MYSTERIOUS FORMS OF LIFE. 69 



When it became impossible to resist the evidence that these 

 forms were relics of the sea, the theory obtained a foothold 

 that, as the deluge of Noah had inundated the lands, these 

 forms must be the relics of that recognized universal submer- 

 gence. It required a century and a half to argue down this 

 error ; and, meantime, the geologists who did not subscribe to 

 it, fell under the accusation of " disbelieving the whole of the 

 Sacred writings." 



Thus, in our day, we stand at the outcome of a contest of 

 three hundred years; and, instead of battling against these 

 old errors, we find ourselves in a position to push on to new 

 discoveries. 



That the sea has covered the land, and that shore lines 

 have greatly changed, was taught by Pythagoras, and after- 

 ward by Strabo and Pliny ; but these views were almost for- 

 gotten. Many Arabian writers have left on record views and 

 opinions on many subjects, quite in advance of their European 

 contemporaries. On this subject we find an entertaining reve- 

 lation of opinion by Mohammed Kazwini, of' the seventh cen- 

 tury of the Hegira the close of the thirteenth century of our 

 era. It is given as the narrative of Kidhz, an allegorical 

 personage: 



" I passed one day by a very ancient, and wonderfully 

 populous city, and asked one of its inhabitants how long it 

 had been founded. 'It is indeed a mighty city,' replied he, 

 ' we know not how long it has existed, and our ancestors were, 

 on this subject, as ignorant as ourselves.' Five centuries after- 

 wards, as I passed by the same place, I could not perceive 

 the slightest vestige of the city. I demanded of a peasant 

 who was gathering herbs upon its former site, how long it had 

 been destroyed. 'In sooth a strange question/ replied he, 

 'the ground here has never been different from what you 

 now behold it.' ' Was there not of old,' said I, 'a splendid 

 city here?' ' Never,' he answered, 'so far as we have seen, 

 and never did our fathers speak to us of any such.' On my 

 return there five hundred years afterwards, I found the sea in 

 the same place, and on its shores were a party of fishermen, 



