Extinction, of Organic Beings. 4&7 



"given for meat," "every herb bearing seed, and every tree 

 in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed," while 

 to the brute creation it is as distinctly declared, that to 

 " every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air ; 

 and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein 

 there is life" was given "every green herb for meat." 

 Here is the line as clearly drawn as can be required ; 

 there is no mention whatever of carnivora, or animals of prey, 

 even in allusion, but the food allotted to the animal world 

 is solely that of the herbivora. Between man and the 

 brutes there is this distinction made, namely, to the one the 

 fruits of the earth, and to the other its herbs are given ; 

 but between the animal classes no line whatever is drawn. 



In this view we are also supported by the testimony 

 derived from the fossil flora of the secondary strata, which 

 is precisely of that character which the above doctrine of 

 the sacred historian would lead us to expect. 



" The antediluvian vegetation was very different from 

 the present." This is the statement of the most eminent 

 of the mocfern geologists, and the phenomena in the 

 fossil matters of the earth have suggested, and justify the 

 supposition. The difference was of two kinds ; it was that 

 of a tropical character, implying a temperature like that 

 of the torrid zone or equatorial regions, and displaying that 

 largeness of size which is only now found in regions where 

 that degree of heat prevails ; and it was also not of the legu- 

 minous species — not the corn plants or the vegetables which 

 now constitute the food of man, but it was of the reedy, fern- 

 like, grassy, more aquatic and puny kinds, such as are 

 adapted for the nutrition of brute animals, and obviously 

 by its nature indicating that these were then living or pre- 

 dominating in those regions where the imbedded remains 

 of this character appear."* 



* Sharon Turner's Sacred History of the World. 



