2/2 EOCENE PERIOD, [Ch. XIX. 



treated, upon the restraining of the rain and the passing of a 

 wind over the earth. On the contrary, the olive-branch, 

 brought back by the dove, seems as clear an indication to us 

 that the vegetation was not destroyed,, as it was then to Noah 

 that the dry land was about to appear. 



We have been led with great reluctance into this digression, 

 in the hope of relieving the minds of some of our readers from 

 groundless apprehension respecting the bearing of many of the 

 views advocated in this work. They have been in the habit of 

 regarding the diluvial theory above controverted as alone 

 capable of affording an explanation of geological phenomena in 

 accordance with Scripture,, and they may have felt disapproba- 

 tion at our attempt to prove, in a former chapter *, that the 

 minor volcanos on the flanks of Etna may, some of them, be 

 more than 10,000 years old. IIow^ they would immediately 

 ask, could they have escaped the denuding force of a diluvial 

 rush of waters? The same objection may have presented 

 itself when we quoted, with so much respect, the opinion of a 

 distinguished botanist, that some living specimens of the Bao- 

 bab tree of Africa, or the Taxodium of Mexico, may be five 

 thousand years old f . Our readers may also have been 

 astonished at the high antiquity assigned by us to the greater 

 part of the European alluviums, and the many different 

 ages to which we refer them J, as they may have been taught 

 to consider the whole as the result of one recent and simul- 

 taneous inundation. Lastly, they may have felt some dis- 

 appointment at observing, that we attach no value whatever 

 to the hypothesis of M. Elie dc Beaumont, adopted by Pro- 

 fessor Sedgwick, that the sudden elevation of mountain-chains 

 ' has been followed again and again by mighty waves deso- 

 lating whole regions of the earth ,' a phenomenon which, 

 according to the last-mentioned of these writers, has ' taken 



* Chap. viii. p. 100. f Sec above, p. ( J9. 



I 1 J . H7. P. 101. 



