.s.sing over broad prairies, it would be difficult to say. A mile a day would be a rapid rate for these slow travellers, and it would therefore require about forty years for them to arrive at their destination. But, since the life of a sloth is not as long as this, they must have bequeathed their journey to their posterity, and they to their descendants, born on the way, who must have reached the ark before the door was closed. The land-snails must have met with still greater difficulties. Impelled by most wonderful instinct, they commenced their journey full a thousand years before the time; and their posterity of the five hundredth generation must have made their appearance, and been provided with a pa.s.sage by the venerable Noah.

Scott, who wrote a commentary on the Bible seventy or eighty years ago, must have seen some of these difficulties, though with nothing like the clearness with which science enables us to see them now. He says, "There must have been a very extraordinary miracle wrought, perhaps by the ministration of angels, in bringing two of every species to Noah, and rendering them submissive to him and peaceable with each other; yet it seems not to have made any impression on the hardened spectators."

Think of a troop of angels fly-catching, snail-seeking, and bug-hunting through all lands, lugging through the air, horses, giraffes, elephants, and rhinoceroses, and dropping them at the door of the ark. One has crossed the Atlantic with rattlesnakes, copperheads, and boas twined around him, almost crippling his wings with their snaky folds; and another with a brace of skunks, one under each wing, that the renewed world may not lack the fragrance of the old. What a subject for the pencil of a Raphael or Dore! Had the "hardened spectators" beheld such a scene as this, Noah and his cargo would have been cast out of the ark, and the sinners themselves, converted by this stupendous miracle, would have taken pa.s.sage therein.