88 
widest and deepest in the world/’ is an astonishing and per- 
plexing fact, to account for which, Lyell ( ib ., p. 340) conceives 
that “they might have been transferred by floating ice to the 
Jura, at the time when the greater part of that chain, and the 
whole of the Swiss valley to the south was under the sea.” 
The detachment and descent of these large boulders at the 
epoch of the elevation of the Alps, or rather when the mass 
was in course of elevation and passing from the liquid to the 
rigid state, is not difficult to conceive of; but I should be dis- 
posed to ascribe their transport to the action of waves and 
currents wdiile the Deluge w r as subsiding, when, as Lyell 
supposes, the Jura chain and Swiss valley had not yet been 
raised above the level of the water. I remember that Hopkins, 
an accomplished mathematician and geologist, was accustomed 
to attribute an enormous power of transferring boulders to the 
agency of currents of w^ater. 
The circumstance that marine shells have been found in 
caves, and in some instances in caves not near the sea, seems 
to require explanation. In a cave at Mentone, fifty-four marine 
and eleven terrestrial species were collected ; and again, from 
the cave of Bruniquel w ere obtained “ tw r o classes of shells, 
one characteristic of the Atlantic and the other of the Mediter- 
ranean.” (Lyell, ib., pp. 142 and 144.) Lyell inclines to the 
opinion that these shells “ imply that the natives of Aveyron 
had easy access to both sea-coasts, from wdience they re- 
turned to mingle the shells of the Atlantic and Mediterranean 
in their cave-dwellings.” Might not the overflow of the ocean 
on adjoining lands, which, according to the theory I have 
advanced, took place at the Deluge, account for marine shells 
being found in caves, and in particular, for Atlantic and Medi- 
terranean shells being found together in the cave of Bruniquel, 
which is situated about midw r ay between the seas ? 
The contents of caves give evidence by their character that 
they were driven by running water into openings and passages 
leading to the cavernous interiors, inasmuch as they consist for 
the most part of loose materials, — gravel, sand, and bones of 
animals, — which might be borne by streams, or torrents, along 
the valleys and channels of rivers. The caves generally have 
an upper opening into which the currents and the materials 
carried by them w ould enter, as w r ell as a lower aperture usually 
on the face of a cliff or hill. The stalagmite floor would be 
formed by droppings when the immediate action of the water 
had ceased. The hypothesis of a deluge which accounts for the 
caves receiving their contents in this manner, also givesa 
reasonable explanation of the great variety of the animal 
