Notice and Review of thé Reliquiae Diluvianae. 157 
quakes and other violent agencies. This supposition, that 
the sea and land changed places at the deluge, has long 
been a favorite opinion of naturalists, even of those as 
eminent and recent as Cuvier ; and it forms the key stone 
of Mr. Penn’s system. But it happens, that the discovery 
of some broken hyzna’s bones an a cave at Kirkdale by 
Professor Buckland, completely refutes this notion; and 
proves that the antediluvian continents were the same as 
our present continents. M.Cuvier has had the andor, 
since the publication of Mr. Buckland’s book, to acknowl- 
edge the incorrectness of his opinion. (Ossemens fossiles, 
2d Edit. vol. 4, pp. 224-486.) Mr. Penn has had—(we 
think our readers, when they shall learn the facts, will call 
it) the obstinacy—to persist in his opinion, and to publish a 
“ Supplement” of criticisms on the Kirkdale evidence. 
But more of this hereafter. ~ 
Mr. Pean contends for the most exact adherence to the 
letter of the scripture. Yet he does not hesitate, to answer 
his own purposes, to adopt that very questionable rule of 
interpretation advanced by Rosenmuller, that ‘ Moses 
speaks according (o optical, not physteal truth.”” He main- 
tains too, that the sun and moon were ereated on the first 
demiurgic day, although Moses expressly declares they 
were created onthe fourth. He believes too, and attempts 
to prove, that only a part of the various species of animals 
on earth, were saved in the ark, in direct contradiction to 
the declaration of Moses, that God commanded Noah “ of 
every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort, shalt thou 
bring into the ark.” We state these things, not because 
we have any serious objection to such views, but merely 
to show, that this writer, when occasion demands, can use 
as great liberties with the language of scripture as other 
men. 
But we will detain our readers no longer from the work 
of Professor Buckland. 
The object of this work, as the title page evinces, is to 
exhibit all the important geological evidences of the last 
grand diluvial catastrophe to which our planet has been sub- 
ject :—or, as it has been recently stited in a foreign Re- 
view, to give us the * geology of the deluge.” (Ed. Rev. 
Oct. 1823.) Much error has existed on this subject, be- 
cause writers on the deluge have resorted te the seconda- 
