608 THE UNIVERSE. 



It is 'to this severe cold which raged over a large part 

 of EiTrope that we must refer the great hecatomb of those 

 myi-iads of elephants, mastodons, and rhinoceroses, which 

 formerly lent life to every part of France, Germany, and 

 Italy, and of which their soil displays such numerous 

 vestiges on every side. . . 



The cause was clearly sudden, for if all these animals 

 had not been frozen as soon as they were killed, different 

 agents would have dispersed their remains, whilst on the 

 contrary we often find entire skeletons on the spot where 

 they had expired. As we have just said, elephants have 

 even been discovered contained in the ice and still covered 

 with skin and the long and extraordinary hair of which 

 they possessed a thick covering ! 



In the post-tertiary epoch other events again greatly 

 disturbed the globe; these were the mighty deluges Avhich 

 poured in tumultuous torrents over its surface, and de- 

 posited abundance of ddbris on it. Hence these strata 

 are knoAra by the name of diluvium. 



But although an attentive study of the earth points out 

 to us with great accuracy the succession of its epochs, all 

 the power of inodern science is inadequate to say what 

 space of time these great phases endured; and how many 

 years back we must place all these deluges, these cata- 

 clysms, and lastly the creation of man. 



Notwithstanding the apparent youth of the new conti- 

 nent, some geologists assign a very remote period to the 

 great shock which gave it birth by rending the globe 

 almost from pole to pole. One of the most learned men 

 whom England loves to honour, Sir Charles Lyell, resting 

 his arguments upon authorities of great weight, maintains 

 tliat the ]\Iississippi has run in its present bed more than 

 100,000 years; and Dr. B. Dowler, who shares this view, 



