blue clay, so rich in fossils, is generally, but not constantly, a stratum of light blue clay, varying in thickness up to four feet: this is always delicately laminated; often having the appearance of the leaves of a book when pressed on one side. Above this are sand, (frequently stratified,) brown clay, gravel, and chalk RUBBISH, intermingled, or alternating, and surmounted by a deep rich soil. These upper beds occasionally present FOSSIL SHELLS, probably from the crag stratum."

It is scarcely necessary to make any remark on the interesting and corroborative evidence of diluvial action, presented to us throughout every word of this singular and distinct

account.

We here have every thing that the imagination can require, in painting the effects of a great DILUVIAL EDDY, collecting in its vortex an indiscriminate mixture of floating animal, vegetable, and marine productions, from every climate under heaven. The description of the washed state of the roots of the trees is particularly striking, as every one, who has seen. a high land flood, bearing along its vegetable booty, must be familiar with the appearances which these fossil forests exhibit. But instead of single trees, we must endeavour to present to the mind's eye such floating and matted forests, as the wilds of America could still produce, in the event of a renewal of so awful a calamity; we must enlarge our views, in considering such vast effects; and imagine this portion of the diminishing waters of the deluge to be completely charged with a floating mass of objects, collected by the currents from "the four winds." We must endeavour to conceive, what mortal eye never saw, nor ever can see; and we shall then be fully able to elucidate and unravel the mystery which has so long overshadowed this awfully grand subject. The whole scene now presents itself to the imagination; and we are thus led to a period in the history of our native land, when its soft and chalky surface, for the first time, showed itself above the level of the waters; and when all its valleys and its basins first became the depositories of what we have so long speculated upon in darkness and in error, under the guidance of a false and theoretical philosophy. The same level of the waters, which deposited this mingled mass of organic destruction on the coasts of modern Norfolk, must have been extended over the whole of the south of England, and, also, over by far the greater part of

the north. If we consider, on the great scale, the general structure of this southern portion of England, and follow out the formation of the chalk on which all these animal remains and diluvial strata repose, and below, or in which no quadruped, or vegetable substance has ever yet been discovered, we shall find, that from that very shore of Norfolk, and of the neighbouring counties of Suffolk, of Essex, and of Kent, ramifications of chalk, in the form of high bare downs, stretch from east to west, across the whole of this part of the kingdom; and in three well defined ridges, are known by the names of the Oxfordshire Hills, the Surrey Hills, and the Sussex Downs. Between each of these hilly ridges, on which little or no soil is to be found, excepting in the dips or hollows, which are invariably filled with stratified diluvial clay and gravel, we find extended plains of the richest soils, often of a depth which cannot easily be penetrated, and containing abundant animal and vegetable testimonies to their formation having taken place at the same destructive period when the strata of Norfolk became so charged with animal debris. To the north of the Oxfordshire hills, (one. part of which, called Nettlebed, is considered the highest point of England, south of the Trent,) we find, in the vale of Oxford itself, numerous instances of the common diluvial strata, in the form of deep soil, gravel, clay of various kinds, and stratified rocks of a calcareous description, full of sea shells.

In one of these strata, the quarries opened up on the rising ground at Shotover, a few miles from Oxford, furnish a rich treasure of fossil animal remains; and it was from this place that one of the Saurian, or Crocodile tribe, was lately procured for the cabinet of Professor Buckland, on one of the bones of which a large OYSTER is seen attached, together with two fine ammonites, in their natural position. Those speaking witnesses of marine action could not have been produced on this fresh water animal, without its having been, for some time, subjected, like the bones of the mammoth mentioned by Cuvier, to the waters in which they naturally dwelt.

Now, if we suppose the level of the sea to have gradually, and in the course of weeks, sunk from the heights at Nettlebed, drifting off, as it fell, every movable substance, either animal, vegetable or mineral, into the lower levels, where they were submitted to the lateral action of the tides, and, consequently, arranged in stratified order, as has been before

fully explained, and as always must happen in such cases; we shall have a clear and well defined idea of the effects observed in this and every other vale or plain in the south of England, formed almost invariably of the same materials and structure. By this means, we have a distinct conception of the London basin, situated between these same Oxfordshire hills, and the ridge of those of Surrey, to the south. By this means, we learn how the rich wealds of Kent, and of Sussex, came to be formed of such unfathomable depth of blue clay, marl, sand-stone, iron-stone, &c.; all reposing, in alternate strata, upon the chalk, which there can be no doubt extends below, from the Sussex Downs to the Surrey hills; and from these latter again, to those of Oxfordshire.*

By extending this line of reasoning to other parts of our own native country, and from thence carrying the mind's eye over the plains of France, of Germany, of Europe, and of the rest of the world, there is at once a full conviction presented to the reason, of the manner in which such uniform effects have been produced by so universal and prevailing a cause. The basins of Paris, of London, and of the Isle of Wight, so long the subjects of blind speculation and of error, must all have then received their load of fossil treasures; and then, also, might be seen the inflated and colossal forms of the animal kingdom, bending their gradual but certain courses towards their present icy beds in the Polar regions.

