CONCHOLOGY. 



tors, and other sea-Jiells so strongly prove their marine 

 origin, that he must be of a sceptical mind who could 

 doubt any of the circumstances. The singular species of 

 Lizards and of Crocodiles in a fossil state, and found so 

 abundantly in Bedfordshire, Devonshire, and Gloucester- 

 shire, would lead us to suppose that the impulse of the 

 waters, had at the time of the deluge, brought these objects 

 from the Southern and Pacific Ocean, and having retired 

 again to their original beds, had left them to be covered 

 over by the decomposition of vegetable earths. The sup- 

 position of some Philosophers who may have conceived that 

 the axis of the earth, has at some former time, received a 

 considerable alteration in the inclination of its line to the 

 plane of its orbit, becomes more and more strengthened and 

 confirmed by all the facts which the history of extraneous 

 fossils presents to our view. The tides joined to the centri- 

 fugal force of the equatorial waters distended by the diurnal 

 motion of the earth, may be considered as quite equal, in 

 case of such a change, to the effect which has been pro- 

 duced. 



In the most distant regions of Siberia and North America 

 the immensely large bones of the Mammoth and Elephant, 

 which have been found in a fossil state, may tend also 

 strongly to prove some wonderful change of climate, com- 

 pared with that temperature which is at present experienced 

 by the inhabitants of the earth. If indeed the climates have 

 become so materially altered, it accounts in some degree for 

 the circumstances of the large fossil shells of the Cornu 

 Ammonis kind, with its numerous varieties, being found 

 different in form and character to any of the recent ones. 

 The temperature of the ocean would be completely changed 

 and become only adapted for such animals as belonged only 

 to a colder region. The difference of organization in the 



