48 THE NOACHIAN FLOOD. 



quently recrossed, and planting themselves precisely in 

 that region which other marsupials, generically the same 

 but specifically different, had occupied before them. 



We are to believe this of countless other species in all 

 parts of the world. "We are to believe that they slowly 

 and in many generations worked their way back to 

 these quasi-ancestral homes, and yet neglected to occupy 

 vast tracts equally or even better adapted to their wants. 

 We must believe also that some of the fleetest, strong- 

 est, and most sagacious animals, as the horse and the 

 elephant, failed to trace out the abodes of their ancient 

 representatives, since America, when discovered a few 

 years ago, possessed these quadrupeds only in fossil and 

 in no living species *. 



There is indeed one animal, whose powers of con- 

 trivance would account for its distribution over the 

 globe, even supposing it to have begun with a single 

 family, not more than 4300 years ago, and to have 

 ranged from a single centre. Man is that animal. Yet, 

 if all the other facts that bear on the universality of the 

 Noachian Deluge were in an agreement with it as entire 

 as their irreconcilability is utter and complete, still the 

 circumstances of the human race alone would disable us 

 from believing that the Flood of Noah's epoch extended 

 over all the globe. With other animals it might be 

 advanced that the different species and main varieties 

 had been represented in the ark and were thence dis- 

 seminated; but in the case of man we are precluded 

 from such an explanatory device by the express terms 



1 Lyell, ii. 336. 



