Now if our explanation of the creation of the world may appear contrary to experience, (because it is evident that all the waters did not flow together in one place,) many answers may be made, all obvious as soon as they are stated.  Perhaps it is even ridiculous to reply to such objections.  Ought they to bring forward in opposition ponds and accumulations of rain water, and think that this is enough to upset our reasonings?  Evidently the chief and most complete affluence of the waters was what received the name of gathering unto one place.  For wells are also gathering places for water, made by the hand of man to receive the moisture diffused in the hollow of the earth.  This name of gathering does not mean any chance massing of water, but the greatest and most important one, wherein the element is shewn collected together.  In the same way that fire, in spite of its being divided into minute particles which are sufficient for our needs here, is spread in a mass in the æther; in the same way that air, in spite of a like minute division, has occupied the region round the earth; so also water, in spite of the small amount spread abroad everywhere, only forms one gathering together, that which separates the whole element from the rest.  Without doubt the lakes as well those of the northern regions and those that are to be found in Greece, in Macedonia, in Bithynia and in Palestine, are gatherings together of waters; but here it means the greatest of all, that gathering the extent of which equals that of the earth.  The first contain a great quantity of water; no one will deny this.  Nevertheless no one could reasonably give them the name of seas, not even if they are like the great sea, charged with salt and sand.  They instance for example, the Lacus Asphaltitis in Judæa, and the Serbonian lake which extends between Egypt and Palestine in the Arabian desert.  These are lakes, and there is only one sea, as those affirm who have travelled round the earth.  Although some authorities think the Hyrcanian and Caspian Seas are enclosed in their own boundaries, if we are to believe the geographers, they communicate with each other and together discharge themselves into the Great Sea. Pliny (vi. 15) shared a common error that the Caspian flowed into a Northern Sea.  The eastern part was known as the Hyrcanian, the western as the Caspian.  Strabo xi. 507, et sq.  It is thus that, according to their account, the Red Sea and that beyond Gadeira only form one.  Then why did God call the different masses of water seas?  This is the reason; the waters flowed into one place, and their different accumulations, that is to say, the gulfs that the earth embraced in her folds, received from the Lord the name of seas:  North Sea, South Sea, Eastern Sea, and Western Sea.  The seas have even their own names, the Euxine, the Propontis, the Hellespont, the Ægean, the Ionian, the Sardinian, the Sicilian, the Tyrrhene, and many other names of which an exact enumeration would now be too long, and quite out of place.  See why God calls the gathering together of waters seas.  But let us return to the point from which the course of my argument has diverted me.