eadths by finger-lengths and
_nails_; the untaught tiller of the soil still estimates the area of his
little field by _pacing_ along its sides. Man's first and most obvious
expedient, when he sets himself to measure, is to employ his own person
as his standard; and the first or common cubit was a measure of this
natural description equal in length to the extended fore-arm and hand.
All the other cubits were artificial compounds of after introduction;
and so, in the absence of direct evidence on the point, I accept the
most natural and oldest cubit as in all probability the one employed in
the oldest recorded piece of cubit measurement. And the ark, if measured
by the common or natural cubit, must have been a vessel four hundred and
fifty feet in length, seventy-five feet in breadth, and forty-five feet
in height. Dr. Kitto, however, though we find him remarking that in
computations of Scripture measures the cubit may be regarded as half a
yard (Sir Walter's estimate), adopts, in his own computation of the size
of the ark, without assigning any reason why, the palm-cubit, or cubit
of twenty-one inches and nearly nine lines (21.888 inches); and, waving
all controversy on the question, let us, for the argument's sake, admit
the larger measure. Let us,--however much inclined to hold with Raleigh,
Shuckford, and Hales,--agree with Dr. Kitto that the ark was five
hundred and forty-seven feet in length, by ninety-one feet in breadth.
Such dimensions, multiplied by three, the number of stories in the
vessel, would give an area equal to about one seventh that of the great
Crystal Palace of 1851. Or, to take a more definite illustration from
the same vast building, the area of the three floors of the ark, taken
together, would fall short by about twenty-eight thousand square feet of
that of the northern gallery of the Palace, which measured one thousand
eight hundred and forty-eight feet in length, by ninety-six feet in
breadth. And thus, yielding to our opponents their own large
measurements, let us now see whether the non-universality of the deluge
cannot be fairly predicated from the dimensions of the ark.

I may first remark, however, that measures so definite as those given by
Moses (definite, of course, if we waive the doubt regarding the cubit
employed) were effectual in setting the arithmeticians to work in all
ages of the Church, in order to determine whether all the animals in the
world, by sevens and by pairs, with food