248 THE HISTORY OF GEOLOGY 



on the deluge ; and of the Noachian deluge as a geologic 

 agent from this time forth we hear no more. This was 

 one of the greatest benefits that Buckland conferred on 

 geology ; commencing as the most powerful champion 

 that had ever appeared on the side of the Noachian deluge, 

 he step by step and by slow degrees was led to reconsider 

 his position, till finally he abandoned it altogether, and 

 left geology freed from a mistaken doctrine to pursue 

 her peaceful path, disturbed by no difficulties, beyond 

 those naturally inherent in the subject. For this alone 

 we owe him a debt of deep gratitude ; but our obligations 

 do not cease here. He introduced to the eyes of an 

 astonished world a strange procession of extinct forms 

 of life, with whom he seemed on most familiar terms ; 

 parodizing a line from Juvenal he exclaimed, " Quicquid 

 agunt * Sauri,' votum timor ira voluptas gaudia discursus 

 nostri est farrago Libelli," and then proceeded to describe 

 " the details of their political and domestic economy." 



In his " Bridge water Treatise " we may still read with 

 interest and profit his vivid account of the Icthyosaurs, 

 Plesiosaurs, Megalosaurus, a id Pterodactyles, and other 

 monsters of the mighty past. This work was written 

 sixty years ago, and yet such was the sagacity of the 

 author in selecting only those facts which were well 

 ascertained and sure, that it may be put into the hands 

 of the youngest and most innocent of geologists, without 

 fear of infecting his mind with forgotten error. 



Nor must we here overlook his success in informing 

 and convincing the world of science of the fact that in 

 times immediately antecedent to the glacial period, our 

 country and Europe generally was the home of a vast 

 number of animals no longer found in it, some of them 

 altogether extinct, such as the mammoth, rhinoceros, 

 hippopotamus, cave hvaena, bears and tigers, and the 

 arctic glutton. 



