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not only no single relic of the human frame, but in none, excepting the very latest, is there any vestige of a single quadruped contemporary with man, according to the Mosaic account of the Creation. All the strata moreover in which these organic remains have been imbedded are obviously prior in their formation to the disruption by which they have been rent asunder-it follows, therefore, that allowing these facts, some of the most tremendous convulsions which have dislocated the crust of the earth have actually taken place at periods when there existed no moral agent, and consequently that they may have been produced by other than moral causes. This is all that we contend for, and it is quite sufficient to overturn Mr. Gisborne's rash and unwarranted assertion, that any other cause is unassignable and impossible. But further: It is not beyond the limits of supposition that there may exist at present, or may be hereafter created, a planet, destined solely for the habitation of irrational, unaccountable, sinless creatures. It will then follow, according to Mr. Gisborne, independently of all testimony on the subject, that the surface of such a planet shall, from the necessity of the case, exhibit no symptoms of dislocation or disorder, that its crust shall remain unbroken, and that no vestiges of earthquakes, volcanoes or other disturbances shall appear; which amounts to saying that the operation of chemical causes, and even of gravitation itself, shall be miraculously suspended for the accommodation of those innocent and highly favoured brutes. But this is not all. The primitive rocks themselves, at once the most elevated and the most depressed among the strata of the globe, contain no organic remains whatever, but are also dislocated and disordered in a degree not inferior to that which prevails in the secondary and other strata which successive depositions have superinduced upon them. It follows, therefore, that such convulsions of the earth's surface may have taken place, not only before the existence of a moral agent, but before that of the lowest and earliest among animated beings.

We now return to M. Cuvier, whose exact and curious researches, and exquisite knowledge of comparative anatomy, have enabled him to produce a very different statement of this most interesting subject than the loose and, we are sorry to add, the flippant representation of Mr. Gisborne. That great anatomist and accurate observer has already ascertained and classified the fossil remains of seventy-eight different quadrupeds, either belonging to the oviparous or viviparous classes.

< Of these, forty-nine are distinct species hitherto unknown to naturalists. Eleven or twelve others have such entire resemblance to species already known, as to leave no doubt whatever of their identity, and the remaining sixteen or eighteen have considerable traits of resemblance

to

to known species. Of the forty-nine new, or hitherto unknown species, twenty-seven are necessarily referable to seven new genera, which, while the other twenty-two are new species, belong to sixteen genera, or subgenera, already known. The whole number of genera or subgenera to which the fossil remains of quadrupeds hitherto investigated are referable, amount to thirty-six, including those belonging both to known and unknown species. Of these seventy-eight species, fifteen, which belong to eleven genera or subgenera, are animals belonging to the class of oviparous quadrupeds, while the remaining sixty-three belong to the mammiferous class. Of these last, thirty-two species are hoofed animals, not ruminant, and reducible to ten genera; twelve are ruminant animals, belonging to two genera; seven are gnawers referable to six genera; eight are carnivorous quadrupeds belonging to five genera; two are toothless animals of the sloth genus; and two are amphibious animals of two distinct genera.'

