612 Objections to Capt. Huttoris Theory. 



It is hard to believe how a reduction of temperature sufficiently vio- 

 lent to cause the extinction of the numerous species of animals and 

 plants, which we find buried in the tertiary and diluvial strata, 

 though not in existence since those formations, could have escaped 

 even the most casual notice in an historical record of the period ; and 

 severely felt also, as such a change must have been by Noah and his 

 family. 



V. But, as in the case of his first revolution, Captain Hutton here 

 also produces a text from the book of Genesis, which he conceives 

 affords some grounds for his Theory : it is in the words (chap. ix. 

 v. 10,) " from all that go out of the ark to every beast of the earth," 

 and he infers that the " beasts of the earth" here referred to, are to 

 be construed as meaning large series of animals, introduced by many 

 successive creations since the time of the deluge. Now even suppos- 

 ing such post-diluvian creation, (which we shall attempt to shew pre- 

 sently are not warranted by actual geological discoveries,) they could 

 in no way prove the alleged meteorological changes of the first or 

 second revolutions, or the destructions thereon attending. His argu- 

 ment appears to stand thus : — 



Beasts have been created since the deluge. 



1 . As such beasts were not created before the deluge, the antidilu- 

 vian climates cannot have been suited to their natures. 



2. This unsuitableness consisted in the temperature of climates 

 being higher before the flood than after. 



3. Consequently a reduction of temperature took place at the deluge. 

 Which reduction of temperature caused the extinction of certain 



species of animals and plants. 



Therefore there were species of plants and animals up to the time 

 of the flood, which did not exist afterwards. 



Now as we have no warrant in the Bible for either of the three po- 

 sitions here assumed, and numbered as above, and as they cannot be 

 inferred from the mere fact of post-diluvian creations, we are reduced 

 to consider such positions, as far as the Bible is concerned, as mere 

 hypotheses, and therefore in no way capable of strengthening the 

 construction which Captain Hutton puts upon the verse last quoted. 



So that the Mosaic record affording as little authority for these 

 supposed changes of the second revolution as it did for those of the 



