water in our atmosphere comes from the
sea, by evaporation; and the quantity is too insignificant to cover the
globe to any considerable depth. Divines and philosophers were perplexed
to give any adequate explanation of this language, and considered it
simply as Noah's description of the appearance of things as viewed from
the ark, rather than an accurate explanation of the actual causes of the
deluge. Now, it is certainly true, that the Bible does describe things
as they appear to men. It is, however, beginning to be discovered, that
these popular appearances are closely connected with philosophical
reality. Our purblind astronomy and prattling geology may be as
inadequate to expound the mysteries of the Bible philosophy as was the
incoherent science of Strabo and Ptolemy. The experience of another
planet, now transacting before our eyes, admonishes us not to limit the
resources of Omnipotence by our narrow experience, or to suppose that
our young science has catalogued all the weapons in the arsenal of the
Almighty.

The planet Saturn is surrounded by a revolving belt, consisting of
several distinct rings, containing an area a hundred and forty-six times
greater than the surface of our globe, with a thickness of a hundred
miles. From mechanical considerations it had been proved, that these
rings could not be of a uniform thickness all around, else when a
majority of his seven moons were on the same side, the attraction would
draw them in upon him, on the opposite side; and once attracted to his
surface, they could never get loose again, if they were solid.[283] It
was next ascertained that the motions of the moons and of the rings were
such, that if the inequality was always in the same place, the same
result must follow; so that the ring must be capable of changing its
thickness, according to circumstances. It must be either composed of an
immense number of small solid bodies, capable of shifting freely about
among themselves, or else be fluid. Finally, it has been demonstrated
that this last is the fact; that the density of this celestial ocean is
nearly that of water; and that the inner portion, at least, is so
transparent, that the planet has been seen through it.[284] "The ring of
Saturn is, then, a stream or streams of fluid, rather denser than water,
flowing about the primary."[285] The extraordinary fact, which shows us
how God can deluge a planet when he pleases, I give not in the words of
a divine, but of a