Again. It is clearly ascertained that the oviparous quadrupeds are found considerably earlier, or in more ancient strata, than those of the viviparous class. Thus the crocodiles of Honfleur and of England are found immediately beneath the chalk. The great alligators or crocodiles, and the tortoises of Maestricht are found in the chalk formation, but these are both marine animals. This earliest appearance of fossil bones seems to indicate that dry lands and fresh waters must have existed before the formation of the chalk strata. Yet neither at that early epoch, nor during the formation of the chalk strata, nor even for a long period afterwards, do we find any fossil remains of mammiferous land quadrupeds. We begin to find the bones of mammiferous sea animals, namely, of the lamentin and of seals, in the coarse shell limestone, which immediately covers the chalk strata in the neighbourhood of Paris. But no bones of mammiferous land quadrupeds are to be found in that formation, and, notwithstanding the most careful investigations, I have never been able to discover the slightest traces of this class, excepting in the formation, which lie over the coarse limestone strata; but on reaching these more recent formations the bones of land quadrupeds are discovered in great abundance. As it is reasonable to believe that shells and fish did not exist at the period of the formation of the primitive rocks, we are also led to conclude that the oviparous quadrupeds began to exist along with the fishes, while the land quadrupeds did not begin to appear till long afterwards, and until the coarse shell limestone had been already deposited, which contains the greater part of our genera of shells, although of quite different species from those that are now found in a natural state. There is also a determinate order observable in the disposition of these bones with regard to each other, which indicates a very remarkable succession in the appearance of the different species. All the genera which are now unknown, as the palæotheria, anoplotheria, &c., with the localities of which we are thoroughly acquainted, are found in the most ancient of the formations of which we are now treating, or those which are placed directly over the coarse limestone strata. It is chiefly they which occupy the regular strata, which have been deposited from fresh waters or certain alluvial

beds

beds of very ancient formation, generally composed of sand and rounded pebbles.

'The most celebrated of the unknown species belonging to known genera, or to genera nearly allied to those which are known, as the fossil elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus and mastodon, are never found with the more ancient genera, but are only contained in alluvial formations.

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Lastly, the bones of species, which are apparently the same with those that shall exist alive, are never found except in the very light and alluvial depositions.'

Such is the statement of M. Cuvier, formed on long and accurate observation of organic remains in their original positions, aided by the first Museum of detached specimens in the world. Now to all this what has Mr. Gisborne to oppose ?First, that the asserters of this hypothesis are infidels; and, secondly, that the hypothesis itself is gratuitous and unnecessary. To the first of these charges we shall reply in another place: To the second, we presume to say, that if an hypothesis be gratuitous and unnecessary, the phenomena to be accounted for may be explained without it. We will now therefore ask a few plain questions. Mr. Gisborne will not deny the existence of organic animal remains in stratified bodies. He has indeed distinctly admitted the fact, but they are all to be accounted for by one great moral cause-the Deluge. Were, then, these strata depositions formed during the convulsions of that short and perturbed period? Most of them on the contrary bear indubitable marks of a slow and uninterrupted operation both of mechanical and chemical causes; but if our author chuses to limit the evidence of a deluge to the cracks and clefts which every where exist in the crust of the earth, it will necessarily follow that these strata, with all the animal remains which in regular succession are found imbedded within them, existed, and that too in a completely indurated state, before that event. We have therefore irrefragable proof of a prior crust of the earth..

But on the other hand, allowing the formation of these strata, and the fact that all the organized animal remains contained within them, were really the effects of one single and contemporary cause, the Noachian deluge, independently on the difficulty of conceiving how strata could be formed under such circumstances at all, why have we not an universal jumble of quadrupeds, birds, reptiles, and every class of animals which could perish by means of water? Above all, why have we such multitudes of fossil fish, and why have we no relic of man, the single species, on whose account, as the author and ourselves agree, this tremendous visitation was sent upon the earth, and of which every individual perished

excepting

excepting eight persons? Besides, how does this hypothesis account for the extinction of so many genera and species? According to this system, pairs of each must have been taken into the Ark the mastodon, the megatherion, the palæotherion, &c. if then existing -all and every of which must therefore respectively have survived the deluge. All are now, with Mr. Gisborne's leave, extinct,* and so long extinct that there is not a hint in all the records of antiquity respecting their existence.†

But again, there is no reason from Scripture to suppose that in the production of this tremendous inundation the Almighty employed the agency of any other than mechanical causes--the windows of Heaven were opened, the fountains of the great deep were broken up. But there are phenomena in the formation of the strata of the earth, which, in order to be accounted for, demand the operation of chemical principles. What agitation, for example, in the waters of the deluge, would have accounted for the utter extinction of so many species of testaceous fish, which are now found only in a fossil state? Tossed and retossed, had such been their fate, from the poles to the equator, the greater part of the several species, at least, would have survived the shock. Or what can at all explain the. topical existence of their fossil remains in such prodigious quantities but the operation of some chemical and sudden infusion, which from that time forward rendered the medium in which they had been originally placed unfit for their further existence? This, in all probability, was the commencement of that process which reduced them from an animal to a fossil state; but an operation so powerful, so distinct, so local, could have had no place during the confusion of all fluids at the time of the deluge.

