166 Notice and Review of the Reliquae Diluviunae, 
ern hemisphere, when peopled with genera of animals 
which are now confined to the warmer regions of the 
earth, it is not essential to the point before me, to find a 
solution; my object is to establish the fact, that the ani- 
mals lived and died in the regions where their remains 
are now found, and were not drifted thither by the diluvi- 
an waters from other latitudes. The state of the climate in 
which these extinct species may have lived antecedently 
to the great inundation by which they were extirpated, is 
a distinct matter of enquiry, on which the highest authori- 
ties are by no means agreed. It is the opinion of Cuvier, 
on the one hand, that, as some of the fossil animals differ 
from existing species of the genera to which they belong, 
it is probable they bad a constitution adapted to endure 
the rigours of a northern winter; and this opinion derives 
support from the Siberian elephant’s carcass, discovered 
wilh all its flesh entire, in the ice of Tungusia, and its skin 
partially covered by long hair and wool; and from the 
hairy rhinoceros found in 1771, in the same country, in the 
rozen gravel of Vilhoui, having its flesh and skin still 
perfect, and of which the head and feet are now preserved 
at Petersburg, together with the skeleton of the elephant 
above alluded to, and a large quantity of its wool, to which 
Cuvier adds the further fact, that there are genera of ex- 
isting animals, e. ¢. the fox tribe, which have species 
adapted to the extremes both of polar aad tropical cli- 
mates.” 
** On the other hand, it is contended that the abundant 
occurrence of fossil crocodiles and tortoises, and of vege- 
tables and shells, (¢. ¢. the nautilus.) nearly allied in struc- 
ture and character to those which are now peculiar to hot 
climates, in the secondary strata, as well as in the dilavium 
of high north latitudes, renders it more probable that the 
climate was warm in which these plants and animals lived 
and died, than that a change of constitution and habit 
should have taken place in so many animal and vegetable 
genera, the existing members of which are rarely found 
except in the warmer regions of the present earth, 4° 
this argument, | would add a still greater objection, aft’ 
sing from the difficulty of maintaining such animals as those 
we are considering, amid the rigours of a polar winter ; 
and this difficulty cannot be solved by supposing them te 
