rOSSIL EEMAINS.] 



THE HOESE, AND 



[aemenian horses. 



form existed."* Quitting, therefore, these 

 regions of probability, we approach those of 

 greater certainty when we enter upon the 

 fields of the scientific geologist. Here, from 

 discoveries that have, in almost every country 

 of the habitable globe, been made, remains of 

 the horse have been found imbedded in the 

 strata of the earth, in juxta-position with 

 those of other animals. In all the continents 

 of the Old World, vestiges of his bony structure 

 have been exhumed, mingled not only with 

 those of animals which are, now, known to have 

 had an antediluvian existence, but with those 

 of the bear, the deer, the elephant, and the 

 tiger, in every latitude between the extremes 

 of climate. Geological researches in the New 

 World have been attended with similar re- 

 sults ; so that the supposition of Colonel 

 Smith, that "the post-diluvian horse com- 

 menced nearly simultaneously in several re- 

 gions," may, we think, be taken as a theory, 

 which, at least, has probability to support it. 

 There is hardly a district in Great Britain in 

 which equine remains have not been dis- 

 covered: and when we consider this almost 

 universal distribution of the animal, and fur- 

 ther consider his tractability and his adapta- 

 tion to the manifold purposes for which he is 

 used in a state of domestication, we behold a 

 striking evidence of the beneficence of the 

 Creator to man — " the quintessence of dust" 

 ■ — in placing, so readily, within his reach the 

 noblest of quadrupeds, and amongst the most 

 easy to be rendered subservient to his power. 



"Eossil remains," says Colonel Smith, "of 

 the horse have been found in nearly every 

 part of the world. His teeth lie in the Polar 

 ice, along with the bones of the Siberian mam- 

 moth ; in the Himalaya mountains, with lost, 

 and but recently ascertained, genera ; in the 

 caverns of Torquay, Ireland ; and in one in- 



* If Eastern tradition is to be considered of any value, 

 Armenia — the mountainous region of tlie Minni — ought 

 to be viewed as the region where the first post-diluvian 

 horses were located. This country lies at the eastern 

 extremity of Asia Minor, occupying an extent of about 

 300 miles from north to south, and about 430 from east 

 to west. As it lies on the borders of the Caucasus and 

 Mount Taurus, it is extremely mountainous, which would 

 render it unfavourable for the breeding of large numbers 

 of horses; but it has numerous plains and valleys, 

 although of greater elevation than those of southern and 

 western Asia. In the east it is highly fertile, and is the 

 original country whence some of our liiwst fruits have 

 2 



stance in Barbary, completely fossilised. His 

 bones, accompanied with those of the elephant, 

 rhinoceros, tiger, and hyem, rest by thousands 

 in the caves of Cronstadt, in Sevron, at Argen- 

 teuil ; with those of the mastadon in the Val 

 d'Arno ; and on the borders of the Rhine with 

 the colossal urus. All the remains hitherto 

 discovered, appear so perfectly similar in their 

 conformation to the domesticated horse, that 

 they can scarcely be ascribed to other species 

 of the genus. From the commixture of their 

 remains, there cannot be a doubt that they 

 have existed together with several great pachy- 

 dermata. But what is most deserving of atten- 

 tion is, that while all the other genera and 

 species, found under the same conditions, 

 have ceased to exist, or have removed to 

 higher temperatures, the horse alone has re- 

 mained to the present time, in the same regions, 

 without, it would appear, any protracted inter- 

 ruption; since, from the circumstances which 

 manifest deposits to be of the earliest era, 

 fragments of its skeleton continue to be traced 

 upwards, in successive formations, to the pre- 

 sent superficial mould." 



Commencing with the earliest period in 

 which mention is made of the horse, we find, 

 that in Judea, horses were, till the days ot 

 Solomon, very rare. The earliest indirect 

 notice of him is in the book of Genesis, 

 xxxvi. 24 ; where it is said of Anah, the son 

 of Zibeon, that he found mules in the wilder- 

 ness, as he was feeding the asses of his f:ither. 

 The mule being the off'spring of the ass and 

 the horse, it is evident that wild horses, at all 

 events, had then an existence in the wilderness 

 of Idumea or Seir, which is the spot to which 

 reference is made. The earliest direct evi- 

 dence of the existence of the animal, is in 

 Genesis xlvii. 17, where Josepix is said to 

 have given the Egyptians " bread in exchange 



come, such as the apricot and the plum. In the warmer 

 districts, almonds, figs, and pomegranates are cultivated; 

 and here, according to tradition, Noah and his family 

 settled on leaving the Ark. It is now divided into 

 fifteen provinces; the central one of which is called 

 Ararat, where rises the mountain of the same name, on 

 the summit of which the Ark rested after the Deluge, 

 In Armenia and Persia, it is still designated the Kuhi 

 Nuh— the Mountain of Noah. As horses, no doubt, 

 formed a portion of the live-stock of the patriarch, here 

 the first post-diluvian pair must have been located, to be 

 in accordance with the Oriental tradition, which, even 

 down to our own time, prevails iu Armenia. — Eo. 



