114 WRITINGS OF JAMES SMITHSON. 



only when the water had expelled the hysenas. It is alike 

 improbable that animals of such contrary habits should 

 dwell together, and that hyaenas should carry so diminutive 

 a prey as a water-rat, to their den to devour it. 



The small quantity of the album groecum can afford no 

 argument against the animals who produced it having lived 

 in the cave. So brittle a substance could not last long under 

 the trample of numerous animals of such bulk. The water 

 which subsequently entered the cave may have destroyed a 

 part. The existence of any is a strong circumstance in 

 favour of the supposition of their having lived in the cave, 

 and such as it would scarcely have dared to hope for, in its 

 support. , 



If bones of quadrupeds are found inclosed in no rocks 

 but limestone ones, which it may, however, require more 

 extended obser,vatiou to establish, the reason may be, that 

 in no other rocks are caverns, in which wild beasts can take 

 shelter, so common. These are likewise the only rocks in 

 which the formation of stalactite would close the openings, 

 and preserve the bones through a long course of ages, and 

 so as to have reached our times, from the decay and all the 

 accidents to which in an open cave they would be exposed. 



Of the Deluge. 



Should every argument which has been adduced to estab- 

 lish that the animals were not brought from remote regions 

 by water, that they lived and died in the countries in which 

 their remains now lie, have appeared insufficient for the 

 purpose, yet, that it is not to the Mosaical flood that their 

 existence, where they now are, is to be referred, two great 

 facts appear to place beyond controversy. 



One is the total absence in the fossil world of all human 

 remains of every vestige of man himself and of his arts. 



The mao-nitudc of the chastisement, the order of nature 

 subverted to produce it, proclaim the multitudes of the 

 criminal. Human bodies by millions must then have cov- 



