410 CONSISTENCY OF GEOLOGY WITH SACRED HISTORY. 



found abundantly in the diluvium of all countries, where curiosity and 

 intelligence exist. 



Whales, sharks, and other fishes ; crocodiles, and other amphibia ; 

 the mammoth or the extinct elephant ; species of elephants, nearly 

 or quite like those of modern times ; the rhinoceros, the hippopota- 

 mus ; hyenas, tigers, deer, horses ; various species of the bovine fam- 

 ily, and a multitude more, are found buried in the diluvium, at a great- 

 er or less depth ; and in most instances, under circumstances indica- 

 ting that they were buried by the same catastrophe which destroyed 

 them ; namely, a sudden and violent deluge. 



It appears, from Dr. H. H. Hayden's Geological Essays, that under 

 the diluvium of the Atlantic portion of the middle and southern states, 

 there lie buried a great quantity of the bones of whales, sharks, por- 

 poises, mammoths, Asiatic elephants, and other large animals, along 

 with numerous trees, sometimes with their fruit. Layers of marine 

 mud are also found, deep beneath the diluvium, below the present 

 low water mark. 



There are also vast quantities of shells, and especially of a gigantic 

 oyster, in many parts of the southern states. They are found, not 

 only in digging for wells, but they form vast beds in various places. 



Near Tours, in France, is abed of oyster shells twenty seven miles 

 long and twenty feet thick. 



But the beds of the southern states far exceed this. A stratum, on 

 the whole continuous, although mixed, more or less, with the general 

 diluvium, and other materials of the country, has been traced from 

 the Eutaw springs, in South Carolina, to the Chickasaw country; six 

 hundred miles in length, by ten, or from that to one hundred, in 

 breadth.* 



There can be little doubt that many of the beds of oyster shells, 

 which have been attributed to the aboriginal Indians of this country^ 

 are diluvial deposits. 



The bones and skeletons of large animals, especially of the mam- 

 moth, are found in wide dispersion, and in very remote countries ; in 

 both Americas, in Europe and in Asia. In northern Asia, the tusks 

 of the extinct elephant, are discovered in the diluvial banks of almost 

 every river, and the ivory is found in such abundance, as to be a regu- 

 lar article of commerce. An enormous carcase of the northern or 

 Asiatic elephant, a few years since, by the gradual thawing of the 

 frozen bank, in which it was imbedded, high above the water, fell 

 down and exhibited the flesh in full preservation ; the long bristly 



* Mr. Finch. 



