ragged rocks: it did not shock the view with horrid precipices, huge
chasms, or dreary caverns: with deep, impassable morasses, or deserts
of barren sands. We have not any authority to say, with some learned and
ingenious authors, that there were no _mountains_ on the original earth,
no unevennesses on its surface, yet it is highly probable that they rose
and fell, by almost insensible degrees.

"There were no agitations within the bowels of the globe: no violent
convulsions: no concussions of the earth: no earthquakes: but all was
unmoved as the pillars of heaven. There were then no such things as
eruptions of fire: there were no volcanoes, or burning mountains.
Neither Vesuvius, Etna, nor Hecla, if they had any being, then poured
out smoke and flame, but were covered with a verdant mantle, from the
top to the bottom.

"It is probable there was no external sea in the paradisiacal earth:
none, until the great deep burst the barriers which were originally
appointed for it; indeed there was not then that need of the ocean for
_navigation_ which there is now. For either every country produced
whatever was requisite either for the necessity or comfort of its
inhabitants; or man being then (as he will be again at the resurrection)
equal to the angels, was able to convey himself, at his pleasure, to any
given distance.

"There were no putrid lakes, no turbid or stagnating waters. The element
of _air_ was then always serene, and always friendly to man. It
contained no frightful meteors, no unwholesome vapors, no poisonous
exhalations. There were no tempests, but only cool and gentle breezes,
fanning both man and beast, and wafting the fragrant odors on their
silent wings.