Extinction, of Organic Beings. 487 



their species through a far longer term of years than had 

 been accorded to the herbivorous classes before the fall, 

 and which would consequently require those checks upon 

 their increase which during the shortness of the first epoch 

 was not at all necessary. This at least is but acknowledg- 

 ing the foresight, and in accordance with the wisdom, of the 

 Almighty, so conspicuously displayed in all His works. 



Here then was a Creation subsequent to the recorded 

 days of Scripture ; nor need we suppose that this creation 

 of the carnivora was the only addition to the fauna of the 

 earth, for we have seen that the reduction of temperature 

 may in some measure have been occasioned by the upheave- 

 ment of vast mountains, whose snow-clad summits furnished 

 climates and stations hitherto unknown, and for which per- 

 haps a peculiar fauna was required ; fresh plants and animals 

 of various kinds were therefore the natural consequence 

 of the late revolution, and new species came into existence, 

 as the more tender beings of the former epoch became 

 extinct. 



At a subsequent period the second geological revolution, 

 or Mosaic deluge, occurred, and here again the same opera- 

 tions were repeated, but only far more extensively ; and, 

 whereas the first epoch affected almost exclusively the 

 marine, — so the second acted most severely on the terres- 

 trial classes. 



This difference may have been a natural consequence, 

 arising from the diversity of the destructive agents, for as 

 the first revolution gave birth to a wider tract of dry land, 

 the inhabitants of the sea were necessarily those which 

 suffered, — while the second revolution, being accompanied 

 by a flood of waters, would most seriously affect the inhabi- 

 tants of the land. 



In this last catastrophe perished the entire produce of the 

 land, both animal and vegetable, with the slight exception 

 of a few geneva and species saved with Noah in the ark, and 



