ALLEGED INDICATIONS OF A CATASTROPHE. 361 



on the contrary, he says, it is very conceivable that catas- 

 trophes may be part and parcel of uniformity. He takes the 

 striking of a clock as an illustration of catastrophe, whilst its 

 time-keeping" illustrates uniformity of action. Here we see 

 catastrophe itself governed by law. A narrow view of the 

 universe does indeed either exclude catastrophe, or sees 

 nothing else. The true broad survey which Christian revela- 

 tion affords puts catastrophe in its proper place as but one 

 item in the great system of order which pervades the whole. 



The foremost of the facts alleged by Mr. Howorth is the 

 enormous extent and quantity of mammoth remains in 

 Siberia. Over a vast area where animal life can now be 

 scarcely, if at all, sustained, the remains of hordes of Elephas 

 primigenius, accompanied by rhinoceros, have been discovered 

 for many years past, sufficient to maintain a considerable 

 trade in ivory. In what is now an icy wilderness, the bones 

 of these, with other large animals, are found in quantities 

 that represent enormous herds. 



The extraordinary quantity and variety of animal remains 

 in general that have been found in pleistocene deposits, the 

 strange mingling of predaceous and non-predaceous species, 

 of old and young, large and small, is requii-ed to be accounted 

 for, in contrast with current observation of bone deposits 

 now in progress. Important authorities are quoted calling 

 attention to the great disparity in quantity between animal 

 remains occurring in pleistocene beds and those which are 

 now accumulating. North and South America afford 

 examples of this. Of the huge animals found embedded in 

 the Pampan mud, Charles Darwin said, "The number of 

 bones embedded in the grand estuary deposit of the Pampas 

 must be very great. . . . We may conclude that the 

 whole area of the Pampas is one wide sepulchre for these 

 extinct animals." " Ossium maximorum farrago " is the 

 expressive description given by a German naturalist of de- 

 posits he had seen in Asia. It is urged that the discovery of 

 masses of animal remains of mixed species, all showing the 

 same state of preservation, not only points to a more or less 

 contemporary death, but is fatal to the theory that they died 

 from purely normal causes. 



The condition also of the bones thus found, with thin fine 

 edges and delicate angles and muscular attachments pre- 

 served intact, often lying together as when articulated, and 

 though extended over the area of a whole continent, yet, for 

 the most part, in the same mineral condition and state of 



