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they must have borne, if the history of Scripture is to be depended upon. That we may place implicit confidence in the information conveyed to us from this Inspired source, we have found many convincing proofs in the whole course of this general treatise; and we can, therefore, have no conceivable plea, short of a distinct desire to prove it wrong, for strenuously opposing the evidence of numerous facts, on the subject of the fossil remains of our own species.

It may, perhaps, here be expected, that some consistent and natural mode should be shown of the origin and cause of these remarkable caves and fissures, which, in so many instances, characterize the lime-stone formations, and intersect them in every direction. I should be sorry to involve either my readers, or myself, in the difficulties which this part of the subject might very possibly lead to. It has, hitherto, been too much the custom for science to endeavour, by some means or other, to account for every individual phenomenon presented to the view on the surface of the earth. By such injudicious attempts, many able men have led themselves into contradictions, beyond which they could not advance, and from which it was difficult to retrograde; and it is to be feared, that many of the errors of our geological theories have arisen from this mistaken course. Upon this subject of cavernous lime-stone, therefore, I do not hazard more than a passing opinion, confining myself to the facts which all such cavities invariably exhibit, and leaving this branch of the subject open to the more extended researches of future observations.

If it be true, as the Inspired Writings inform us, and as every appearance on the face of the present dry lands corroborates, that the "earth that NOW IS," is different from the "earth that THEN WAS ;" and if my idea of the probable means by which the deluge was effected, is founded in reason, viz. that either the former dry lands sunk, or that the bed of the former sea was elevated, (in either of which cases the effects would be the same;) if these premises be well founded, it must naturally follow, that the lands we now inhabit, formed, before the deluge, the bed of the ancient ocean. If this be true, and that many of the secondary calcareous formations, which now almost every where cover the surface of the continents, were the result of gradual marine deposits, embedding sea shells in vast abundance, but no where containing remains of QUADRUPEDS, or other LAND

PRODUCTIONS, we must conclude, that on the subsiding of the ocean, (or, as we term it, the diluvial waters,) into its new bed, the lands that were then, for the first time, left above the level of the sea, must have been in a soft and saturated state, and containing abundance of that marine fluidity, in the midst of which they had gradually been formed. We have already found, in the instance of that most extensive formation, the chalk, containing, as it every where does, positive and invariable marks of marine origin, without any indicution of a single land production, that upon its moist and still movable surface, the retiring waves had produced a partial mixture between it and the diluvial gravels and soils, containing the remains of elephants, and other quadrupeds, besides vegetable substances in great abundance, (as on the coasts of Kent and Norfolk). Had it been the nature of chalk to crack and divide itself into such cavities and fissures, as we find in some other calcareous deposits, it is very certain that we should have found these cavities furnished, more or less, with those gravels, or loams, containing the remains of organic bodies. This is not frequently the case in the chalk, because it is not part of the nature of this formation to be cavous; but we have, even in the chalk, certain cavities also filled with diluvial gravel, of the origin of which it would be very difficult to give even a plausible conjecture. I allude to those well-like cavities so often seen in the chalk pits near London, and also frequently found in the sections of the French and English sea coasts.* We have, also, in the chalk an insuperable difficulty, in accounting for the regular cavities in which flint nodules

These remarkable cavities, in the form of regular wells, of various depths, and, occasionally, of irregular forms, are exhibited in a remarkable manner in the chalk pits at Greenhithe, on the south bank of the Thames, between Dartford and Gravesend. There is, indeed, nothing more interesting, or instructive, in the geology of England, than the obviously diluvial origin of the superincumbent strata, upon the chalk, every where near London, where the wants of man, and the laws of nature, have, in so many places, combined to lay the whole formations completely open to our inspection. The almost invariably horizontal surface of the chalk, with the very marked irregularity of the new diluvial surface in the neighbourhood of Greenwich, Woolwich, Shooter's Hill, and all over that part of Kent, as well as on the northern shores of the Thames, must serve to explain this branch of our subject in the clearest and most obvious manner.

have subsequently been formed. I say subsequently, because this fact is demonstrably certain, from the fossil shells, of the chalk formation, often embedded in the flints, as in the purest water.*

