OF THE ORGANIC FOSSILS. 433 



If it is meant to prove that the present temperature is 

 less than a former one, all organic fossils should re- 

 semble those of hot climates, which cannot be shown. 

 Such creations being admitted to be distinct ones, the 

 form in question might as well have existed as any 

 other: there is no necessary relation between that of 

 a palm and a high temperature: it is a question of 

 sensibility, and that is of arbitrary appointment. 



But the following argument is decisive as to these 

 vegetables, under both suppositions. Coal is the pro- 

 duce of peat ; and this substance cannot be formed in 

 hot climates, nor ever is formed from the present 

 palms and ferns. Nor could the plants themselves 

 have been preserved as they are, in a hot climate; 

 because they are not so preserved between the tropics. 

 Except through inundations, no fossil vegetable can 

 ever have been produced in such temperatures, while 

 those of the coal strata have been slowly accumulated 

 under exposure to air and water, 



If it is true that living corals abound in hot climates 

 and are rare in cold ones, and that the latter possess 

 them in the fossil state, the same answer is valid. 

 There is no necessary connexion between such an 

 animal and a high temperature : the appointment is 

 equally arbitrary ; and as some also are now found in 

 cold climates, so might millions have existed in them 

 formerly. It is the same as to shells ; while in these 

 also it has now been found, that many fossil ones of 

 cold climates, formerly thought intertropical, belong 

 to genera in the neighbouring seas. It is an argu- 

 ment from analogy, that the Elephant and Rhinoceros 

 have actually resided in cold climates in former times ; 

 since they are thus found deposited where they died, 

 not transported, in frozen Siberia. Geologists have 

 formed their theory before the facts ; and when these 



I, * F 



