434 ON THE GEOLOGICAL RELATIONS 



have occurred, they could not bear, as usual, to aban- 

 don them. 



Volta's imagined evidence from Monte Bolca is not 

 fact : it is one of those statements of bold ignorance 

 on vyhich almost all geology has hitherto been founded, 

 as it is a specimen of that geological marvellous which 

 has always been so attractive. It is as incorrect, too, 

 in zoology, as in all else. Out of his hundred and five 

 species, Blainville has extracted but ninety ; and there 

 are probably not more than sixty in reality. And 

 instead of having been collected, as he asserts, from 

 Asia, Africa, and America, they- appear all to be inha- 

 bitants of the Mediterranean ; as is probable from the 

 account of this deposit formerly given. If that should 

 not be rigidly true, such a revolution might have de- 

 stroyed, in that sea, many that are still existing in 

 tropical seas. This witness would long since have 

 been cross-examined as he now is, if geologists were 

 more anxious for truth than systems. 



If the Elephants and other animals now buried in 

 frozen climates have led to the same conclusions, this, 

 as I have just suggested, proves no more than shells 

 or corals do. Besides, the species are not always 

 proved to be the same ; and though they were, the 

 dog, the horse, the fox, the hare, and many more, are 

 found in all climates ; of convertible habits, like man, 

 or originally appointed universal. The rhinoceros is 

 buried in Siberia, in the frozen earth of the Wilui, in 

 proof that this climate was its residence ; and the 

 great Elephant was found in ice. 



It has been argued also, that, if there has not been 

 an interchange of climate, there has been at least an 

 universal diminution of temperature, because there are, 

 in Europe, abundant fossil species, of which the pa- 

 rallels exist in tropical seas, but not in our own. The 



