phants dug up beneath that city, to be relics of those unfortunate beings whom an incensed Deity hurled from their high estate, the rebellious angels: and adopting them as the ancient tutelar deities of the place, he caused their bones to be collected with the most scrupulous care, and decently interred, and imaginary portraits of their collossal forms to be placed in a conspicuous part of the city, in order to inspire the Lucernese at once with piety, and sympathy for these miserable beings.

Two theories were at first adopted by geologists to account for the presence of the remains of animals so unlike the races at present existing in the countries where they are found. First, that they were transported thither from their native regions in the south, by the same agency which rolled together the gravelly masses in which they have been buried: secondly, that the animals now confined to tropical climates, uncontrolled by the dominion of man, at remote periods, wandered occasionally beyond their natural limits, as tigers in every respect corresponding with those of Bengal, now roam into Siberia as far north as the parallels of Berlin and Hamburgh. Subsequent observations unsettled both these conclusions. It was soon observed that these animal-relics, did not exhibit, like their travelled asscciates the pebbles, any considerable marks of attrition, consequently that they could not have been removed far from the spot where the animals died. And the discovery of a rhinoceros and an elephant * in a perfect

*The discovery of the rhinoceros with its skin and hair entire, was made as early as 1770. It was found enveloped in sand, on

state of preservation, encased in frozen mud in the north of Russia, unequivocally proved that those animals had perished on the spot where their carcases were found preserved from decomposition. That they were not occasional visitors to the arctic

circle has been also

ascertained, for it appears from the account of Captain Beechy's expedition, and the report of M. Hedenstrom, who explored the shores of the Icy sea by the direction of the Russian government, that hundreds of elephants, rhinoceroses, oxen, and other animals are buried in the frozen ground of the circumpolar regions of both the great continents, from the American side of Behring's Straits, to the estuary of the river Lena, in Asiatic Russia. Now although tigers, being carnivorous, may

the banks of one of the tributary streams of the Lena in Siberia. The elephant now in the museum of Saint Petersburg, was discovered and laid open in 1799, but not removed until 1804, during which interval, the hungry dogs and wolves of that inhospitable climate, made many a meal of this antediluvian morceau, and a Tungusian chief stole the tusks. But although thus despoiled, it is still a very respectable specimen of the ancient inhabitants of the world: as will appear from Dr. Granville, who, in his "Tour to St. Petersburgh" says, "I stood before the gigantic animal, by the side of which, the skeletons of even an African and Asiatic elephant looked insignificant, amazed, and perfectly awed at its stupendous structure. The manner and locality in which it was discovered were additional causes of surprise: for instead of being fossilized, it has retained the skin, the very flesh and the powerful tendons of the legs, in a recent state, as if its own gigantic elements, aided by the preserving influence of perpetual snows, had been sufficient to resist those extraordinary changes, which geological commotions seem to have effected in other organized beings of the antediluvian world."

travel into high latitudes in quest of food, elephants and oxen-herbivorous animals were not likely to migrate from the "luxurious south" to these

in search of pasture.

And although the circumstance of this antediluvian race of elephants having been clothed with long hair, is pro tanto a proof that they were adapted for a climate much colder than that in which the present species flourish, it is inconceivable that these huge masses of flesh and bone could have subsisted on the insubstantial sustenance afforded by the scanty vegetation-the lichens and mosses-of the arctic regions at the present day. The inference, therefore, is, that a considerable change in the climate as well as in the inhabitants of these countries, has taken place : and that this change was suddenly produced, is inferred from the congelation of the fluid mass in which the animals were enveloped, having taken place before de composition had time to affect their fleshy carcases.

In addition to the comminuted fragments of rocks, gravel, and easily-transported matter, which partially envelope, as with a mantle, the exterior of the globe, there are found dispersed in various parts of the world, sometimes buried in the gravel, and more commonly resting on the surface of the soil, innumerable masses or huge blocks of rock, the transport of which by any agent with which we are acquainted seems impossible.

Thus the countries bordering on the Baltic, Prussia, Poland, Russia from St. Petersburg to Moscow, and Germany, even to the foot of the Carpathian mountains, are covered, and in many places rendered absolutely

sterile by the vast accumulation of these transported boulders; which, from their similarity of character, are proved to have been derived from the Alpine chains of Scandinavia, and other countries on the opposite side of the Baltic. The same phenomena may be observed in this country. On the limestone hills near Kendal and other situations, blocks of granite, some twelve feet in diameter, are found in great abundance, which must have been stripped from the mountain of Shap near Penrith. Indeed, Professor Sedgwick has lately observed that these granitic relics of Shap, have been rolled over the great central chain of England into the plains of Yorkshire, and even carried to the eastern coast; and Mr. Phillips states that in some parts of Yorkshire, pebbles, and blocks of rock are found, which must have come from Norway, and even, according to Dr. Buckland, from the coast of Labrador, and it is observable that there is a marked distinction between the fragments drifted from distant localities and those which are plainly derived from the wreck of neighbouring hills; the latter being less rounded by attrition than the former. Looking at the vast distance which separates these countries, and the "great gulph" of ocean which now divides them, and viewing, moreover, the enormous size of many of these travelled rocks, * and the elevated situations in which they are sometimes found, we are almost disposed to doubt the accuracy of the conclusions at which geologists have arrived, and would

* The mass of granite which forms the base of the celebrated statue of Peter the Great, at St. Petersburgh, is a travelled fragment found in the marshy plains of the Neva, and it weighs twelve hundred tons.

gladly get rid of the difficulty, by assuming that these anomalous masses had existed from the beginning of time where we now see them, or were the spontaneous growth of the soil on which they rest. Geologists, however, are not to be startled by the appearance of difficulties, and it is a singular circumstance, that in the present day a satisfactory solution to this problem is found in a theory which immature philosophy pronounced to be inadmissible.*

In all the cases adduced, the impelling force appears to have proceeded from the north, and water is the only agent with which we are acquainted, capable of producing the effect. Had the diluvial remains been confined to the coast, we might naturally have referred these phenomena to the action of the existing seas, but they extend far inland, and their dispersion everywhere seems to indicate the same direction of the impelling force. For instance, in the very heart of England, the hills of Charnwood Forest, (entitled to veneration from the circumstance that, unassuming as they are, they can boast of a higher antiquity than the mighty Alps,) have undergone the action of an abrading force which has dispersed fragments of its rocks in a southerly direction-the larger masses being scattered in the red sandstone plains of Leicestershire, the smaller, rolled as far south as the chalk escarpment near Dunstable. In the gravel beds on the summit of the Gog-Magog hills, near Cambridge, Professor Sedgwick found the joint of a basaltic pillar, which must have travelled from the Hebrides or the Giant's Causeway.

* "Y a-t-il eu un temps où le globe a été entièrement inondé ? Cela est physiquement impossible."-Voltaire, Dict. Phil.