"The facts I have enumerated in the above descriptions, go to establish a perfect analogy, as far as relates to the loam and pebbles and stalagmite incrustations in the caves and fissures of Germany and England, and lead us to infer an identity in the time and manner in which these earthy deposits were introduced; and this identity is still farther confirmed by the agreement in species of the animals whose remains we find enveloped by them, both in caves and fissures, as well as in the su perficial deposits of similar loam and pebbles on the surface of the adjacent countries;—and hence it follows, that the period at which the earth was inhabited by all the animals in question (hyæna, bear, rhinoceros, elephant, and hippopotamus,) was that immediately antecedent to the forma tion of those superficial, and almost uni versal deposits of loam and gravel, which it seems impossible to account for unless we ascribe them to a transient deluge, affecting universally, simultaneously, and at no very distant period, the entire surface of our planet."-pp. 145, 146. In the cave at Kuhlock, in Germany, Mr. Buckland found an immense quantity of black animal earth, resulting, without doubt, from the decomposition of a large number of an extinct species of bear, which made this cave its den. "Hundreds of cart loads" of this black dust, amounting to not less than 5000 cubic feet, exist there; "and many hundred, 1 may say thousand, individuals must have contributed their remains to make up this appalling mass of the dust of death " Allowing two cubic feet of dust and bones for each individual animal, we shall have in this single vault the remains of at least 2500 bears, a number which may have been supplied in the space of 1000 years, by a mortality at the rate of two and a half her annum." In several of the caves examined by Mr. Buckland, there occurred human remains: But in every case, these were clearly referable to a postdiluvian era, although in some instances of very ancient data. Indeed, "human bones have not been discovered in any of those diluvian deposits which have hitherto been examined; and in which, from the great abundance they contain of the remains of wild animals, that could not have existed in numbers sufficient to supply these remains, in a country inhabited by man, it is highly improbable that they will ever be found. On this important subject, I fully coincide with the opinion expressed by Mr. Weaver," that the satisfactory solution of the general problem, as far as it relates to man, ticularly in the Asiatic regions, the is probably to be sought more parcradle of the human race." p. 169. The celebrated homo diluvii testis' of Scheuchzer is declared by Cuvier to be nothing more than a great lizard. The specimen from Guadaloupe was evidently of no very ancient data although imbedded in rock and probably the human remains found near Leipsic and described by Baron Sclotheim among those of the rhinoceros were introduced subsequently to the deluge. "Every circumstance, therefore," says Cuvier, "contributes to establish this position-That the human race did not exist in the countries in which the fossil bones of animals have been discovered, at the epoch when these bones were covered up; as there cannot be a single reason assigned why men should have entirely escaped from such general catastrophes ; or if they also had been destroyed and covered over at the same time, why their remains should not now be found along with those of the other animals.” Those parts of the world whose organic remains have been examined to a sufficient extent to render it probable that no human bones of antediluvian origin exist there, are Europe and a part of America.* Concerning these regions thus examined, therefore, we may pronounce with a good degree of confidence that they were not inhabited by man previous to * In the second Vol. of the American Journal of Science, Mr. Atwater describes certain human bones found in Ohio, that may have been of antediluvian origin. sufficiently minute to enable us to decide The facts there stated, however, are not concerning them with certainty. the deluge. If so, we are led to con- In our western states caves exist in limestone, answering in general we "Another important consequence (which we have already mentioned,) arising directly from the inhabited caves, and ossiferous fissures, the existence of which has been now shown to extend generally over Europe," [we think may add North America,] is, that the present sea and land have not changed places; but that the antediluvian surface of at least a large portion of the northera hemisphere was the same with the present; since those tracts of dry land in which we find the ossiferous caves and fissures must have been dry also, when the land animals inhabited or fell into them, in the period immediately preceding the inundation * For a more full discussion of this point, we refer our readers to the continuation of a Review of Mr. Buckland's work in the American Journal of Science ; which, we understand, will be completed in the next number, or next but one, of that work. And by which they were extirpated. This paragraph gives a death blow If the European continent existed anterior to the deluge, we think it fair to conclude the same in regard to Asia, since both these quarters of the globe, form in fact but one continent. And if similar caves exist in America as we have suggested, we may include this continent in the same class. Indeed, we think it not premature to predict, that future researches will prove, that the postdiluvian continents and oceans are not very different from the antediluvian. We shall have occasion in the sequel, to say something concerning the reason why so much difficulty exists in identifying the place of Eden, and the four rivers proceeding from it. We have