I Shall now Discourse a little concerning such Changes as have been made in the Superficial part of the Earth since the Universal Deluge, and of their Causes.
That there have been such I think no sober and intelligent Person can deny, there being so good Authority and Reason to prove it. Plato in his Timaeus tells us, That the Egyptian Priests related to Solon the Athenian Law-giver, who lived about 600 years before our Saviour, that there was of old time without the Straits of Gibraltar a vast Island, bigger then Africa and Asia together, called Atlantis, which was afterward by a violent Earthquake and mighty Flood, and Inundation of Water, in one day and night wholly overwhelmed and drown’d in the Sea. Whence it may be conjectured, that the Old and New World were at first continuous, or by the Intervention of that Island not very far remote from each other.
That the Island of Sicily was of old broken off from Italy by the irruption or insinuation of the Sea is generally believed, and there is some memorial thereof retained in the very name of the City Rhegium, standing upon the Fretum that separates Italy and Sicily, which signifies breaking off. —1 Zancle quoque juncta fuisse Dicitur Italiae, donec confinia pontus Abstulit, & mediâ tellurem reppulit undâ. In like manner the Island called Euboea now Negroponte, was of old joyned to Greece, and broken off by the working of the Sea.
Moreover, the Inhabitants of Ceylon report that their Island was anciently joyned to the Main-land of India, and separated from it by the force of the Sea.
It is also thought, and there is good ground for it, that the Island of Sumatra was anciently continuous with Malacca, and called the Golden Chersonese: for being beheld from afar, it seems to be united to Malacca.
And to come nearer home, Verstegan affirms, and not without good reason, that our Island of Great Britain, was anciently Continent to Gaule, and so no Island but a Peninsula, and to have been broken off from the Continent, but by what means it is in his judgment altogether uncertain: whether by some great Earthquake, whereby the Sea first breaking through might afterward by little and little enlarge her passage; or whether it were cut by the labour of Man in regard of commodity by that passage: or whether the Inhabitants of one side, or the other, by occasion of War did cut it, thereby to be sequestred and freed from their Enemies.
His Arguments to prove that it was formerly united to France, are, 1. The Cliffs on either side the Sea, lying just opposite the one to the other, that is, those of Dover to those lying between Callice and Bouloin, (for from Dover to Callice is not the nearest Land) being both of one Substance, that is, of Chalk and Flint. 2. The sides of both towards the Sea plainly appearing to have been broken off from some more of the same stuff or matter, that it hath sometime by Nature been fastned to. 3. The length of the said Cliffs along the Sea-shore being on one side answerable in effect to the length of the very like on the other side, that is, about six Miles. And 4. the nearness of Land between England and France in that place; the distance between both, as some skilful Sailers report. not exceeding 24. English Miles.
Some of the Ancients, as Strato, quoted by Strabo in the first Book of his Geography, say, That the Fretum Gaditanum or Strait of Gibraltar, was forcibly broken open by the Sea. The same they affirm of the Thracian Bosphorus and Hellespont, that the Rivers filling up the Euxine Sea, forced a passage that way, where there was none before. And in confirmation hereof, Diodorus Siculus in his Fifth Book gives us an Ancient Story current among the Samothracians, viz. That before any other Floods recorded in Histories, there was a very great Deluge that overflowed a good part of the Coast of Asia, and the lower Grounds of their Island, when the Euxine Sea first brake open the Thracian Bosphorus and Hellespont, and drowned all the adjacent Countries.
This Traditional Story I look upon as very considerable for its Antiquity and Probability, it seeming to contain something of truth. For it’s not unlikely that the Euxine Sea, being over-charged with Waters by extraordinary Floods, or driven with violent storms of Wind, might make its way through the Bosphorus and Hellespent. But it will be objected, That the Euxine Sea doth empty it self continually by the Bosphorus and Hellespont into the Mediterranean, and that if it had not this way of discharge (the Rivers bringing in more than is spent by vapour) it would soon overflow all its shores, and drown the circumjacent Countreys; and so it must have done soon after the Flood; and therefore it is not probable that Samothrace should have been inhabited before that irruption, if any such there were.