THE DELUGE. 383 



of man and the mastodon will still cumber the assumed 

 history of the lost age. It is urged in worldly argu 

 ment, attempting to strengthen that which ought to 

 need no crutch, that man may have existed only on 

 those portions of the globe now covered by the sea, and 

 hence his non-appearance as a fossil ; but there are irre 

 fragable proofs, and a voice in the stones, even on the 

 walls of the Cotswold Hills, as well as on the Downs of 

 Ashdown Park, and on the highest mountains, that the 

 world has owned a conquest by the sea, and to this hour 

 the handwriting of an overwhelming ocean still clings to 

 the topmost stone, and gives a graven autograph in 

 every little shell. 



