137 
countries, merely as varieties of a restricted number of species, 
caused by climate, food, &c., our fathers were not troubled 
by such difficulties as we are now compelled to face. Given 
an Ark, which would accommodate a few of the more familiar 
t} r pes of wild animals, and a fair representation of domestic 
animals, what more was needed ? Would not the lions, the 
tigers, the elephants, which left the Ark, speedily multiply, 
make their way to the countries in which they are now found, 
and, through various local influences, become characterized 
by those diversities which, in our day, so extensively prevail ? 
So with the varieties among domestic animals. Our fore- 
fathers were conscious of no insuperable difficulties. Species 
were few, though varieties were many ; and if they could find 
room in the Ark for the few species, they did not doubt that 
all existing varieties would soon spring from them. 
But what do naturalists tell us now ? That every region of 
the globe has its peculiar fauna and flora ; that every con- 
tinent and every island have plants and animals peculiar to 
themselves. Not only do the fauna and flora of polar regions 
differ widely from the fauna and flora of the tropics, but tracts 
of country, lying very much in the same latitude, are charac- 
terized by animals and plants peculiar to each. So that 
representatives of all existing species must have found a 
refuge in the Ark, assuming that the Deluge was universal. 
We have glanced at the insurmountable difficulties which 
surround us when we grapple with the question of their 
accommodation in the Ark, but no less formidable are the 
difficulties when we ask how they got to the Ark. If the 
theory of a universal deluge be correct, we must picture to 
ourselves groups of animals, wending their way from every 
quarter of the globe, to the place where the Ark was located. 
We must picture them, in their laborious efforts to cross 
mountains crowned with eternal snow, and to transport 
themselves across stormy oceans, which interposed thousands 
of miles between their homes and the spot toward which, 
for months and years, they toiled. We must picture the 
typical animals of the polar regions, and the typical animals 
of the tropics, encountering climates, which, in ordinary cir- 
cumstances, would destroy both, and passing through coun- 
tries which afforded food neither for the one nor the other. 
We must picture, in a word, beasts, birds, reptiles, from 
every quarter of the globe and every island of the sea, 
making their way to the Ark, from which they were sepa- 
rated by mountains, rivers, oceans, and continents, thousands 
of miles across. 
VOL. IV. 
L 
