Notice of a Scientific Expedition. 



353 



size, which we have reason to suppose grew on the dry land. 



creation, nought prevailed but a wide muddy waste. It is admitted, 

 however, indirectly, if not directly, by all geologists, that there were 

 bays, estuaries and rivers ; the latter must have drained districts more 

 or less extensive. There were vegetables too, and those of a large 



seems more agreeable then, to what we know of the wisdom and 

 power of the Creator, that single, solitary races of animals were 

 not created at different times and at different intervals. It seems 



m 



better, that the waters should teem with numerous orders of fish 

 that the air should be filled with feathered tribes and winged insects 



1 



and that the earth too, should be made the abode of beasts and 

 creeping things. 



Admitting that mammiferous animals existed as early as shell fish 

 and crocodiles, are there anv reasons for the absence of their re- 

 mains in the same deposits ? There are, in the first place, two rea- 

 sons why shellfish and the other lower orders are abundant in some 

 deposits, viz. They were numerous from the first, and they lived 

 in a medium which would insure their preservation. Again, these 

 two reasons why mammiferous quadrupeds should not be found in the 

 older strata, viz. : their probable unfrequency and their modes of life. 

 Whether more than a single pair were created, is a question we 

 cannot settle. This we know, that their habits generally, lead them 

 instinctively to shun the water, and it appears probable, that when, 

 under the necessity of resorting to it, the instances of their perishing 

 would be rare. Mammiferous animals would die in the open fields 

 or on the woody hills and their bodies would decay, and the dis- 

 jointed limbs would be separated to the four winds, and their bones 

 would whiten and crumble to earth, without leaving a trace of their 

 existence. Not so with shell fish, crocodiles and amphibious ani- 

 mals ; they lived in a medium the best calculated to preserve their 

 bodies whole after death — they would be surrounded soon with mud 

 and gravel, the basis of all fragmentary rock, and when in process 

 of time the strata were to be raised from the deep, their remains 

 would be found locked up in the slates and marbles. But how 

 fortunate is that geologist who is able to enrich his cabinet with an 

 ancient crocodile, numerous as they were. Why need he wonder 

 then, that mammiferous quadrupeds are not yet discovered in the 

 older strata ? 



3d. There is an inconsistency in the doctrine of those geologists 

 who maintain that God created all things in six days of twenty four 



Vol. XXX.— No. 2. 



45 



