299 
Distribution of British Animals . 
ed 5 have ever appeared to me extremely faulty. The partial 
occurrence of these strata, their limited extent, great difference 
of character in neighbouring districts, the presence of the remains 
of terrestrial animals, and the absence of marine exuviae, de- 
monstrate that a “ universal ” flood, possessing the velocity 
which some have assigned to it, had no share in this formation. 
The phenomena which they exhibit, indicate a cause, partial, 
sudden, and transient, like the bursting of a lake. It is true, 
that many mineralogists assign to the waters of Noah's flood, a 
progressive motion in one direction (differing in character from 
tides), sufficient to tear in pieces beds of granite, excavate deep 
valleys, and deposite the spoils ©f the rocks of Labrador or Nor- 
way on the plains of England. They, however, admit, that it 
so far respected British productions, as neither to have floated 
into the Atlantic the quadrupeds which it drowned, nor the 
boulders of chalk which it produced, but permitted them to re- 
main in the neighbourhood of the place of their birth. The di- 
rection of this impetuous current, so widely different in charac- 
ter from that winch Moses assigns to the flood, is imagined by 
some to have been from the north, or, by others, from the 
west, or from the south, just as their preconceived notions dic- 
tated, and in the absence of all respect for the valuable Lin- 
nean rule, s< The genus should furnish the character, not the 
character the genus 
The relics of the animals which we have now been consider- 
ing, are not confined to beds of marl or clay, but occur in fis- 
sures and caves in rocks. In the celebrated Cave of Kirkdale 
in Yorkshire, the bones of a species of hyaena, of tiger, bear, 
wolf, fox, weasel, elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, and 
horse, two species of oxen, three species of deer, a species 
of hare, rabbit, water-rat, mouse, raven, pigeon, lark, duck, 
and snipe, have been identified. These relics were im- 
bedded in soft mud, and covered with calcareous stalagmites. 
The occurrence of the bones of hyaenas in great profusion in 
this cave, their excrement, the marks of their teeth on the other 
* It has been said that Werner advocated the geological diluvian hypothesis . 
This we know was not the case. On the contrary, his opinion was nearly the 
same as that stated in the text by Dr Fleming. With equal accuracy it has been 
said that Mohs was of the same opinion.«=-EDiT, 
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