THE BOOK OF THE GREAT SEA-DRAGONS. 
5 
arriving at the extreme limit the waters quietly prevailing 
the Ark thereupon did float in Halcyon peace. And all 
History and Tradition harmoniously agree in settling the 
Heaven-protected Argonaut in precisely that part of the 
Earth, which first rose from the retreating Ruin. Thus 
again Nature, and Philosophy, and Fact, and Revelation 
are at one, so that “ he which runneth may read, and a 
fool therein can hardly err.” 
Some weak and inconsiderate persons, neglecting the 
context of the Sacred Word, conjuring around them the 
many terrestrial Families of our own Earth, take pains 
to picture a Ship large enow to save their autochthon 
progenitors: No such thing was ever contemplated ex¬ 
cept by their own inexcusable folly, it being distinctly 
implied that Noah took with him those Creatures only 
which had been domesticated by Man. It was a most 
gracious condition of the Covenant made with Noah, that 
his posterity should continue the services of the several 
beasts which had been subjected to their use by the Ante¬ 
diluvians: Jehovah covenanted upon the Exodus from 
the Ark with Them through all Generations, and the 
terms of that Covenant plainly infer the existence of 
other beasts besides, whether in fact or in the Omniscient 
Intention it imports not.—“ Ecce Ego (Deus) statuam 
pactum meum vobiscum, et cum semine vestro post vos: 
et ad omnem animam viventem, quce est vobiscum, tam in 
volucribus quam in jumentis, et pecudibus terrae cunctis, 
quce egressa sunt de area, et universis bestiis terrae.” 
And which one of all the Tribes friendly unto Man is 
departed from us? But those with no Covenant, even 
the pure, unmixed Carnivora, their end cometh : — and 
then the Millennium. 
Thus, beloved, in humble service with Faith and Re¬ 
ligion, have we endeavoured to trace the gorgeous and 
awful Destinies of the Ante-diluvian Earth. 
“ In the Beginning,” chaotic, void, nascent, shadowy, 
nerveless, negative; such in the Primary, non-fossil- 
iferous, and purely mechanical Granite, is the interpre¬ 
tation of Nature, and Science, and Reason, and History, 
and Revelation. 
In the instant Coal-Measures, behold, a Vision of the 
torpid Deep, and the New-born Earth unconscious with 
Floral Robes. 
Then a Vision of Abysmal Waters, swarming with all 
wondrous creatures of Life, and gelid Swamps with am¬ 
phibious things, and Dragon Pterodactyles flitting in the 
hot air with Vampire Wing. 
Then Mammoth, and Sivatheria, and a great Company 
of docile Giants, roaming the Universal Land, crunching 
the succulent limb of the Forest Tree, or banqueting 
upon his juicy root: a Vision of peace and rest, pachy- 
dermata, and other huge herbivorous animals having with 
Man undivided dominion over the Euthanasian Earth. 
Then a Vision of brute Savages haunting Eldritch 
Caves : of gaunt Lords of wassail, war, blood, and perdi¬ 
tion : Blasted Continents, and withering pines, and briars 
and thorns: Rebellion, Violence, horrors manifold : Pro¬ 
metheus chained, the Vulture, the Liver: The World at 
the brink of Death. 
Apollo transfixing Python, The booming Flood, driving, 
rolling, roaring, wrenching, wrecking, whelming the ac¬ 
cursed Titans in endless destruction. 
Righteous Noah saved. 
There is our Gage. Blessed are they, O Reader, which 
keep an Eye fixed upon the Polar Star of God. 
ADDENDA. 
The Creation of the World.—Of Light.—Terrestrial vegetables the tnost ancient of all organisms — Proofs.—Of 
Radiation, and the first Conditions of animal Life.—Solar Time only a relative quantity.—The first land animals 
and birds all herbivorous—Imputed exceptions, remains of an Owl, the Stonesfield Opossum, and Ornithicknites, 
rejected. — Evil—Carnivorous beasts one of its products—Objection derived from remains of preceding marine 
carnivora answered by negative and Traditional proofs.—The story of the Titans true.—The Booh of Genesis true 
literally—Jehovah created matter first, then light, and then vernal life, fishes, beasts, and lastly man.—Revolution 
upon the Earth — Its Cause—Its termination in the Flood, and the destruction of the primal beasts of prey .— 
The Scriptures the foundation of true Philosophy, and the Cypher both of the abstract and dependant Universe .—- 
The dangerous mechanical propensities of the Age shall be effaced, leaving the Scheme of the Universe in all its 
massive and enduring grandeur. 
“ IN principio creavit Deus ccelum, et terram. Terra 
autem erat inanis et vacua, et tenebrse erant super faciem 
abyssi.” The most ancient of Histories which have come 
down to our time opens with this sublime attestation of 
the omnipotence of Jehovah, to question which most mani¬ 
fest fact, the atheistical and licentious Greek was, perhaps, 
the first amongst men. It were profitless to pursue the 
Heresy through all the disguises in which the later Epi¬ 
cureans and Gnostics cherished it, and also through the 
absurd predicates which some of the Continentals have 
put them in, since we have traced an Epoch in which 
there was no animal life whatever upon this globe, de¬ 
monstrating an Act of Power infinitely more stupendous 
than that which Moses avers, thus reducing his assertion 
to a point comparatively so small that it may reasonably 
be granted in the Presence of an admitted Argument of 
the same Class, so much more astonishing. 
The statement derives, moreover, additional force from 
the descriptive context, for it is impossible correctly to 
represent mere Matter in any other shape than a unique 
entire, dead, amorphous, and shapeless one; and after all 
the Revolutions by Chemical and Electro-magnetic Agents, 
to which our Earth has been subjected, the Primary 
Granites have all these features in their face. 
The Creation of Light too—“ Dixitque Deus, fiat lux, 
et facta est lux”—may be assumed and proved as inevit¬ 
able, and in the order in which Moses actually announces 
it.—“Factumque est vespere, et mane, dies unus.” 
c 
