the water, of whatever description. The identity of the name with that of the wicker basket in which Mo- ses was exposed on the Nile has led some to suppose that the ark of Noah was also of wicker-work, cr rather was wattled and smeared over with bitumen (Auth. Vers, "pitch," Gen. vi, 14). This is not impossible, seeing that vessels of considerable burden are thus con- structed at the present day ; but there is no sufficient authority for carrying the analogy to this extent.
The boat-like form of the ark, which repeated pic- torial representations have rendered familiar, is fitted for progression and for cutting the waves ; whereas the ark of Noah was really destined to float idly upon ■ the waters, without any other motion than that which it received from them. If we examine the passage in Gen. vi, 14-16, we can only draw from it the conclu- sion that the ark was not a boat or ship ; but, as Dr. Robinson (in Calmet's Diet. s. v.) describes it, "a building in the form of a parallelogram, 300 cubits long, 50 cubits broad, and 30 cubits high. The length of the cubit, in the great variety of measures that bore this name, it is impossible to ascertain and useless to conjecture. So far as the name affords any evidence, it also goes to show that the ark of Noah was not a regularly-built vessel, but merely intended to float at large upon the waters. We may, therefore, probably with justice, regard it as a large oblong, floating house, with a roof either flat or only slightly inclined. It was constructed with three stories, and had a door in the side. There is no mention of windows in the side, but above, i. e. probably in the flat roof, where Noah was commanded to make them of a cubit in size (Gen. vi, 16). That this is the meaning of the passage seems apparent from Gen. viii, 13, where Noah removes the covering of the ark in order to ascertain whether the ground was dry — a Tabor unnecessary, surely, had there been windows in the sides of the ark."
The purpose of this ark was to preserve certain per- sons and animals from the deluge with which God in- tended to overwhelm the land, in punishment for man's iniquities. The persons were eight — Noah and his wife, with his three sons and their wives (Gen. vii, 7 ; 2 Pet. ii, 5). The animals were, one pair of every " unclean" animal, and seven pairs of all that were " clean." P/y "clean" we understand fit, and by " un- clean" unfit, for food or sacrifice. Of birds there were seven pairs (Gen. vii, 2, 3). Those who have written professedly and largely on the subject have been at great pains to provide for all the existing species of animals in the ark of Noah, showing how they might be distributed, fed, and otherwise provided for. But they are very far from having cleared the matter of all its difficulties, which are much greater than they, in their general ignorance of natural history, were aware of. These difficulties, however, chiefly arise from the assumption that the species of all the earth were collected in the ark. The number of such spe- cies has been vastly underrated by these writers, partly from ignorance, and partly from the desire to limit the number for which they imagined they were required to provide. They have usually satisfied themselves with a provision for three or four hundred species at most. " But of the existing mammalia considerably more than one thousand species are known ; of birds, fully five thousand ; of reptiles, very few kinds of which can live in water, two thousand ; and the researches of travellers and naturalists are making frequent and most interesting additions to the number of these and all other classes. Of insects (using the word in the popular sense) the number of species is immense; to say one hundred thousand would be moderate : each has its appropriate habitation and food, and these are necessary to its life ; and the larger number could not live, in water. Also the innumerable millions upon millions of animalcules must be provided for, for they have all their appropriate and diversified places and circumstances of existence" (Dr. J. Pye Smith, On
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