EXISTING SPECIFIC FOEMS ABUNDANT. 99 



and the last eighty-five of that of Chili, have taken place since 

 man first dwelt in those countries ; nay, that the elevation 

 of the former country goes on at this time at the rate of about 

 forty-five inches in a century, and that a thousand miles of the 

 Chilian coast rose four feet in one night under the influence of 

 a powerful earthquake, so lately as 1822. Subterranean forces, 

 of the kind then exemplified in Chili, supply a ready explana- 

 tion of the whole phenomena, though some other operating 

 causes have been suggested. 



c. f<j 



The idea of such a deep immersion of the land unavoidably 

 suggests some considerations as to the effect which it might 

 have upon terrestrial animal life. Some, regarding it as a 

 complete submersion, argue that terrestrial life would be, on 

 such an occasion, extensively, if not universally, destroyed. 

 Nor was the idea of its universal destruction the less plausible, 

 when it was believed that the present land animals are an en- 

 tirely new set of species, introduced since the conclusion of 

 the Tertiary Formation. It must now be owned that there 

 are insurmountable objections to such an hypothesis. First, 

 it is not true that the specific forms of the tertiary epoch have 

 all of them disappeared. There are several for example, a 

 badger of the Miocene which are not in the slightest degree 

 distinguished from living species. Many reptiles, now living 

 in India, have been proved to be coeval with the Himalayan 

 Anoplothere, Mastodon, and Hippopotamus. Second, the 

 specific distinctions alleged in a great number of cases between, 

 tertiary and existing animals are extremely slight, and such as. 

 we have no fixed principle by which to be assured that they 

 mark new species, in the sense of a new creation. Finally, the 

 tertiary animals of America indicate an approximation to the 

 character of existing animals in that region, and tertiary 

 animals of the other great continent equally approximate to 

 those at present occupying it j showing that the demarcations 

 of the present great zoological provinces had been already 

 marked out, and have never been obliterated. There is there- 

 fore enough to justify us in believing that no entire submer- 

 gence of the earth took place at the time of the Diluvium, 

 though how nearly it might approach completeness we cannot 

 say. 



There are some other superficial formations, of less conse- 

 quence on the present occasion than the diluvium namely, 

 lacustrine deposits, or filled-up lakes; alluvium, or the de- 

 posits of rivers beside their margins ; deltas, the deposits 



H 2 



