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poured, from a gaping precipice, a torrent of ftreams; and fee from the reverfe of an oppofite hill, an impetuous flood, defcending from the top to the finest points of view, in the wildeft glins below.

• What line I had with me, for experiments on waters and holes, I applied to this loch, to discover the depth, but with three hundred yards of whip-cord my lead could reach no ground, and from thence, and the blackness of the water, and the great iffuing ftream, I concluded, juftly I think, that it went down to the great abyfs, the vaft treasury of waters within the earth. Many fuch unfathomable lochs as this have I feen, on the fummits of mountains, in various parts of the world; and from them, I fuppofe, the greatest part of that deluge of waters came that drowned the old world. This leads me to fay fomething of the flood.

• Many books have been written in relation to this affair, and while fome contend for the overflowing of the whole earth to a very great heighth of waters--and fome for a partial deluge only-others will not allow there was any at all. The divine authority of Mofes they difregard. For my part, I believe the flood was univerfal, and that all the high hills and mountains under the whole heaven, were covered. The caufe was forty days heavy rain, and fuch an ⚫ agitation of the abyss by the finger of God, as not only • broke up the great deep, to pour out water at many places, ⚫ but forced it out at fuch bottomless lochs as this I am speaking of on the mountains top, and from various swallows in many places. This removes every objection from the cafe of the deluge, and gives water enough in the space of one hundred and fifty days, or five months, of thirty days eath, to overtop the higheft mountains by fifteen cubits, the heighth defigned. The abyfs in ftrong commotion, or violent uproar, by a power divine, could thake the incum bent globe to pieces in a few minutes, and bury the whole ruins in the deep. To me, then, all the reafoning against the deluge, or for a partial flood, appear fad ftuff. Were this one loch in Stainmore to pour out torrents of water, down every fide, for five months, by a divine force on part of the abyss, as it might very eafily by fuch means do, the ⚫ inundation would cover a great part of this land; and if from every loch of the kind on the fummits of mountains, the waters, in like manner, with the greatest violence, flowed from every fide out of the abyss, and that exclufive of the heavy rains, an earthquake fhould open some parts of the ground, to let more water out of the great collec

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tion, and the feas and oceans furpass their natural bounds, by the winds forcing them over the earth, then would a uni• verfal flood very foon prevail. There is water enough for the purpofe, and as to the fupernatural afcent of them, natural and fupernatural are nothing at all different with refpect to God. They are diftinctions merely in our conceptions of things. Regularly to move the fun or earth, and to ftop its motion for a day;-to make the waters that covered the ⚫ whole earth at the creation, defcend into the feveral receptacles prepared for them; and at the deluge to make them ⚫ ascend again to cover the whole earth, are the effect of one ⚫ and the fame Almighty Power; though we call one natural, ⚫ and the other fupernatural. The one is the effect of no greater power than the other. With refpect to God, one is not more or lefs natural, or fupernatural, than the other.

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But how the waters of the deluge were drawn off at the end of the five months, is another question among the learned. The ingenious Keile, who writ against the two ingenious Theorists, fays the thing is not at all accountable in any natural way: the draining off, and drying of the earth ⚫ of fuch a huge column of waters, could only be effected by the power of God: natural caufes both in decrease, and the < increase of the waters, must have been vaftly disproportion⚫ate to the effects; and to miracles they must be ascribed.This, I think, is as far from the truth, as the Theorists afcribing both increase and decrease to natural caufes. God was the performer, to be fure, in the flood, and the going off, but •he made ufe of natural caufes in both, that is, of the things he had in the beginning created. The natural caufes he is "the author of were at hand, and with them he could do the work. The fun evaporated; the winds dried; and the waters, no longer forced upwards from the abyfs, fubfided into the many swallows, or fwallow-holes, that are still to be seen in many places, on mountains, and in vallies; thofe on the mountains being neceffary to abforb that vaft column of waters, which rose fifteen cubits above the highest hills.

Alfwallow is fuch another opening in the ground as Elden-hole, in Derbyshire, and in travelling from the Peak

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"Elden-hole, in Derbyshire, is a mile fouth of Mam-torr, and four miles of Buxton. It is a perpendicular gulph, or chaẩm, which I tried to fathom more than once, and found it by my line, and by the measure of found, (at the rate of fixteen feet, one twelfth, in one fecond, the measure Dr. Halley allows near the -ɔallow sucre sul to me 39 3.

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to the northern extremity of Northumberland, I have seen < many fuch holes in the earth, both on the hills, and in the vales. I have likewife met with them in other countries. By these swallows, a vast quantity of the waters, to be fure, • went down to the great receptacle; all that was not exhaled, < or licked up by the winds; or, except what might be left to increase the former feas of the antediluvian world into those vaft oceans which now encompass the globe, and partly to • form those vaft lakes that are in several parts of the world. These things eafily account for the removal of that vast mass <of waters which covered the earth, and was in a mighty column above the higheft hills. Every difficulty difappears < before evaporation, the drying winds, the fwallows, and perhaps, the turning feas into oceans: but the three first things • now named were fufficient, and the gentlemen who have ⚫ reasoned fo ingeniously against one another about the removal of the waters, might have faved themselves a of trouble, if they had reduced the operation to three fimple to the great deal things, under the direction of the First Caufe. The fwallows efpecially muft do great work in the cafe, if we take into their number not only very many open gulphs, or chafms, the depth of which no line or found can reach; but likewife the communications of very many parts of the fea, and of many great unfathomable lochs, with the abyss. abforbers could eafily receive what had before come out of ⚫ them. The fun by evaporation, with the wind, might take away what was raifed. There is nothing hard, then, in conceiving how the waters of the deluge were brought away.

