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REVIEW— THE NATURALISTS LIBRARY. 
and marshes with the hippopotami, tapirs, and rhinoceroses, 
and its forests with hyrnnas, bears, and tigers, the climate must 
have been a tropical one ; and as it gradually changed and 
became more temperate, those races that are only found at the 
present time inhabitants of hot countries died gradually away, 
whilst the horse, the ox, and deer, that are denizens of almost 
every country, were left behind as the proprietors of the soil. 
We have every reason to believe that gradual changes of a similar 
kind, either from cold to heat (perhaps to the most intense 
heat), or heat to cold, occasioned the destruction of the horse in 
South America, at the period to which we allude. 
We have quite sufficient proof of those alterations of tempera- 
ture in Great Britain, particularly in Scotland, where there have 
been discovered beds of arctic shells ; and, subsequently, the same 
spot must have been exposed to the most intense cold, which 
froze up the whole country, and covered the northern parts of 
Britain with snows and glaciers. 
Col. Smith imagines that there is some difficulty in explaining 
the manner in which the bones of the fossil horse, and other 
reliquse diluvianee, found their way into so many different places. 
“ In no case,” he says, “ are these animals suspected to have 
been transported by human intervention; and yet they are located 
in some places, where, without the aid of man, they cannot have 
migrated, unless we admit of changes on the surface of the earth 
since the present zoology was in being of such magnitude as to 
include the formation of the Mediterranean — the separation of the 
British islands from the continent of Europe — of the Indian 
islands from that of Asia — and the formation of a channel to cut 
America from connexion with the old world.” 
Is any one acquainted with the first rudiments of geology — 
there will be no great stretch of fancy required to believe that 
much greater changes have taken place on our planet than even 
these, which constitute the author’s dilemma ; since, both in 
organic and inorganic nature, changes such as these have been 
proved to have taken place, supported by proofs so incontro- 
vertible, and traced in language so intelligible, as to constitute a 
body of evidence with which no human testimony can compete. 
It is true that the time required for the succession of events which 
we have been describing must have extended over an immense 
period of time : but time and change are great only in relation to 
the beings that note them ; and every step we take in geology 
shews the folly and presumption of attempting to measure the 
operations of nature by our own brief span. Reflecting on these 
phenomena, the mind recalls the impressive exclamation of the 
poet : — 
