Deluge

(dělyūj.) [Fr., from L. diluvium.] (Script.) The narrative of a flood, given in the book of Genesis (vii. and viii.), by which, according to the literal sense of the description, the whole world was overwhelmed and every terrestrial creature destroyed, with the exception of one human family and the representatives of each species of animal, supernaturally preserved in an ark constructed by divine appointment for the purpose. As we have no evidence whatever of any great aqueous revolution at any comparatively recent period having affected the earth's surface over any considerable tract, it is po ible that in this case, as in other similar pa ages of Scripture, the word whole is used to expre a great extent, perhaps only the whole inhabited world, which, at the alleged era of the D., did not probably extend beyond a comparatively limited district of [s. 274]