GEOLOGY. 321 



Surface of the Earth before the Deluge. 



It is probable that the antediluvian surface of the 

 earth, or at least of a large portion of the northern 

 hemisphere, was the same with the present; since 

 those tracts of dry land in which we find the ossife- 

 rous caves and fissures must have been dry also, 

 when the land animals, whose bones are still found, 

 inhabited or fell into them, during the period pre- 

 ceding the inundation by which they were extirpated. 



The climate of Siberia when the mammoth flou- 

 rished there, was probably of the same temperature 

 that it is now, the animal found among the ice having 

 evidently been furnished with a covering capable of 

 resisting extreme cold. In fact, there is every reason 

 to suppose, that the various fossil organic remains 

 contained in rocks of different kinds belong to ani- 

 mals and vegetables that formerly lived in the coun- 

 tries where these remains are now discovered. 



The Antediluvian Flora and Climate. 



There is now a difference of at least 41 of heat 

 (mean temperature) between the parallels of latitude 

 in which coal has been discovered, yet at the time of 

 the coal formation, as is proved by the vegetable re- 

 mains, the Floras of these remote parallels must 

 have been the same, both as to genera and species ; 

 latitude, longitude, or even elevation, not appearing 

 to have any effect in diversifying them. 



Sand, Clay, an$ Limestone. 



Siliceous, argillaceous, and calcareous substances, 

 (more familiarly known under the common names of 

 sand, clay, and limestone,) constitute -^pths of the 

 mineral masses forming rocks ; the remaining T ^th 

 consists of compound rocks, composed principally of 

 only four ingredients ; viz. quartz, felspar, mica and 

 hornblende. These great masses contain, dispersed 



