Thus, in the immediate vicinity of the vast expanse of country
which can be proved to have been untouched by any catastrophe
before, during, and since the "glacial epoch," lie the great
areas of the AEgean and the Red Sea, in which, during or since
the glacial epoch, changes of the relative positions of land and
sea have taken place, in comparison with which the submergence
of Moel Tryfaen, with all Wales and Scotland to boot, does not
come to much.

What, then, is the relevancy of talk about the "glacial epoch"
to the question of the historical veracity of the narrator of
the story of the Noachian deluge? So far as my knowledge goes,
there is not a particle of evidence that destructive inundations
were more common, over the general surface of the earth, in the
glacial epoch than they have been before or since. No doubt the
fringe of an ice-covered region must be always liable to them;
but, if we examine the records of such catastrophes in
historical times, those produced in the deltas of great rivers,
or in lowlands like Holland, by sudden floods, combined with
gales of wind or with unusual tides, far excel all others.

With respect to such inundations as are the consequences of
earthquakes, and other slight movements of the crust of the
earth, I have never heard of anything to show that they were
more frequent and severer in the quaternary or tertiary epochs
than they are now. In the discussion of these, as of all other
geological problems, the appeal to needless catastrophes is born
of that impatience of the slow and painful search after
sufficient causes, in the ordinary course of nature, which is a