186 M‘Sweeny, on the Climate of Ireland. 
pressions of vegetables have been found in countries, the climate of which now could 
not produce such vegetable productions. It does not come within the plan of this 
Essay, to treat of the geological changes of our earth. A work has been written by 
Doctor Ure, of Glasgow, showing that the revolutions of our earth, and animated 
nature, can be reconciled to modern science and sacred history. 
In this work he alludes to the futile attempts of Voltaire to explain the impressions 
of fishes, found on mountains. Doctor Ure, in the introduction to his work, truly 
observes: “As the stream of civilization advances towards the general diffusion of 
knowledge, truth, and piety, over the earth, new chambers of nature are unlocked, 
new scenes of instruction are disclosed, and new means and motives of intellectual 
and moral excellence, are presented to our view.” 
In treating of the subject of vegetation in Europe in antediluvian times, he ob- 
serves: ‘* There is no doubt, however, that palms with fan-shaped leaves, covered 
Europe with their lofty vegetation at this remote period, in regions where no species 
of these plants could now grow. The opinion of some writers that these vegetables 
may have been transported from remote climates into the places where they are 
actually deposited, appears at variance with every fact hitherto observed, and possesses 
in reality no solid foundation.” Ure’s Geol. p. 452. 
The fossil vegetables found at Newhaven, in England, agree with those found in 
the Paris basin; one was the fruit of the palm tree, an instance of the produce of a 
warm climate. In Doctor Ure’s work on geology, there is given the figure of an 
impression of a vegetable in slate clay, from Lancashire, considered to be the pro- 
duction of a tropical climate. 
At Kirkdale, have been discovered the remains of hyzenas, and even of the hippo- 
potamus, inhabitants of warm regions. Doctor Buckland in quoting Cuvier, to prove 
the dispersion of the remains of elephants over every country in Europe, combats 
the opinion, that the remains found in England, were of elephants imported by the 
Roman armies. He shows that the fossil elephant belongs to an extinct species of 
this genus. He observes, that the idea of their being drifted by the diluvian waters 
from the tropical regions must be abandoned, on the evidence afforded at the den of 
Kirkdale ; and he adds, it remains only to admit that they must have inhabited the 
countries in which their bones are found. 
If it be admitted, that the climate of England at any one period was capable of the 
growth of such vegetable productions as palms, and served as the abode of the 
elephant, hippopotamus, and hyzna, it follows as a natural consequence, that Ireland 
from its proximity, must have possessed somewhat of a similar climate at the same 
time. The evidence afforded by the den at Kirkdale, cannot be explained away. 
Doctor Ure remarks, that “ there are few physical properties established on a larger 
or sounder induction than that the Kirkdale and Torquay caves having been dens oc- 
cupied by hyzenas in antediluvian times.”— Ure’s Geol. p. 574. 
i 
f 
Z 
; 
