50 THE NO A CHI AN FLOOD. 



deep-sea line which forms the boundary between two 

 great zoological provinces. Either, then, in these two 

 distinct but neighbouring localities, the whole multitude 

 of species, man included, must have been undergoing 

 variation simultaneously for tens of thousands of years, 

 or else the differences in the whole multitude, man 

 included, must have been already established, or nearly 

 so, when first they stepped forth in singular procession 

 from the door of the ark. But the former alternative, 

 which is the Darwinian, is consistent with the record of 

 the Noachian Flood in implying that the inundation 

 was only partial ; while the latter alternative contradicts 

 the record in an essential point on which it is perfectly 

 explicit, by necessitating the presence in the ark of more 

 than one human family. 



As long as we are content to speak of 4000 years 

 or so, some one might be tempted to fancy, however 

 erroneously, that such a period would be adequate to 

 produce the existing varieties of mankind, because there 

 is some evidence of comparatively rapid changes of colour 

 having taken place under the influence of climate, and 

 because a new type of features appears to be forming 

 itself with a noticeable progress under the absolutely 

 unique circumstances which have governed the recent 

 colonization of North America. Unique those circum- 

 stances are, because never before has there been so much 

 mingling of the blood of different nations and races in 

 a new and unoccupied field, with much to stimulate and 

 nothing to curb or repress variation. Never before have 

 men's minds and bodies in every faculty been so taxed 



