4 
LOCAL OCCURRENCES IN NATURAL HISTORY. 
above the surface of the water as habitable land. Whether the bottom of the 
present ocean once constituted the dry land of a more remote period, can at 
present only be guessed at. 
44 Now it is very important to bear in mind, that the land we now inhabit was 
formerly the permanent bed of the sea, because it must greatly modify our ideas 
as to the formation of the gravel masses and boulders upon it, as well as respecting 
the osseous relics found dispersed among this 4 diluvium/ These have been usually 
termed 4 ante-diluvian,’ an anomalous and improper expression, and not in keeping 
with the correct language of science. For it is at once begging the question, and 
pre-supposes the deposition of these fragmenta vetusta from the waters of that 
great catastrophe which Moses has recorded as overspreading the earth. We 
have all, from our infancy, so drank in the idea of the flood, Noah's ark, the 
Dove, the rainbow, and the subsiding of the waters, that these vivid images, 
impressed upon our early associations, render us ever open to the suggestion that 
whatever marine relics are presented to our notice on dry land, must be of 
necessity relics and mementos of the flood. But inductive Geology requires us 
to clear our eyes with the euphrasy of truth, to rid ourselves of the fairy colour¬ 
ings of early impressions, and proceed in our inquiries not with the determination 
to screw up all we see to preconceived notions, but, on the other hand, let those 
notions yield and arrange themselves in accordance with true philosophy. It 
was long before Astronomy could shake off the incubus of free inquiry that 
clogged its wings from the sun appearing itself to move from East to West, and 
the consequent immobility of the earth, in strict accordance, it was conceived, 
with passages of Scripture; although we now all acknowledge that the wisdom 
of Deity is in fact more manifested in the movement of the earth from West to 
East. If, then, without doubting the historical fact of the deluge itself, we 
accustom ourselves to doubt of the supposed relics of its existence being really 
such, we shall do much more for the real advancement of scientific knowledge, 
and equally extol the power of God, as if we seized upon every shell, bone, or 
old tooth we could find scattered about, as undoubted evidences of the Mosaic 
flood, in the spirit of the Turks and Armenians, who say that the remains of the 
ark itself still exist upon Mount Ararat. I dwell upon this more particularly, 
because we seem ever to be harassed with the idea that we must find tokens of 
the deluge lest our inquiries should be placed within the verge of the dreaded 
4 Judex Expurgatorius / as not coinciding with the strict views of the enunciated 
canon of the Church; and because, from our early familiarity with the Bible, we 
naturally wish to aid our early associations by doing so. But we forget two 
things,—1st, the distance of the event; 2ndly, the evident idea that if the Deity 
had designed that fact to be ever present before us, He would have caused more 
certain and vivid evidences to have saluted our eyes than mere water-worn masses 
