80 



THE CANADIAN SPORTSMAN AND NATURALIST. 



operations of a convulsed globe in some locali- 

 ty, while Noah and his family may have been 

 the remnants saved in another. Or each may 

 have been survivors of widely separated occur- 

 rences to which we have referred. 



A portion of the inhabitants may have been 

 saved by boats, corroborating the traditionary 

 account of the aborigines of America, as well 

 as the mythical and sacred books of different 

 nations.* 



This view of the subject best explains the 

 difference of species of animals, living repre- 

 sentatives of which have been long extinct, 

 their bones however, frequently found deep in 

 the earth. By some of the swells of the ocean, 

 during these paroxysms, a whole continent 

 would be swept over, and thus the Bible ex- 

 pression, " all the fountains of the great deep 

 were broken up," is as correct as expressive. 



The American continent, with its pre-historic 

 mounds, the products of an ancient and long 

 extinct race, may have been swept away by 

 some of these gigantic ocean waves, when the 

 waters were seeking their level, though the 

 continent itself was not permanently submerg- 

 ed. A few inhabitants may have escaped, who 

 chanced to be on mountain tops. They were 

 the progenitors of the red man, found here by 

 our European ancestors. As the water receded 

 to its former bed, with the return wave, and 

 rested but a short period on the surface, the 

 general face of the country, save as regards 

 vegetable and animal life, was but little disturb- 

 ed. If this tidal wave swept from the south- 

 east to the north west, we can account for the 

 treeless prairies, all verdure being destroyed, 

 followed on the subsidence of the flood by grass- 

 es which were the readiest to take root, the 

 seeds of the forest being less tenacious of life 

 were destroyed with the parent tree. 



It is not probable all the continents and 

 islands were submerged, nor all upheaved at 

 the same epoch. Were such a catastrophe to 

 again visit our earth, which is not at all impro- 

 bable, because of the molten mass still reposing 

 in its bosom, the western coasts of the Ameri- 



* Note :— Classical writers inform us that Deucalion 

 reigned over a part of Thessaly. In his age, say they, 

 some 1,500 years hefore our era, the whole earth was 

 overwhelmed with a deluge. The impiety of mankind 

 had irritated Juipiter, who resolved to destroy the race. 

 Immediately the whole earth exhibited a boundless sea. 

 The highest mountains were climbed by the frightened 

 inhabitants, to escape the rising waters. This seeming 

 security was soon overtopped by the swelling flood, 

 and no hope was left of escaping the universal calamity. 

 Prometheus advised his son, Deucalion, to make him- 

 self a ship, which he did, and by this means escaped 

 with his wife the general disaster. The pigeon and 

 olive branch play their part in this as in all other narra- 

 tions of the kind, showing a universal paternity some- 

 where. 



can continent might, be depressed below the 

 sea level. The Pacific ■would soon establish 

 an equilibrium. The large amount of water 

 required would denude other portions, Pos- 

 sibly Australia, with the thousand islands of 

 the eastern .archipelago, would rise into the 

 dignity of a continent with hills and vales, and 

 inland seas. Dense forests of verdure, abound- 

 ing with animal life would soon complete the 

 beautiful picture, ( and give us the realization 

 of a new continent, rising from the sea, like 

 Venus in classic story. 



Cosmogonists have been too much in the 

 habit of predicating their ideas of creation on 

 the accounts found in their " sacred books." 

 Instead of entering the great field of inquiry, 

 reading the rock-records " engraved by the 

 finger of God," and making proper deductions 

 therefrom, thinking and writing for them- 

 selves, and building up a science conformable 

 to the teachings of Nature — which cannot 

 misrepresent, — they have been content to bor- 

 row the narrow theory of some person who 

 lived in the deep past, whose ideas were drawn 

 from an uncultured fountain, and who had not 

 sufficient data on which to establish any great 

 scientific truth. 



The human mind was no more content to 

 remain inactive four thousand years ago than 

 now. The people then found the earth sub- 

 stantially as we see it to-day, and peopled as 

 it is with inhabitants. Reason taught them 

 that all this had a beginning. The easiest way 

 to explain to the ignorant masses, orally 

 taught by the better-cultured priests, and quite 

 as satisfactory to an uncultured population, 

 was the story originally copied from the Baby- 

 lonian records, transcripts of which were 

 found by Lavard in the ruins of Ninevah, 

 where they had been concealed for more than 

 3,000 years by the sands of the desert. Our 

 writers, conscious of the deep-rooted attach- . 

 ment of the populace to their sacred books, 

 have labored to educate the common mind, by 

 harmonizing. their knowledge with prejudiced 

 public opinion on this subject. This should 

 not be. The time has come when the Truth 

 should be taught, and if Error suffers it is not 

 the fault of the truthful teacher, but of him 

 who taught the original error. 



Our world is older than eveu scientific 

 thinkers have generally supposed. These 

 thinkers found the earth as it is, and were 

 ready to take for granted that its population, 

 with man and the lower forms of life, began 

 with the present order of things. 

 (to be continued.) 



