admitted, would prove totally subversive both of existing phenomena and the verity of the Mosaic cosmogony!

Now, we shall undertake to demonstrate from Cuvier himself, the utter fallacy of his diluvian theory, and,

3. Exactly the same inference is drawn by Mr. Buckland from the teeth and bones of various animals discovered in a cave at Kirkdale, near Kirby-Moorside, in Yorkshire. The den of Kirkdale is a natural fissure or cavern in the oölite limestone, extending 300 feet into the solid rock, and varying from two to five feet in height and breadth. The bottom of the cavern is nearly horizontal; and is entirely covered to the depth of about a foot with a sediment of mud, deposited by diluvian waters. At the bottom of the mud, the floor of the cave was covered from one end to the other with teeth and fragments of bones of the following animals: hyena, elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, horse, ox, two or three species of deer, bear, fox, water-rat, and birds. The bones are for the most part broken and gnawed to pieces: and the teeth lie loose among the fragments of the bones. The hyena bones are broken to pieces as much as those of the other animals. No bone or tooth has been rolled or the least acted on by water, nor is there any gravel mixed with them. The bones are not at all mineralized, and retain nearly the whole of their animal gelatine; owing their high state of preservation to the mud in which they have been imbedded. The teeth of the hyena's are most abundant: and, of these, the greater part are worn down almost to the stumps, as if by the operation of gnawing bones. Portions of the dung of the hyena are found also in this den, which on analysis, afforded the same constituent parts as that of canine animals. It is certain, that all these animals lived and died in the district where their remains are now found, in the period immediately preceding the deluge. The bones were carried into the cave, as food, by the hyenas; the smaller animals perhaps entire, the larger ones piecemeal: for by no other means could the bones of such large animals as the elephant, rhinoceros, and hippopotamus, have arrived at the inmost recesses of so small a fissure, unless rolled thither by water; under which circumstance the angles would have been worn off by attrition, which is

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as a consequence, its insufficiency to account for the above named phenomena. In his essay Mr. Cuvier says that, if there is any circumstance thoroughly established in geology, it is, that the crust of our globe has been subjected to a great and sudden revolution, the epoch of which cannot be dated much further back than five or six thousand years; that this revolution had buried all the countries which were before inhabted by men and other animals that are now best known; that the same revolution had laid dry the bed of the last ocean, which now forms all the countries at present inhabited. Again, Speaking of a succession of revolutions as having visited our globe, Mr. Cuvier makes the following remarks; but, what is still more astonishing and not less certain, there have not always been living creatures on the earth; and it is easy for the observer to discover the period at which animal productions began to be deposited. Finally, Mr. Cuvier in treating of the subject of existing fossil remains of extinct animals, &c., says, it is quite undeniable, that no human remains have been hitherto discovered among the extraneous fossils; and this says he, furnishes a strong proof, that the extinct races, which are now found in

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not the case. See Jameson's Notes subjoined to Cuvier's Essay. p. 364-369, 385-387.

So far as I can judge of evidence, the above is decisive as to the question whether we are now inhabiting the bed of the ocean as it existed immediately before the deluge. Treat, on three Disp. vol.

a fossil state, were not varieties of known species since they never could have been subject to human influence. And farther on he says, every circumstance, therefore, 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 such general catastrophies; or, if they also had been destroyed or covered over at the same time, why their remains should not be now found along with those of the other animals. 1

Now, in regard to the first of the above quotations, that Mr. Cuvier is speaking of the effects of the Universal Deluge, there can be no doubt: for the quotation not only contains within itself, a summary of his diluvian theory, but it stands in immediate connexion with what he says of the escaping from the effects of that great revolution, of the small number of individuals of men and other animals, that have since propagated and spread over the lands then newly laid dry. To this, as further evidence, we may also add, that, since that catastrophe, no other revolution by any possibility can be named, i. e., within the dates which he assigns to it, at all adequate to produce, as he pretends, an entire interchange of land and water. Then again, says Mr. Cuvier. Before this catastrophe, men and other animals inhabited those very countries, submerged by the above superabounding waters; which most certainly

1. Essay on Theory of the Earth, § 30, p. 128–133. 2. Ibid. § 34. p., 174.

must have resulted in the destruction of men as well as other animals. And yet Mr. Cuvier says in the third quotation, that no human remains have been hitherto discovered among the extraneous fossils: which circumstance, he says, 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.

Unless we greatly misjudge, the reader would consider it no enviable task, to attempt a reconciliation of such palpably conflicting statements. A great physical revolution, producing an entire interchange of land and water- the land being previously inhabited by men and other animals, all of whom, except a very small number, being lost in the catastrophe and yet, in after ages, when the fossil remains of these animals are discovered, human beings are denied to have previously existed, because no fossil human form is found among other discovered fossil animals!

But, herein we are furnished with a most striking evidence of the lamentable defectibility of human reason, in the application of the sciences to existing phenomena, when relied upon as a guide in our search of truth, to the exclusion of REVELATION. The truth is, while, in the developements of the science of physiology, strong collateral evidence is furnished of the verity of the Mosaic cosmogony, there are bounds set to human reason in its application thereto, beyond which it cannot pass. See this fact illustrated in Mr. Cuvier's statements regarding the date of the commencement

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of his diluvian period, at which time the process of fossil formation must have begun. Speaking of this latter process he says, it is easy for the observer to discover the period at which animal productions began to be deposited. And yet, the nearest point of approximation to it is, not much farther back than five or six thousand years. But, this calculation, at five thousand years, would place his diluvian epoch at about A. M. 950; at six thousand, it would make it anterior to the Mosaic cosmogony of the creation of man! It remains, therefore, for the candid reader to decide, whether he will reject the authenticity of the sacred narrative on account of this single apparent discrepancy of the science of physiology therewith, when every other part of the discoveries of that acute philosopher, as well as others, undesignedly, no doubt, on his and their part, conspire to confirm it. The reader therefore cannot but perceive the force of the following logical conclusion, from the pen of the learned Faber. Speaking of this diluvian theory of Cuvier, he says, that it is so wholly irreconcilable with the Mosaical history both of the ante-diluvian world and of the deluge itself and of the post-diluvian world, in which the four Asiatic ante-diluvian rivers are geographically marked out and determined and identified by post-diluvian characteristics, that it cannot for a moment be admitted by any consistent believer in the scriptural verity. Nor is it more reconcileable with the actually existing phenomena of the

1. Essay on Theory of the Earth, § 6. p. 17.