GEOLOGICAL EVIDENCES OF THE DELUGE OF NOAH. 



355 



slopes of the Bolivian Andes, is almost beyond the limits of the geographical 

 range of Guanaco, which is by no means such a denizen of the plains as Prof. 

 Huxley would infer, the existence of a fossil Auchenoid mammal (a so-called 

 hueso de gig ante") at that place is a fact of much more importance than the 

 existence of a similar animal at Corocoro, in the elevated valleys of the Aymara 

 country, at the foot of the enormous Illimani. 



As Mr. Forbes, in the memoir preceding Prof. Huxley's, mentions at great 

 length the Salinas, the volcanic origin of common salt, and the physical geography 

 of Peru and Bolivia, I may be permitted to indicate that much valuable informa- 

 tion on these subjects is to be found in Mr. W. Bollaert's " Antiquities and Eth- 

 nology of South America," 8vo, London, 1860, and in his paper in the " Journal 

 of the Royal Geographical Society," vol. xxi., 1851, with a map. Apparently the 

 researches of both MM. Castelnau and Bollaert have been unknown to Messrs. 

 Forbes and Huxley. 



The specific name boliviensis, applied by Prof. Huxley to the smaller form, will 

 no doubt be abrogated by succeeding naturalists, as founded on a misconception 

 of the geographical distribution of the genus. 



Prof. Huxley, impugning the philosophical laws of " correlation of structure" 

 as defined by Cuvier and Owen, suggests that, upon the Cuvierian method of 

 induction, a paleeontologist, reasoning alone from the cervical vertebra of Macrau- 

 chenia, would have confidently predicted its Cameloid affinities. But when Prof. 

 Huxley founds an argument, put hypothetically into the mouth of an ideal adver- 

 sary, upon a structure so liable to variation as the perforation by a blood-vessel of 

 a cervical vertebra, it can hardly be accepted as a correct exemplification of the 

 principal which Cuvier has so successfully applied. The non-perforation of a 

 cervical vertebra by an artery is certainly not such a character, subserving an 

 important purpose, and denoting ordinal distinction, as the presence of a mar- 

 supial bone in an opossum, with which Prof. Huxley compares it. The analogy 

 which it is attempted to deduce, as adverse to the principles of correlation, there- 

 fore totally fails, whilst this high law of comparative anatomy, " aussi certaine 

 qu'aucune autre en physique ou en morale" remains unimpaired by the re-dis- 

 covery of Macrauchenian remains in the Andes. 



Your obedient servant, 



Judd-street, BrunsvAcTc-square, June 24. Charles Carter Blake. 



GEOLOGICAL EVIDENCES OF THE DELUGE OF NOAH. 



Dear Sib, — Although it is a rule with me to abstain from mixing up biblical 

 and geological questions, believing it to be unwise, and by no means calculated to 

 be of service to either, I am for once induced by the first query of your corre- 

 spondent S. M., in the last number of the " Geologist," to depart somewhat 

 from this rule. 



The query to which I refer is, " What evidence have we, geological or other- 

 wise, apart from the history of the Bible of the existence of the Deluge ?" Now, 

 waving the question of the universahty of the Deluge, I would ask, What geo- 

 logical evidence of this event does the Biblical narrative warrant pur expecting ? 

 True, we are told that " All the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and 

 the windows (flood-gates in the margin) were opened ;" but these, I apprehend, 

 are poetical — what if I say hyperbolical — expressions simply intended to convey an 

 idea of the rapid and great rising of the waters. 



When Noah sent forth the dove the second time, we learn that " The dove came 

 into him in the evening ; and, lo, in her mouth was an olive-leaf plucked off ; so 

 Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth." Now the olive-leaf 