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But as to the lake I have mentioned, into which a rapid flood poured from the bowels of the mountain, what became ⚫ of this water the reader may enquire? To be fure, as it did not run off in any ftreams, nor make the lake rife in the leaft degree, there must have been a communication in fome 6 parts of its bottom, between the water of it and the abyss. As the loch on the top of the mountain I have defcribed,

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earth, for the defcent of heavy bodies) to be 1266 feet, or 422 yards, down to the water; but how deep the water is, cannot be known. I fuppofe, it reaches to the abyfs. This chafm is forty yards long above ground, and ten over at its broadest part: but ⚫ from the day there is a floping defcent of forty yards to the mouth ⚫ of the horrible pit, and this is only four yards long, and one and 4 an half broad. Two villains who were executed at Derby not • long ago, confeffed at the gallows, that they threw a poor traveller ♦ into this dreadful gulph, after they had robbed him.

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had no feeders, yet emitted ftreams, and therefore must be fupported by the abyfs; fo this lake, with fo powerful a feeder, not running over, or emitting water any way, muft difcharge itfelf in the abyfs below. The cafe of it must be the fame as that of the Cafpian fea. Into this fea many rivers pour, and one in particular, the Volga I mean, that is more than fufficient, in the quantity of water it turns out in a year, to drown the whole world. Yet the Cafpian remains in one ftate, and does not overflow its banks, excepting, as before obferved, fometimes, in the fpace of. 16 years. It muft by paffages communicate with the great deep. It refunds the rivers into the great abyfs. The cafe of the Mediterranean fea is the fame; for, though a ftrong current from "the Atlantic continually fets through the Strait of Gibraltar, 6 yet thefe waters do not make it overflow the country round it, and of confequence, they must be carried off by a fubterranean paffage, or paffages, to the abyss.'

From the lake our Author proceeded the next morning towards the North-eaft end of Weftmorland; and in pursuance of his rout, he meets with variety of amazing scenes; and is abfolutely bewildered and loft among the moft furprizing and ftupendous mountains, vales, woods, rivers, precipices, and

In the most unfrequented part of all this wondrous wafte, however, he at length happily arrives at a furprizing kind of natural grotto: a perfect Paradife, inhabited only by women-and, indeed, as that was the cafe, how could it be any other than a Paradife?

An old woman, who feems to have officiated as porter, welcomed Mr. Buncle to this North-of-England Eden, gave him an account of the place, and told him it was called Burcott-lodge.

Here our Author takes a very material point for granted, but which, we imagine, ought rather to have been proved. He fays, he faw a loch on the top of a mountain-He fays, too, that he has feen many fuch-which had no feeders. This, however, is not fufficient to establish a fact that is generally denied by the belt Naturalifts. They will not allow, that fuch waters are any where to be met with on the actual fummits of hills, or mountains; but that, on examination, they are always found to lie lower than the very fummit: and they affirm, that, in fact, fuch waters, or fountains, have the ftreams iffuing from the ftrata that lie above their leve', for their feeders; or, that they are fupplied from fome higher adjacent hill, whofe waters finking into the earth, rife again, by the fountains, or lochs, in question, to nearly the fame height from which they before defcended.

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"We are an hundred fouls in all, that live here, faid fhe, "and our Mistress, Superior and Head, is a young woman. "Her name is Azora. Yonder fhe comes, goodness itself, "and as it is now feven in the evening, too late to proceed "any farther in this part of the world, you had better walk up "to her, and pay her your refpects." Great was my furprize. at what I heard. A little female republic among those hills < was news indeed: and when I came near Azora, my aftonifhment increased.

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She was attended by ten young women, ftrait, clean, handsome girls, and furpaffed them in tallness. Her coun⚫tenance was masculine, but not auftere: her fine blue eyes • discovered an excellence of temper, while they fhewed the penetration of her mind. Her hair was brown, bright, and charming; and nature had stamped upon her cheeks a colour that exceeded the most beautiful red of the finest flower. It was continually as the maiden-blush of a modest inno- cence. She was dreffed in a fine woollen ftuff, made in the ⚫ manner shepherdeffes are painted, and on her head had a band, or fillet, like what the ladies now wear, with a bunch of artificial flowers in her hair. She had a very small straw hat on.-In her hand, fhe held a long and pretty crook: and as her coats were fhort, her feet was feen in black filk fhoes, and the finest white stockings, and appeared vaftly pretty. She ftruck me greatly. She was a charming, and • uncommon figure.'

After fome proper questions on the part of the lady, and fatisfactory answers on the part of the gentleman, the latter was invited, by the hofpitable fair, to make that place his inn, till he was refreshed, and able to proceed on his journey. And now comes a full and true account of this uncommon female community, which takes up near fixty pages of these Memoirs, The ladies were not lefs beautiful, learned, and pious, than Mr. Buncle's ladies ufually are; and, befides being deeply fkilled in religion, the Principal, and one or two others, were furprizing adepts in mathematics. In a word, those who have a tafte for things extremely ftrange and furprizing, will find great entertainment in this part of our Author's work.

From Burcott-lodge our Traveller-errant wanders away, over hill and dale, continuing his look-out for the house of his friend Turner; much in the fame manner that your Knights of old proceeded in fearch of ftray damfels and captive-princeffes. The farther Mr. Buncle goes, the more wonders he meets with; till at length a cataract had like to have swept away his trufty 'Squire, O'Fin. This accident gives rife to

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