The existence of enormous caverns in the bowels of the earth, (so often imagined by authors,) appears to be no very extravagant assumption. It is true it cannot be proved, but in a sphere of eight thousand miles in diameter, it would appear in no way extraordinary, that many cavities might exist, which collectively, or even singly, might well contain much more than all our oceans, seas, and other superficial waters, none of which are probably more than a few miles in depth. If these cavities communicate in any manner with the oceans, and are (as if they exist at all, they probably are,) filled with water, there exist, we conceive, agents very competent to expel the water of these cavities, and thus to deluge, at any time, the dry land.”
The teachings of Hayden were favorably received by Hitchcock, Struder, and Hubbard, and many Europeans. They found a champion in Jackson, who states (1839):[[38]]
“From the observations made upon Mount Ktaadn, it is proved, that the current did rush over the summit of that lofty mountain, and consequently the diluvial waters rose to the height of more than 5,000 feet. Hence we are enabled to prove, that the ancient ocean, which rushed over the surface of the State, was at least a mile in depth, and its transporting power must have been greatly increased by its enormous pressure.”
Gibson, a student of western geology, reaches the same conclusion (1836):[[39]]
“That a wide-spread current, although not, as imagined, fed from an inland sea, once swept over the entire region between the Alleghany and the Rocky Mountains is established by plenary proof.”
Professor Sedgwick (1831) thought the sudden upheaval of mountains sufficient to have caused floods again and again. The strength of the belief in the Biblical flood, during the first quarter of the 19th century, may be represented by the following remarks of Phillips (1832):[[40]]
“Of many important facts which come under the consideration of geologists, the ‘Deluge’ is, perhaps, the most remarkable; and it is established by such clear and positive arguments, that if any one point of natural history may be considered as proved, the deluge must be admitted to have happened, because it has left full evidence in plain and characteristic effects upon the surface of the earth.”
However, the theory of deluges, whether of ocean or land streams, did not hold the field unopposed. In 1823, Granger,[[41]] an observer whose contributions to science total only six pages, speaks of the striæ on the shore of Lake Erie as
“having been formed by the powerful and continued attrition of some hard body.... To me, it does not seem possible that water under any circumstances, could have effected it. The flutings in width, depth, and direction, are as regular as if they had been cut out by a grooving plane. This, running water could not effect, nor could its operation have produced that glassy smoothness, which, in many parts, it still retains.”
Hayes and also Conrad expressed similar views in the Journal 16 years later.