258 GEOLOGICAL SPECULATIONS. 



The catastrophe, then, which has covered them, appears 

 to have been a transient marine inundation. This inun- 

 dation does not appear to have reached to the high 

 mountains, because the formation in which these re- 

 mains are found does not occur there, and these bones 

 are not found in the high valleys, if we except a few in 

 the warmer parts of America. The bones are neither 

 rolled nor in skeletons, but dispersed, and in part bro- 

 ken or fractured. They have not therefore been brought 

 there from a distance by an inundation, but have been 

 found by it in the places where it has covered them, as 

 might be expected, if the animals to which they belong- 

 ed had dwelt in these places, and had there successively 

 died. Hence it appears, that before this catastrophe 

 these animals lived in the countries where we now find 

 their bones: It is this inundation which has destroyed 

 them ; and as we do not find them elsewhere, the species 

 must have been aneihilated. It would thus appear, 

 that the northern parts of the globe formerly nourished 

 species belonging to the elephant, hippopotamus, rhino- 

 ceros, tapir, and mastodon tribes; and all of these, with 

 exception of the mastodon, which is entirely a fossil ge- 

 nus, have species living, but only in the torrid zone. 

 Nevertheless there is nothing to countenance the belief, 

 that the species of the torrid zone have descended from 

 the ancient animals of the north, which have been gra- 

 dually or suddenly transported toward the equator. 

 They are w>t the same ; and we may see, by the exami- 

 nation of the most ancient mummies, as those of the ibis, 

 that fio established fact authorizes the belief of changes 

 50 great as those which must be assumed for such a trans- 

 formation, especially in wild animals. Nor are there 

 any decisive proofs of the temperature of northern cli- 

 mates having changed since this epoch. The fossil spe- 

 cies do not differ less from the living, than certain north- 

 ern animals differ from their co-genera of the south ; 