been much struck and gratified in the examination of the facts derived from these caves and fissures, by the freshness and distinctness that is thereby thrown over the history of the antediluvian world, especially the animal world. We not only ascertain the existence of these animals, but learn many of their habits; and it is a curious fact, that they are generally of a larger stature than any inhabiting the earth at present. The mammoth which is merely the antediluvian elephant, was then abundant in all northern latitudes, "crashing the pines beneath his feet. The bear, so abundant in the caves of Germany, was nearly as large as the horse, and there was also the huge rhinoceros, tiger, hippopotamus, &c. It was with such animals, our ancestors before the flood had to cope: and if we were disposed to indulge in conjecture we might intimate a suspicion that that text in Genesis, which says, there were giants in those days, is to be understood literally, and that the antediluvians did really exceed us in stature as well as in longevity. And when we recollect how great a difference of stature results at this day from climate and education, we are almost disposed to believe a much greater change may have taken place at the deluge, when, as we suppose, the climate was so essentially altered. The second general evidence of the deluge derived from geology, is obtained from that accumulation over almost every part of the earth's surface, of a bed of loam, sand, and gravel, confusedly mixed together; which contains the bones of various animals, and which we have already described under the term diluvium. It is carefully to be distinguished from those partial deposits, which result from causes now in action, such as deltas, terraces, tufas, torrent gravel, and peat bogs; to which the term alluvium is appropriated. The alluvium is of very limited extent, and the organic remains found in it, consist entirely of plants and animals at present inhabiting the earth. The diluvium is spread, not only over vallies, but surmounts the highest mountains also; and its organic remains consist of several extinct genera and species of plants and animals along with those now common in a living state. Every one must have noticed this diluvial coat made up of pebbles, loam, and large rounded stones, called bowlders. In some places it exists from 100 to 200 feet in thickness, and there can be no more doubt of its being the result of the action of running water, than that the sand and pebbles along the banks of rivers proceed from such a cause. But cannot this diluvium be accounted for by the long continued operation of the rivers now in existence? So thought Prof. Playfair in his able and zealous detence of the geological theory of Dr. Hutton: But an accurate and philosophical examination of the power of existing currents to transport gravel and bowlders, will show, that it is very limited, and has been much overrated. Many of these bowlders are of great size, and these frequently are found on the conical pinnacle of the highest mountains, where it is impossible for any rivers ever to have flowed. Besides, these blocks may often be traced to their beds, and deep vallies are now found to intervene: and even if we admit the agency of rivers to be sufficient to force such huge masses along a level, we cannot ascribe to them the power to force these blocks, Sisyphus like, up the sides of steep mountains. The celebrated rock in Horeb, out of which the water flowed at the touch of Moses' rod, is one of these bowlders, not less than 36 feet square of granite, detached from Mount Sinai, but now lying tottering in the midst of the valley. The block out of which was hewed the pedestal of the statue of Peter the Great, is still larger, and weighs 1500 tons; and the Needle mountain, in Dauphine, said to be a bowlder, is one thousand paces in circumference at the bottom, and two thousand at the top. But not to multiply foreign instances of this kind, who, that lives in NewEngland, has not seen a thousand huge bowlders insulated upon the summits of our mountains? Even within half an hour's ride of this city, on the west, is one of the most numerous and instructive collections of them to be found: and to impute their attrition and removal to their present situation, to the agency of existing rivers, is to do violence to all our physical reasonings. These blocks are scattered over the highest summits of the Alps, and to suppose them brought thither by rivers flowing as they must from a higher level, would carry that level above the line of perpetual congelation, where no rivers could exist.* Mr. Buckland, in the work under consideration, has given us a detail. ed account of those accumulations of diluvial detritus, in various parts of the world, of which a description has been obtained. Many of these details are highly interesting and striking, and lead to the conclusion that in most parts of Europe, certainly in England, the diluvium was drifted to its present situation by the current from the north. An American Geologist has written a book,† to show, and we think he has done it, that a diluvial current from the same direction, once swept over this continent. The general inference from these facts Mr. Buckland gives in the words of Greenough, who, in his First Principles of Geology, has treated this subject very ably "The universal diffusion of alluvial, [diluvial,] sand, gravel, &c. proves that at some time or other an inundation has taken place in all countries; and that the presence of similar alluvial [diluvial] deposits, both organic and inorganic, in neighbour ing or distant islands, though consisting often of substances foreign to the rocks of which these islands are respectively composed, makes it highly probable at least, that these deposits are products of the same