ANTIDILUVIAN

ANTIDILUVIAN, something before the Deluge. See DELUGE.

In this Sense, those Generations from Adam, until Noah's Flood, are called Antediluvians; and those descended from Noah, to the present time, are called Postdiluvians. Dr. Burnet and Dr. Woodward differ very widely about the Antediluvian World; the former imagines its Face and Appearance to have been smooth, equable, and in all respects different from what we now find them to be. The latter, on the contrary, endeavors to prove that the Face of the terraqueous Globe before the Deluge was the same as it is now, viz. unequal, distinguished into Mountains and Dales, and having likewise a Sea, Lakes, and Rivers; that this Sea was salt as ours is; was subject to Tides; possessed nearly the same Space and Extent that it now does; and that the Antediluvian World was stocked with Animals, Vegetables, Metals, Minerals, etc.; that it had the same Position in respect of the Sun which ours now has, its Axis not being parallel, but inclined, as at present, to the Plane of the Ecliptic; consequently, that there were then the same Succession of Weather, and the same Vicissitudes of Seasons, as now. See TERRAQUEOUS, MOUNTAIN, etc. See also FOSSIL, etc.

ANTIDILUVIAN