WAS MAN A CONTEMPORARY OF THE MAMMOTH? 287 
also made myself intimately acquainted with the practical part 
of it.” 
Still, we are unable to set aside the facts presented in the 
preceding pages and the opinion to which they have led, and 
therefore feel forced to take this introductory paragraph differ- 
ently from what the author intended, and gather from it that 
Dr. Koch was a man of large pretensions. This same impres- 
sion is conveyed by the account of his scientific travels in North 
America, which occupies the following six pages. I give an 
example. On the third of these pages he describes the era of 
the u mighty Missourium” and “ ponderous Mastodon” as a time 
when, according to 66 every geological research,” the earth’s 
surface was “ uninterrupted by any of the rough, broken, 
rugged deformities which now present themselves on every 
side,” when u the climate was free from noxious vapours,” and 
all was “ delightful,” &c. ; and then dwells on the sudden 
dreadful change when “ the ground was cursed for man’s sake” 
and “ all those gigantic creatures perished,” and “ the garden of 
delicious fruit trees and blooming flowers was converted into 
a gloomy forest of thorns and thistles.” He also gives us his 
idea as to the nature of the great catastrophe, as follows : “ The 
principal instrument used to cause this change, according to my 
views, was a certain comet that came in contact with our globe, 
which caused not only a different position of our earth, but also 
the interior fire and water to come into an immediate violent 
collision, which created a revolution, that naturally sought for 
vent, and therefore burst through the crust of the quivering 
earth, tore up countries, and sank them in the sea.” 
This is enough to prove that these pages do not sustain his 
large claim. 
Holding, then, to the conclusion that Dr. Koch was quite 
ignorant of geology, and without scientific training, we are 
forced to doubt, to doubt strongly, his direct and definite state- 
ment that he had devoted the greater part of his life to “ the 
theoretical study of natural history,” and had made himself 
“ intimately acquainted with the practical part of it.” It is 
true that he knew about the earlier part of his own life better 
than any other person then living. Any way, he certainly over- 
rated almost infinitely the results on himself of so prolonged 
study. This much we are disposed to allow in favour of his 
sagacity: that Dr, Koch appreciated the absurdity of the 
Leviathan story, and introduced it, after some thought about 
the people he was among, merely to get a full house for his 
Missourium ; and that his attempted show of scientific knowledge 
had the same end in view. If this supposition is unjust to him, 
the other alternative explanation has to stand. In his New 
Orleans “Hydrachen” pamphlet (1853), the inside pages of the 