From a statement and ratiocination, on the whole flimsy, defec

* Mr. Gisborne permits himself to doubt whether some of the species of gigantic quadrupeds, whose skeletons have been found in some of the latest alluvial formations, may not yet exist in the central solitudes of America, or in the depth of Northern Asia. For a solution of this doubt we beg leave to refer him to M. Cuvier's most satisfactory chapter on the small probability of discovering new species of the larger quadrupeds. But were this even probable, the remains alluded to are skeletons in their recent state, and have nothing to do with the fossil remains of animals imbedded in ancient strata. Of the vast elephant, or animal nearly resembling the elephant, of which the remains were found in a state of astonishing preservation on the northern shore of Siberia, our author speaks with undoubting assurance as having been rolled thither from some far southern latitude by his universal cause-the Deluge. He might have reflected that the hide of this wonderful and wonderfully preserved animal was covered by a thick coat of long, coarse and shaggy hair, which plainly indicated that it was a native of some cold climate, and probably of the latitude in which it was discovered.

† A person so well acquainted with antiquity as Mr. Gisborne, may attempt to invafidate this assertion by attempting to discover the slightest vestige of any proof to the contrary in the writings of the Greek historians or naturalists: but he may spare his trouble by referring to the first of historians and zoologists, Moses.

tive, declamatory, illogical, and ill-founded, we can only lament that the worthy author appears to have been born an age too late. He would have adorned the first meetings of the Royal Society; or at a somewhat later period have been deemed a fit coadjutor of Ray and Derham-able and excellent men indeed, like Mr. Gisborne; but who had a merit which he does not possess, that of having availed themselves of all the lights which their own age afforded. We would have analyzed the extraordinary passage already referred to, proposition by proposition, had we not deemed it preferable to examine the subject to the bottom in an analysis, which, we trust, will involve satisfactory answers to each. The scruples of a truly pious Christian, who, after all the lights thrown upon the subject of geology in modern times, shall feel himself bound by the letter, as he conceives it, of the Mosaic text, to accept as an article of faith a creation limited by six days of twenty-four hours each, are entitled to respect; yet it ought to be remembered that the question does not affect the inspiration or the veracity of Moses, but merely turns on the meaning of a very equivocal and uncertain term. And if it can be made appear that the word, the legitimate parent of the Latin dies, cannot in this instance be restricted to any definite period, and still more if the latest discoveries have shewn that the work of creation was really of long duration; but above all, if the order in which organized remains are found in successive strata is by a wonderful coincidence such as to throw the strongest light on the Mosaic account, we shall arrive at our author's attempted conclusion by a much clearer and more satisfactory route.

Mr. Gisborne, we are persuaded, as a disciple of Newton, would laugh at what was foolishly called the Mosaic Philosophy of the Heavens, by Julius Bate and the other followers of Hutchinson. He would satisfy himself in dismissing, though with reverential awe, the account which represents, merely in compliance with popular ideas, the sun as a kind of secondary to the earth, and subservient, along with the moon its companion, or even equal, to the uses of the globe which we inhabit. He would smile at the hypothesis of those grave philosophers who sent that glorious orb to perform a diurnal revolution of twenty-four hours about this speck of earth as its centre, and he would probably account for the representation, as other divines have done, by saying that it was not the office of Moses to teach astronomy. But why stop short at this precise point? Why impose upon himself, or why require of others, as an article of

Valde bene interpretatus est Hebræum 01',, quia D1' (dies) apud eos sæpe tempus significat. Psal. lxxxii. 2. Num. iii. 13. Esaiæ xxx. 26. Grotii Not. in lib. i. Regum, c. xiv. 33.'

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