If we find ourselves in difficulty, with respect to these minor cavities, which must have occurred under the level of the sea, much more shall we despair of plausibly accounting for the more extensive and even stupendous grottoes peculiar to other marine deposits, as palpably having formed a part of the bed of the antediluvian ocean. One thing, however, is a well established fact, that there is an intimate and constant connection between the latest sediments of the waters of the deluge, with their animal and vegetable contents, and these upper calcareous formations. In the instance of the gypsum of the basin of Paris, the organic remains are not contained in cavities, but are completely incorporated in the body of a rock, so hard as to require to be blasted with gunpowder. Here is a positive proof that gypsum is a chemical deposit or formation, which was once in a fluid state; and we can have no hesitation with respect to the period at which this fluidity existed, illustrated, as the point is, by the identity of some of its fossils, with those of the superincumbent diluvial soils. If, therefore, gypsum was a fluid, at the period of the deluge, in the basin of Paris we have the strongest reasons for coming to a similar conclusion, wherever that calcareous rock is found to exist. At Köstritz, the gypsum is split into fissures, often filled, as they naturally would be, with the superincumbent gravel under which it is found. But the animal remains are of the very same description in the gypsum at both places,

* I have formerly had occasion to make some remarks upon the fossil shells of the chalk formation, often found attached to, or filled by, pure flint. I have lately seen one of these fossil specimens, which has been cut through, and polished by a lapidary. The polish given to the flint is of the finest kind; and in looking into the transparent mass, we find many of the small spines, with which the shell was originally covered on its exterior surface, perfectly preserved, and lying in various directions, as if preserved in ice. No proof can be more distinct, that the flint was once in the state of a perfect fluid; and that this fluid state was subsequent to the deposit of the chalky mass, may be looked upon as equally certain. The cause of the irregular, though stratified cavities, in which flint nodules have been subsequently formed, must ever remain, however, a matter of conjecture; although, the obscurity of the cause does not, in any degree, affect the truth of the facts presented to our contemplation.

and the bones are in the same state of decay or preservation. We, therefore, have a right to conclude, that as the Paris gypsum was a diluvial formation, the bones, contained in it, could be no other than those of antediluvian animals. We

must judge of the Köstritz gypsum by the very same law; there can, therefore, be no hesitation in considering the human bones of those quarries, as well as those of the domestic cock, and the rhinoceros which accompany them, as indisputable remains of the ancient world. The nature of all lime-stone cavities appears to be nearly the same in all countries. We hear of the bones of elephants in New Holland,* as well as in America, and in Europe, contained in similar caverns; and as we know of no other calamity so destructive as the Mosaic deluge, either from history, tradition, or animal remains, we must conclude that every LAND production, (together with such marine shells as often accompany them,) when found in our rocks and soils, is attributable to the action of the Mosaic deluge, and to that period alone.

*

Specimens of fossil bones and wood were sent home by Mr. Crawford from the district of Ava, in latitude 21 degrees north. Amongst these bones were found those of two new species of the mastodon, together with the bones of the hippopotamus, rhinoceros, antelope, deer, the ox, the hog, the tortoise, and the alligator.

From the instances, few as they are, with which we are already acquainted, of such fossil deposits, in tropical, as well as in temperate and polar regions, we can have no doubt of the general and indiscriminate dispersion of animal bodies over every region of the earth; and that if the wants of man, in Asia, aud in Africa, required such extensive operations under the surface of the ground, as have brought . to light so many fossil treasures in Europe, and in America, we should often there discover the remains of animals as unnatural to hot climates, as the elephant and alligator are to cold ones.

CHAPTER XIV.

On the Situation of Paradise; together with both Critical and Geological Evidences of the spurious Character of that descriptive account of it, found in all Modern Copies and Translations of the Book of Genesis.

As the chief object of this treatise has been to show, from the evidence of history, corroborated by physical facts, that the greater part of the present dry lands of the earth formed the bed of the antediluvian sea, and that the former lands were utterly destroyed at the period of the deluge, "the earth, that now is," being thus distinct from "the earth, that then was,"* a question respecting the situation of the Paradise in which our first parents were placed by their Creator, has probably arisen in the mind of every one; and but for the interruption to the general course of the subject which this question must have given rise to, it should undoubtedly have been considered at an earlier period of this work; as there is, perhaps, no part of the Old Testament, as found in our translations, which has been so fruitful a source of error and misconception, as the descriptive account of the rivers of Paradise. These rivers are described as being four in number, of which the only one at present known is the Euphrates. The names of the other rivers, and the extraordinary and inconsistent geographical account of their supposed courses, have long been a source of anxious critical inquiry, as well as of local research: for almost all travellers who have visited the East, and had an opportunity of becoming acquainted with the course of the Euphrates, have

* 2d Epistle of Peter, iii. 6.

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