104 PHILOSOPHY OF ZOOLOGY. 



lion, and leads to the conclusion, that the revolutions which 

 have taken place in the animal kingdom, have been pro- 

 duced by the changes which accompanied the succes- 

 sive depositions of the strata. According to this view of 

 the matter, the animals and vegetables with which the earth 

 is peopled at present, could not have lived at the period 

 when the transition rocks were forming. A variety of 

 changes have taken place in succession, giving to the earth 

 its present character, and fitting it for the residence of its 

 present inhabitants. And if the same system of change 

 continues to operate, (and it must do so while gravitation 

 prevails *,) the earth may become an unfit dwelling for the 

 present tribes, and revolutions may take place, as exten- 

 sive as those which living beings have already experienced. 

 In addition to these circumstances, which must have ex- 

 ercised a powerful influence on the distribution of animals, 

 we must bear in mind, that the universal deluge of NOAH, 

 and the numerous local inundations, the traces of which may 

 be perceived in every country, must have greatly contri- 

 buted to produce changes in the animal and vegetable king- 

 dom *[*. To these inundations may be ascribed the occur- 

 rence of the remains of supposed land plants, and fresh 

 water animals in strata, alternating with such as contain 



* The only causes which at present seem to operate in preventing this 

 reduction of the elevated parts of the earth to a level with the sea, are vol. 

 canoes and sand-floods. The counteracting effects of the former are of great 

 magnitude ; those of the latter are comparatively insignificant. 



f In this country, the proofs of these inundations are exhibited in the hills 

 of stratified sand? and the numerous boulder stones which occur in every 

 part of the country. The tempestuous risings of the sea have left traces of 

 their destructive effects, in the heaps of sea shells which occur in our friths. 

 I have described a bed of this kind elevated upwards of thirty feet above the 

 level of the sea, which occurs to the westward of Borrowstownness in the 

 frith of Forth, in Annals of Phil. August 1814, p. 133. 



