and it is constantly referred to in Scripture as being still in existence, even as it was before. It is clear, therefore, that this is not the correct view of the subject, and that some other must be looked for.

There are two other ways of understanding it, either of which, or both, may be right, and may have actually held true at the time referred to.

1. There may have been at the time an eruption of molten matter. If such was really the case, the ejected matter would be seen flowing like water over the surface of the rocks, just, for instance, as it is in an eruption of Vesuvius, or of Etna, when the liquid lava is seen running in streams down the slopes of the mountains, and over the adjacent plains. And in connection with this thought, it may be well to remember that the Sinaitic rocks are for the most part granitic, and seeing that granite is an igneous rock, and that it is not all of the same antiquity, but is the product of various ages, some being comparatively recent, it is by no means improbable that there was an eruption of it, or of some kind of molten matter at this time. This idea is still farther favoured by the fact about to be presently noticed, that there were other phenomena beside the flowing down of

the mountains witnessed at this time, all of which are more or less associated, and which frequently, if not generally, accompany each other: e. g. tremblings of the earth, lightnings, eruptions of fire, flashes of fire, and rending of rocks. These, with the ejection of molten matter, may be regarded as so many associated phenomena, and they were all witnessed at Sinai at the time referred to.

2. But still I confess I am strongly disposed to question this view of the subject, and am much more inclined to believe that the wonderful phenomenon in question, viz. the flowing down of the rocks like water and like melted wax, was rather owing to the united action of the lightnings and the fire which were in operation at the time, and which were such terrible, but yet such apt and striking, emblems of His presence, who is declared to be "a consuming fire"! As we have already seen, the mountains themselves were not melted, and it, therefore, could only have been their surface that was so. Now it is a deeply interesting fact, that we have actual proof that rocks are fused, as well as shattered, by the intense

1

"In all times and countries there is a striking uniformity in the volcanic phenomena.”—LYELL, Principles, b. ii. ch. xxiv.

action of the electric fluid. And we are, moreover, fully justified, I conceive, in assuming from the language employed in the description of the scene that occurred at the time, as well as from the peculiar circumstances of the case, that the thunders and the lightnings that were witnessed at Sinai when Jehovah descended to earth to give His law to the children of men, were such as had not been witnessed before, even from the foundation of the world. "The hills melted like wax at the presence of the LORD, AT THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD OF THE WHOLE EARTH"! "The earth shook, the heavens also dropped at the presence of God: even Sinai itself was moved AT THE PRESENCE OF GOD, THE GOD OF ISRAEL!” 1 And seeing, moreover, that the "lightnings" and the "fire" which were then seen were all undoubtedly natural, — that is, were ordinary in kind, though extraordinary in degree,― we are justified in regarding their effects as also natural, or such as would have been produced by the same causes at any other time. It is therefore

1 The darkness, the hail, and the locusts, witnessed in Egypt at the Exode of Israel, though ordinary in kind, were exceptional or extraordinary in degree, in order to distinguish the event. The principle, therefore, assumed above in reference to the lightnings, &c., at Sinai, is distinctly recognised in Scripture. (See Ex. ix. 18, 24.)

an exceedingly important fact, that we have cases. recorded of the surface of rocks being actually fused by the action of even ordinary lightning, — ordinary, I mean, in degree or quantity. "Rocks and the tops of mountains often bear the marks of fusion from its intense heat, and occasionally vitreous tubes, descending many feet into banks of sand, mark its path. Dr. Fiedler exhibited several of these fulgurites in London of considerable length, which had been dug out of the sandy plains of Silesia and Eastern Prussia. One found at Paderborn was forty feet long." Instances of like kind will be found given in an interesting article "On Fossil Lightning," by Dr. G. D. Gibb, in "The Geologist" for May, 1859. The following is an extract from it:

"The evidence of the power of atmospheric electricity are at times made fearfully manifest during thunderstorms, when the electric fluid shatters rocks and scatters immense fragments to considerable distances, splitting and tearing up trees, levelling houses, fissuring thick walls, and melting substances which have been looked upon as infusible. Of the last, we have

1 Mrs. Somerville's "Connexion of the Physical Sciences," sec. xxviii. Ninth edition.

an illustration, according to Saussure, in the slaty hornblende on the Dôme du Gouté, one of the summits of Mont Blanc; he found, in 1787, vitreous blackish beads, of the size of hempseed, which were attributed most clearly to the effects of lightning. Ramond observed the entire surface of certain rocks on several summits of the Pyrenees, especially the Pic du Midi and Mount Perdu (the latter upwards of 11,000 feet high), and also the rock Sanadoire, in the Puy de Dôme, varnished with a coating of enamel, and covered with vitreous beads of the size of peas, the result of the same cause; the interior of the rock being found quite unchanged. On the summit of the Pico del Frayle, the highest pinnacle of the volcano Toluca, in Mexico, upwards of 15,000 feet in height, Humboldt noticed the electric effect of lightning. He brought away pieces of a mass of trachyte pierced by lightning, and glazed on the inside like lightning-tubes; in it the lightning had made cylindrical tubes three inches long, in such a manner that the upper and lower openings could be distinguished apart, the rock surrounding these openings being also vitrified. Arago refers to the vitrification of rock (without tubes), which has been seen at a vertical height of 26,650 feet, over an extensive surface, at the