CONSISTENCY OF GEOLOGY WITH SACRED HISTORY. 411 



liair and vast massy hide, requiring a large number of men to carry- 

 it, afforded proof irrefragable, of the existence of the animal in those 

 rigorous climates, and of his sudden extinction, inhumation and con- 

 gelation, with so little interval of time, that putrefaction had not com- 

 menced, and has not since taken place, during a long succession of 

 ages. 



Indeed, there is but one view which appears to carry with it the 

 least probability, as to the cause of the wide dispersion and sepulture 

 of the gigantic races ; especially of extinct animals in the various 

 quarters of the world. It seems evidently to have been the work of 

 a deluge, which at once drowned, and in many instances extinguish- 

 ed, whole races of animals, and buried their bodies in the wreck of 

 the planet with which those waters were evidently filled. Such a 

 scene of awful devastation, was as well fitted to produce these effects, 

 as it was ill adapted, to the comparatively tranquil life and death of 

 the successive generations of marine and aqueous animals, that peo- 

 pled the earlier oceans. 



As organized remains are found at very high levels, not only miner- 

 alized, but loose or in diluvium, the prevalence of the ocean, at differ- 

 ent periods and under very different circumstances, is thus proved. 



It is said that the skeleton of a whale lies on the top of the moun- 

 tain Sandhorn, on the coast of the northern sea. The mountain is 

 three thousand feet high, and there is no cause that could have convey- 

 ed the whale to that elevation, except a deluge rising to that height. 



So late as June, 1824, the remains of a whale were found on the 

 westernmost Stappen, a mountain in Finmarck, at an elevation of 

 eight hundred feet above the ocean. The specimens, which were re- 

 ported to be vertebrae, were lost by shipwreck on their passage to 

 England. Similar remains are said to exist also in North Fugeloe, 

 another mountain in those regions. — Penn. 



It is common to find trees and their members, not only in the dilu- 

 vium, but also in the known alluvium of rivers, &c. In general, they 

 are not much altered ; sometimes they are partially bituminized or 

 verge towards lignite, or perhaps are really lignite ; at other times, 

 they are penetrated by acids and saline substances, and metallic min- 

 erals, as pyrites, are occasionally formed upon or in them. 



As there is no difference in the nature of the operations by which 

 diluvium and alluvium are produced, we must resort to an induction 

 of particulars, in order to enable us to distinguish between them ; but 

 in most situations, especially those that are remote from rivers and 

 moving waters, there is very little occasion for hesitation, in forming 

 an opinion. 



