PRINCIPLES OF GEOLOGY. 19 



been extinct for some thousands of years, and whose living analogues 

 dwell only in distant and different countries. Cold as is our climate, 

 and now utterly unfit to maintain the existence of such animals, the 

 time has been, if we rightly understand the history of the earth, when 

 elephants and hippopotami, tigers and hyajnas, lived here together, and 

 here together met the common doom of all the inhabitants of earth, 

 destruction by overflowing water. And not inconsiderable was the 

 number thus destroyed ; for almost every gravel-pit and diluvial cliff, 

 and limestone cavern, abound with their remains ; some of which hy 

 their unusual proportions, indicate the gigantic size and formidable 

 strength of antediluvian quadrupeds. By comparing them with exist- 

 ing species, we are enabled to conjecture the antediluvian condition 

 of the world, with what vegetables it was clothed, and with what 

 climate it was blessed. No scope need be given to fancy, the truth 

 of analogy, the known conformity of nature, are sure guides to the 

 geologist. 



To discuss the interesting questions arising out of this magnificent 

 subject, would be deviating from the elementary plan of this chapter. 

 We must, therefore, refer to the works of Cuvier and Buckland for full 

 illustrations of the forms and habits of antediluvian animals, and the 

 circumstances under which they are discovered ; whether in gravel-pits 

 inland, and in cliffs by the sea ; or in caves and fissures of limestone, into 

 which they were dragged to death by their ravenous contemporaries, or 

 fell by accident, whilst browzing among the rocks, whose open chasms 

 the deluge has since concealed. 



But it will be demanded, What changes in the surface of our planet 

 were occasioned by these devastating waters ? Was the antediluvian 

 earth diversified by the same hills and vallies, the same precipices and 

 cliffs as we now behold, or was all this beautiful variety of surface oc- 

 casioned by that flood, or is it the result of subsequent causes ? These 

 points have been resolutely debated by different theorists, and the most 

 furious contests happened, as usual, whilst the facts were but half under- 

 stood. But the controversy has been gradually quieted ; and geologists 



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