4* Geographical Distributmi of Animals. 



zone as well as those of the tropics, — those of America as 

 well as those of New Holland, — have been first created upon 

 the high lands of Iran, and have taken their course in all 

 directions, to settle where they are now found to be strictly 

 limited. It does not appear how such migrations of polar 

 animals could have taken place over the warmer tracts of 

 land which they had to cross, and in which they cannot even 

 be kept alive, in our days, with the utmost precautions : nor 

 how the terrestrial animals of New Holland, which have no 

 analogies in the main continents, could have reached that 

 large island, nor why they should have all moved thither. 

 And, indeed, it is impossible, with such a theory, to account, 

 either for the special adaptation of types to particular districts 

 of the earth's surface, or for the limited distribution of so 

 many species .which are found only over narrow districts in 

 their present arrangement. It is inconsistent with the struc- 

 ture, habits, and natural instincts of most animals, even to 

 suppose that they could have migrated over any great dis- 

 tances. It is in complete contradiction with the laws of na- 

 ture, and all we know of the changes our globe has under- 

 gone, to imagine that the animals have actually adapted them- 

 selves to their various circumstances during their migration, 

 as this would be ascribing to physical influences as much 

 power as to the Creator himself. 



And, again, the regular distribution, requiring precise laws, 

 as we find it does, cannot be attributed either to the volun- 

 tary migration of animals, or to the influence of physical 

 causes, when we see so plainly that this distribution is in ac- 

 cordance with the geographical distribution of animals and 

 plants in former geological periods. But about this presently. 

 We will only add, that we cannot discover in the Mosaic ac- 

 count anything to sustain such a view, nor even hints lead- 

 ing to such a construction. What is said of animals and 

 plants in the first chapter of Genesis, what is mentioned of 

 the preservation of these animals and plants at the time of 

 the deluge, relates chiefly to organized beings placed about 

 Adam and Eve, and those which their progeny had domesti- 

 cated, and which lived with them in closer connection. 

 Let us now look at the results of geological investigations 