inundation." The occurrence of organic remains, especially the mammoth or antediluvian elephant, in various This subject is discussed more fully in Greenough's First Principles of Geology, p. 132: also the 20th Chapter of Dr. Kidd's Geological Essays. + Hayden's Geological Essays. parts of the world, and always in diluvium, points us clearly, we think, to one and the same deluge, as the cause of the destruction of the animals, and the accumulation of the diluvium. Remains of the mammoth are found in almost every part of England, in Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Italy, Germany, and in immense quantities in the northern part of Asia. "There is not says Pallas, in all Asiatic Russia, from the Don to the extremity of the promontory of Schutchis, a stream or river in the banks of which they do not find elephants and other animals now strangers to that climate." "Lieutenant Kotzebue has discoveren in the western part of the gulf, to the north of Behrings straits, a mountain covered with verdure, (moss and grass,) composed interiorly of solid ice. On arriving at a place where the shore rises almost perpendicularly from the sea to the height of 100 feet, and continues afterwards to extend with a gradual incliuation, they observed masses of the purest ice 100 feet high, preserved under the above vegetable carpet. The portion exposed to the sun was melting and sending much water into the sea. An undoubted proof of this ice being primitive,, (i. e. not formed by any causes now in action,) was afforded by the great number of bones and teeth of mammoths, which make their appearance when it is melted. The soil of these mountains, which, to a certain height, are covered with an abundant herbage, is only half a foot thick; it is composed of a mixture of clay, earth, sand, and mould; the ice melts gradually beneath it, the carpet falls downwards and continues to thrive; the latitude is 66° 15' 36" N.‡ A little more than twenty years since, an enormous mammoth was melted out of a bank of ice at the mouth of the river Lena, with its Quoted by 'Mr. Buckland from Gilbert's Annalen, for 1821. flesh, skin, and hair in a fine state of preservation; and several years previous, a rhinoceros was found undecayed in a bed of frozen gravel in the same country. It is well known also, that bones of the mammoth and of other extinct animals, are abundant in North America, and Humboldt found them in Mexico and Quito. "How is it possible," enquires Mr. Buckland, "to explain the general dispersion of all these remains, but by admitting that the elephants as well as all the other creatures whose bones are buried with them, were the antediluvian inhabitants of the extensive tracts of country over which we have been tracing them? and that they were all destroyed together, by the waters of the same inundation which produced the deposits of loam and gravel in which they are imbedded." p. 133. It is quite too late to call these bones a mere lusus naturæ, or, with our English ancestors to suppose them to be the skeletons of former giants, or of the fallen angels! Writers have been very fond of referring us to shells and other organic relics occurring on some distant mountains, for proof of the Noachian deluge. But if this reasoning be correct, we need not go far from home to meet with evidences of this catastrophe of the most conclusive kind. They meet us in journies and in our daily walks. our daily walks. For one can scarcely go a mile in New England, without perceiving, in the diluvium under his feet, mementos of the deluge; and the very stoues the infidel treads upon, cry out against him. our Notwithstanding the declaration of Moses, that all the high hills that were under the whole heaven were covered by the deluge, naturalists of no inferior name, apparently unwilling to bow to revelation, unless compelled to it by stubborn facts, have maintained that there were several * Vide Cuvier's Theory of the Earth, R. 253. 55 points left uncovered by the waters, and suggested that various families might have been preserved on these elevated spots, from whence they issued to repeople the earth. But we think Mr. Buckland has vindicated the sacred historian and destroyed these views of geologists, by the following facts. 1. From Blanc, the highest peak in Europe, it Mont is obvious bowlders have been removed to the Jura mountains, where they now rest: therefore Mont Blanc must have been covered by the deluge. 2. The Alps, Carpathian, and other mountains in Europe, that have been visited by those competent to decide the point, and to these we may add the White, Alleghany and Stony mountains in North America, bear evident marks in the diluvium that overspreads them, of the action of water. 3. The remains of the mastodon have been found 7800 feet above the sea, near Santa Fe de Bogota; and also in the Kingdom of Quito, on the Cordilleras, at an elevation of 7200 feet. In central Asia, also, in the Hymalaya mountains, there have recently been discovered the bones of horses, and deer, aud bears, 16000 feet above the sea, in the region of perpetual ice; where they fall in the avalanches, and are regarded by the natives as bones of the genii that have fallen from the clouds. Their occurrence in a spot now entirely unfrequented by these animals, points us clearly to their antediluvian origin, and renders it probable that they were drifted thither by the waters of the deluge. The third evidence of the deluge geology presents, is derived from the phenomena of valleys. Without diagrams however, we feel incompetent to do any justice to this argument. Since there is such a quantity of diluvium spread every where over the earth's surface, every one sees that it must have been derived from excavations produced by ruuning water. Accordingly, the largest portion of every country is inter |