l$25.2 CHmate of the Antediluvian World. 215 



and in every degree of latitude, were, in ancient times, the natu- 

 ral inhabitants of the places in which their remains are disco- 

 vered. 



Alligators and crocodiles, it is well known, are confined 

 by their nature to the very hottest regions of the earth. 

 They are chiefly found in the Niger, the Nile, the Ganges, 

 the Amazone, and other rivers of the torrid zone. So de- 

 pendent are they on a hot temperature, that it has been found 

 impossible to protract their lives beyond a very short period 

 when brought into a temperate one, except by artificial tem- 

 perature. Bonnard, in his Dictiounaire d'Histoire Naturelle, 

 copies the following passage from M. Perrault's account of a 

 living crocodile which was brought to Versailles. It is so much 

 to the point that I cannot avoid inserting it : — " Disons d'abord, 

 que le spectacle de cet animal vivant, deja si propre par lui- 

 meme a exciter la curiosite, parut surtout extraordinaire par la 

 circonslance de la saison oCi Ton etoit alors, et par celle du 

 climat. Car le froid est tellement contraire au crocodile qu'en 

 Amerique et en Egypte meme, au rapport des auteurs, cet ani- 

 mal ne pent passer les nuits d'et^ que dans I'eau, qui alors est 

 beaucoup plus chaude que I'air. Ceux qui avoit apporte par 

 terre depuis le Rochelle, le crocodile dont il s'agit, dirent qu'ils 

 I'avoient cru mort plusieurs fois, et n'avoient pu le faire revenir 

 qu'en le mettant aupres du feu." This crocodde lived only a 

 little more than a month. 



The living crocodile is never found in any part of Europe, but 

 its fossil remains are discovered all over it, and in various beds. 



The fossil remains of a species of didelphis or opossum have 

 been found in the oolitic beds of England. No living opossum 

 is ever found in a corresponding latitude, nor indeed do any 

 exist in Europe. The living species are chiefly inhabitants of 

 South America, and are principally found in Brasil, Guiana, 

 Mexico, and range into Virginia. 



The chiefresidenceof the hippopotamos is in Africa, between 

 the river Senegal and the Cape of Good Hope, and in several 

 tropical rivers of Asia. Tlie bones of the antediluvian hippopo- 

 tami are found in the upper valley of the A.rno in great abun- 

 dance ; and as Baron Cuvier assures, in almost as great numbers 

 as those of rhinoceroses and elephants. They are also frequently 

 met with in the neighbourhood of Rome, and in the county of 

 Middlesex, in the neighbourhood of Brentford. — (See Mr. Tvini- 

 iner's account of them in the Phil. Trans, for 1813.) Along with 

 these there were also found the bones of rhinoceroses and 

 elephants. As to fossil elephants' bones, they are found all over 

 the continents of Europe and America. Not only European 

 Russia, but almost all Siberia, teems with them. 



It is surely needless to multiply facts of this kind. If more 

 be required, the reader is referred to the classical and truly 



