58 Mr. Smithson on Mr. Penn's Theory concerning [July, 



he because those became tenants of the cave onlv when the 

 water had expelled the hyaenas. It is alike improbable that 

 animals of such contrary habits should dwell together, and that 

 hysenas should carry so diminutive a prey as a water-rat, to their 

 den to devour it. 



The small quantity of the album grsecum can afford no argu- 

 ment against the animals who produced it having lived in the 

 cave. So brittle a substance could not last long under the 

 trample of numerous animals of such bulk. The water which 

 subsequently entered the cave may have destroyed a part. The 

 ■existence of any is a strong circumstance in favour of the suppo- 

 sition of their having lived in the cave, and such as it would 

 scarcely have dared to hope for, in its support. 



If bones of quadrupeds are found inclosed in no rocks but 

 limestone ones, which it may, however, require more extended 

 observation to establish, the reason may be, that in no other 

 rocks are caverns, in which wild beasts can take shelter, so com- 

 mon. These are likewise the only rocks in which the formation 

 of stalactite would close the openings, and preserve the bones 

 through a long course of ages, and so as to have reached our 

 times, from the decay and all the accidents to which in an open 

 cave they would be exposed. 



Of the Deluge. 



Should every argument which has been adduced to establish 

 that the animals were not brought from remote regions by water, 

 that they lived and died in the countries in which their remains 

 now lie, have appeared insufficient for the purpose, yet, that it is 

 not to the Mosaical flood that their existence, where they now 

 are, is to be referred, two great facts appear to place beyond 

 controversy. 



One is the total absence in the fossil world of all human 

 remains of every vestige of man himself and of his arts. 



The magnitude of the chastisement, the order of nature sub- 

 verted to produce it, proclaim the multitudes of the criminal. 

 Human bodies by millions must then have covered the waters ; 

 they must have formed a material part, if not the principal one, 

 of every group, and human bones be now consequently met with 

 everywhere blended with those of animals. 



Objects of human industry and skill must likewise continually 

 occur among the bones. Of the miserable victims of the disaster 

 numbers would be clothed, and have on their persons articles of 

 the most imperishable materials ; and the dog would retain his 

 collar, the horse his bit and harness, the ox his yoke. To men 

 who wrought iron and bronze, who manufactured harps and 

 organs, these things must have been familiar. 



But more ; embalmed within the substance of the diluvian 

 mud, entire cities, with their monuments, with a great part of 



