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lie still supposed that the testimonies brouglit forward b}*- him for a liigher
water-level in former times refer to the same llood. I11 the dedication to
ririca Eleonora3 he indeed only savs that he wislies to furnish some ncw
prool’s that Sweden in former davs had been covered by water and that
on aceount of the abatement of the water it subsecpiently became larger
and larger, even up to the present time of the Queen’s reign. In the
preface5, on the other hånd, he starts out from the biblical aceount and
takes his point of departure in his treatise witli this, that although no
one denies that the universal flood has stood over the earth, nevertheless
worldly wisdom also wislies to have a word to sav in the matter, and
thcrefore slie investigates and gathers proofs from the things which the llood
has left behind. In but two places in the work itself is the universal
llood of the Bible again mentioned, and only two vears later he
expres-ses56 in his letter to Jacob a Melle, which will be mentioned further
on, his doubts as to how far all the facts brouglit forward refer to the
above mentioned flood, which indeed, says Swedexborg, lasted but
one year.
As concerns the fossils, Swedexborg seems from the very beginning
to have clearly understood tlieir real nature, which indeed was at that
time almost generally acknowledged. But as an independent geological
science was not then in existence, tliere was not vet any idea about the
respective ages of the fossils, and the facts brouglit forward by
Swedexborg, which demonstrate a liigher water-level in former times, are in
rea-lity in relation to one another of as different ages as tliey could possibly
be, for some come from the silurian, otliers from the glacial and
postglacial periods.
If from the modern standpoint we attempt to analyse the proofs
mentioned by Swedexborg, we tind, as is natural, tliat some of them
cannot be regarded as valid, wliile on the other hånd otliers are still
valid. Thus7, when he wislies to conclude from the position of Kinnekulle
between Hunneberg and Billingen that Kinnekulle arose through the
deposition of the strata in a calm water between the mountains mentioned,
he has certainlv failed to see tliat tliese were in realitv formed at the same
time as Kinnekulle and did not exist before it. On the other hånd, he is
on the right track when he points to the different horisontal strata, of
which Kinnekulle consistss, as proofs that they were deposited in water.
geological coutributions by Swedexborg, may be consulted in Part I. of Scientific and
Philoaophical Treatises by Emanuel Swedenborg, edited by Alfred H. Stroh, and
pub-lished by the Swedenborg Scientific Association, Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania, 190fi—1908.
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