1841.1 Capt. Huttoris Geological Report. 221 



that loss of animal life which must ever be a consequence of any great 

 change or loss in the temperature and vegetation of the earth ? 



Such a revolution, although no details are given of its operations, is 

 clearly implied in the effects which are recorded in this simple language of 

 Scripture : — 



" And unto Adam, he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice 

 of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee, saying 

 thou shalt not eat of it : — Cursed is the ground for thy sake ; — in sorrow 

 shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; — thorns also and thistles 

 shall it bring forth to thee ; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field. In 

 the sweat of thy face* shalt thou eat bread, until thou return unto the 

 ground; for out of it wast thou taken; for dust thou art, and unto 

 dust shalt thou return." 



That earth which had hitherto profusely yielded, freely and gratuitously, 

 its choicest productions, now shrinking beneath the frown of Him, before 

 whose wrath all nature trembles, refused to supply even the common ne- 

 cessaries of life, unless wooed into compliance by the sweat of man's brow, 

 and the toil and labour of his hands. 



Can a more convincing proof be required of a change of temperature, 

 and of the first great revolution on the earth ? 



Or, can it be thought necessary to assign to the fossils of the secondary 

 strata a more remote period than this, in all probability, the first few 

 months of man's existence upon the globe ?f 



Should such proof be required, it may at once be derived from the charac- 

 ter of the fossil flora of the earth's strata, which although now abundantly 

 found in northern latitudes, is wholly of a tropical form, and consequently 

 the temperature of those countries must undoubtedly have been much 

 higher formerly than at present, 



It is unnecessary to enlarge here upon the several means which were 

 instrumental to this change, and enough has been said to show, that to 

 this epoch I would refer the extinction, and imbedding in the secondary 

 deposits of the exuviae now under consideration, and it therefore only 

 remains to state, that these marine formations as they are termed, remained 

 in the bosom of the deep until the period of the second revolution or 

 Mosaic deluge, when the mountains in which they now occur were up- 

 raised, for the purpose of throwing back the waters from the surface of the 

 earth into their proper beds ; to serve as agents, from their accumulations 



* That is—" by labour." 

 f I am well aware, that many will obj ect to this, that man did not exist upon the 

 earth until long after the period here spoken of; but I shall be able hereafter to give 

 proof that such doctrine is not only unfounded, but actually opposed to facts. 



