216 On the Climate of the Antediluvian World. [March, 



philosophical works of Baron Cuvier, especially to his Recher- 

 ches sur les Ossemens Fossiles. 



The fossil remains found in one of the uppermost of our strata, 

 the London clay, indicate for all the places in England, as also 

 for others on the continent of Europe where contemporaneous 

 deposits are met with, a temperature equal to that of the West 

 Indies and the north of Africa. In these deposits the fossil 

 remains begin to bear a close analogy to living genera and 

 species. 



We have no means of measuring the lapse of years from the 

 period of these depositions to the creation of man. From the 

 time of the Deluge to the birth of Christ is 2348, according to 

 the Hebrew text, and consequently 4173 years from the present 

 date. The creation of man is supposed to have been 1656 years 

 before the Deluge, making altogether 6829 years since Adam. 

 Now supposing a period of 1000 years to have elapsed from the 

 extinction of those races of animals to the creation of man, we 

 have a period of 6829 years, during which the climate of Great 

 Britain has been reduced from the heat of the West Indies, or 

 the north of Africa to its present standard. 



The whole surface of the earth seems to have suffered a great 

 diminution of temperature by the action of the Deluge, the 

 waters acting as a medium between the earth and its surround- 

 ing atmosphere. On the retreat of the waters, another cause of 

 cold arose in the immense evaporation which followed ; and as 

 the radiation of heat from the centre of the earth was constantly 

 going on, we have a right to presume that the equalitj* of tem- 

 perature on the surface of the earth was greatly destroyed by 

 that catastrophe, and that the loss of terrestrial heat has been 

 much more rapid since the Deluge than in an equal lapse of time 

 preceding it. Solar heat is insufficient to compensate the loss 

 of caloric in the polar regions where the fields of ice seem con- 

 stantly increasing. 



But at the period of the deposition of the London clay, and 

 its contemporaneous formations, it appears probable from the 

 animal remains they contain, that the heat on the surface of the 

 earth was not much greater at the time of their existence than it 

 is at present in places which are inhabited by many of the human 

 race. If the earth was not then fitted for man, it must have 

 been owing to other causes than mere temperature ; it could not 

 have lost much heat by radiation between that period and his 

 creation. 



According to the Hebrew text, the human race began to be 

 renewed after the Delude in those regions where solar influence 

 is great, and consequently in a temperature which corresponded 

 the most with that which had been nearly universal over the 

 earth at his creation and till the Deluge. 

 At present the loss of terrestrial heat is so great that we are 