The work of destruction had at length been consummated; and the new dry lands were now to assume those forms and qualities, which experience shows us are so happily suited to the wants and comforts of postdiluvian generations.

*The form and structure of the weald of Kent and Sussex, are, indeed, truly worthy of our most attentive observation. In outward form, there is the greatest variety of hill and dale, without, however, in almost any instance, being provided with the brooks or rivers, which, in other circumstances, we should look for as certain in every hollow. This peculiarity is obviously occasioned by the nature and extent of the prevailing clay, which, in many instances, is unfathomable. It is not a little singular, that coal has not yet been discovered in the wealds of Kent; for, as the soils and strata are almost every where identical with those of many of our richest coal fields, there can be no reason given for its absence from the iron and sand stone strata which so much abound, than that the diluvial waters, in this particular locality, were not charged with the same floating vegetable masses which they have deposited in such abundance in other more favoured places.

CHAPTER XI.

The Cave of Kirkdale.-Dr. Buckland's Theory founded on its Fossil Remains.—Contradictory Nature of this Theory. -Fossil Bones from the Hymalaya Glaciers, and from the Heights of South America.-Natural mode for accounting for them.-The Habits of the Elephant.-His most perfect form.-His love of the Water, and of a swampy and woody Country-Habits of the Rhinoceros.—Cuvier's Opinion of Fossil Remains. Inconsistency of this Opinion.-Evidence of Astronomy.-Evidence from Fossil Trees.-Conclusive Nature of this Evidence.-Evidence derived from Peat Moss. -Foot-marks of Antediluvian Animals.-Scratches occasioned by the Diluvial Action.-Formation of Valleys.-Scripture alone capable of explaining these Evidences.

There probably never has appeared any geological work, that excited so much attention and interest at the time of its publication, as the Reliquiæ Diluvianæ of Professor Buckland; in which that excellent and learned geologist endeavours to account for the fossil remains found in our own island, of quadrupeds which are now confined to much more southern latitudes.

It is with the most sincere respect for the well-known talents of Professor Buckland, that I consider it a duty, in this place, and while considering this part of my subject, to advance any thing in opposition to one whose opinions are so influential in the geological world. But the whole theory, under the impression of which that work is written, is so directly opposed to what has now been advanced, that I feel it due to myself, as well as to my readers, to make some observations upon it; not only in the fair support of an op

posite argument, but for the sake of advancing, in at least a nearer degree, towards the same great end, to which all such inquiries ought invariably to point.

After describing the remarkable and indiscriminate mixture of fossil bones, found in a cave at Kirkdale, in Yorkshire, in 1821, Dr. Buckland proceeds with the following remarks upon the general theory of the fossil remains of quadrupeds.

"It was probable, even before the discovery of this cave, from the abundance in which the remains of similar species occur in superficial gravel beds, which cannot be referred to any other than diluvial origin, that such animals were the antediluvian inhabitants, not only of this country, but generally of all those northern latitudes in which their remains are found the PROOF, however, was imperfect, as it was possible they might have been drifted or floated hither by the waters, from the warmer regions of the earth; but the facts developed in this charnel-house of the antediluvian forests of Yorkshire, demonstrate that there was a long succession of years in which the elephant, rhinoceros and hippopotamus, had been the prey of the hyenas, which, like themselves, inhabited England at the period immediately preceding the formation of the diluvial gravel; and if they inhabited this country, it follows as a corollary, that they also inhabited all those other regions of the northern hemisphere, in which similar bones have been found under precisely similar circumstances, not mineralized, but simply in the state of grave bones, embedded in loam, or clay, or gravel, over great part of northern Europe, as well as North America and Siberia."

"It is in the highest degree curious to observe, that four of the genera of animals, whose bones are thus widely diffused over the temperate, and even over the polar regions of the northern hemisphere, should at present exist only in tropical climates, and chiefly south of the equator; and that the only country in which the elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus and hyæna, are now associated, is in southern Africa. In the immediate neighbourhood of the Cape, they all live and die together, as they formerly did in Britain; whilst the hippopotamus is now confined exclusively to Africa, and the elephant, rhinoceros and hyæna, are diffused widely over the continent of Asia.

"To the question which here so naturally presents itself, as to what might have been the climate of the northern hemisphere, when peopled with genera of animals, which are