168 



Scientific Geology. 



The recent profound and splendid generalizations of Elie de Beau- 

 mont, in regard to the elevation of mountain chains, at various epochs, 

 seem to have rendered it all but certain, that the deluge of history 

 was produced by such an event. This is the opinion of Beaumont. 

 The elevation of a chain of mountains from the ocean's bed, " would 

 produce effects in countries remote from the spot," says he, " similar 

 to the sudden and transient deluge of which we find traces, and of a 

 uniform date, in the archives of all people." — " If that historical 

 event," he adds, " be nothing else but the latest of the revolutions on 

 the earth's surface, it will be natural to enquire, what chain of moun- 

 tains was elevated at the same date ; and possibly it will reach the 

 case to remark, that the chain of the Andes, whose breathing volca- 

 noes are yet generally active, forms a ridge the most extended, the 

 most decided, and the least changed from the actual external config- 

 uration of the terrestrial globe."* If it be true, however, that the 

 diluvium, which I have described, received its present form and po- 

 sition from the historical deluge ; and if the direction of the current in 

 all northern countries was from the north ; it is difficult to conceive 

 how either the flux or reflux of the ocean, produced by the elevation 

 of the Andes, could have been in that direction. But the history of 

 Iceland proves, that mountains have been elevated in the northern 

 part of our globe by internal forces, within a comparatively recent 

 period ; and this circumstance takes away all improbabilities from 

 the supposition that the center of disturbance was there at the time of 

 the Mosaic deluge. And is not this opinion strengthened by the dis- 

 covery of the antediluvian elephant, incased in ice, on the shores of 

 Kamtschatka ; and of the tiger in the frozen gravel of the same re- 

 gions : showing that the waters of the Arctic ocean were poured over 

 that country when these animals were enveloped, producing such a 

 change of temperature, that not until the present century, did the ice 

 melt away enough to disclose their remains. 



Before concluding this subject of alluvium and diluvium, I hope I 

 shall be excused for making a short digression. Although it may 

 seem arrogant in one who has never personally inspected the cele- 

 brated mounds of our western states, so universally regarded as the 

 work of man, I hesitate not to advance the opinion with great confi- 

 dence, that they are almost universally the results of diluvial and flu- 



*Recherches sur quelques — unes Des Revolutions de la Surfacedu Globe. — Pa- 

 ris 1830. 



