On some Qaadnipeds supposed to be extinct. 351 



the surface of the earth is still undiscovered by the civilised 

 portion of its inhabitants : regions as extensive as Europe, in 

 Asia, Africa, and America, are, at this time, either wholly un- 

 known or undescribed. 



The imperfection of history is such, that the most civilised 

 ancient states of the world have left little behind but what 

 may be called fragments of their annals. If we include the 

 Gothic age, as it is called, from the fifth to the fifteenth cen- 

 tury, there are not less, out of the fifty-eight centuries which 

 the earth is said to have existed, than forty of them which may 

 be termed a blank, as far as regards profane and natural 

 knowledge. 



The period assigned to the Deluge is seventeen centuries 

 after the creation, or upwards of four thousand years past. 

 There are not any known real historical annals that can contest 

 this event, and the natural state of the earth offers abundant 

 proofs of its reality. Under all these considerations, the fossil 

 remains of elephants and other large quadrupeds, known to 

 have been employed or slain by the Romans and Moguls, may 

 justly be considered as independent of any -relation to that 

 catastrophe, and in no wise concerned in the discussion. Esta- 

 blished truths are rather disturbed and weakened by arguments 

 which are open to refutation. 



The time is not distant when it will be generally acknow- 

 ledged that all those kinds of quadrupeds, the remains of 

 which have been found at the very places mentioned in history, 

 are still in existence ; a fact which, when proved, will be of 

 infinitely greater interest as it regards so grand a portion of 

 nature, than the single supposition that they are all extinct, 

 because we are not acquainted with the exact species which 

 corresponds with many of the fossil kinds frequently discovered : 

 this being the foundation on which such a conclusion is prin- 

 cipally built. 



Naturalists have endeavoured to prove, that such bones are 

 found where they could only have been placed by the Deluge ; 

 but the changes in the surface from deposits by rivers, earth- 

 quakes, and imperceptible alterations from the accretion of 

 vegetable matter, and from dust, volcanoes, digging of mines, 

 wells, canals, foundations, and other disturbances of the soil, 



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