GEOLOGY. 577 



of Alexander, and, according to Biot, represents a state of 

 the heavens which appeared 700 years before Christ. Be- 

 sides, the Egyptian temple in which this singular zodiac was 

 discovered was built during the Roman rule, as is proved 

 by an inspection of the hieroglyphics, and even by an in- 

 scription consecrating this sanctuary to the welfare of the 

 emperor Tiberius. 



Notwithstanding all these reasons, which, besides, are only 

 derived from a civilized state, the opinion of G. Cuvier has 

 been assailed by the recent conquests of science. 



In past times some theological naturalists used every 

 effort to find some vestiges of fossil men contemporaries of 

 the deluge. One of them thought he had succeeded, and 

 gave the pompous name of homo diluvii testis to the frag- 

 ments of a skeleton discovered in Switzerland by Scheuch- 

 zer in the quarries of (Eningen. But Cuvier scattered all 

 this to the winds by showing that this precious " man, a 

 witness of the deluge," valued at its weight in gold and 

 venerated as a holy relic, was nothing more than the skel- 

 eton of a gigantic salamander. Doubt was no longer possi- 

 ble. The head of the reptile had been taken for the hip- 

 bone ; the teeth could be seen, and the French naturalist 

 had only to scrape the stone a little in order to lay bare 

 the claws. 



At present this biblical ardor seems replaced by quite an 

 opposite tendency of argument. Scientific facts, the value 

 of which cannot be contested, clearly establish the antiquity 

 of the human race, notwithstanding which, for some inex- 

 plicable reason, certain geologists make every effort to nul- 

 lify this great discovery. 



