AND BEHEMOTH. 105 



would be found existent contemporaneously with Job ? This deserves 

 our attention. First, then, I observe that the period of Job's existence 

 is not certain ; but most biblical critics think that he lived long prior 

 to Moses: possibly, even before the flood. Now, from Mantell's ob- 

 servations in his Oeology of the South-east Coast of England^ it 

 seems perfectly clear that the Wealcjen stratum was the bed of an 

 estuary, or mouth of a large freshwater river : and from the land de- 

 posits washed down into it, and from its own productions, it is certain 

 that at that period tliis countiy then enjoyed a temperature very much 

 higher than is known in these latitudes at the present day. The fossil 

 remains of elephants, lions, tigers, rhinoceroses, &c., found in England 

 in the strata above the chalk, show that, for some time afterwards, the 

 climate continued to be the same. How that clhnate became sub- 

 sequently cooled down to its present temperature, it would be out of 

 place here to enquire ; but I think we may safely conclude that that 

 cooling rendered it no longer fit for the residence of those interti'opical 

 animals which we are certain once inhabited it, most probably by 

 destroying those vegetable productions upon which the herbivorous 

 animals then in this country chiefly subsisted; which animals furnished 

 in their turn food for the carnivorous ones of that day. 



There is, however, great reason to believe that such cooling down 

 of the temperature of this climate was not a sudden catastrophe, but 

 at least so gradual, that many animals retreated southward, where, 

 from the superior warmth of the climate, they still found food suited 

 to them. In this way, it would be fair to presume that iguanodous 

 and megalosauri would be able to exist in Syria, Egypt, &c., long 

 after the climate of England was unfitted for them, and would gra- 

 dually retreat southward as the northern climates grew too cool for 

 them. There is reason to believe that even the interuopical climates 

 now are cooler than the climate of England was during the iguano Jon 

 period. Egypt is still warm enough to be fitted for the residence of 

 crocodiles, although no longer fit for that of iguanodons, megalosauri, 

 and many other animals which were contemporaneous with crocodiles 

 in England. The intertropical climates would, however, be 

 fitted for a long period for the residence of iguanodous and mega- 

 losauri, after those animals had ceased to exist in England ; and 

 I think that, in that view of the matter, it may be fair to suppose 

 that a few of the last remnants of the race would be found in the 



