For,

CHAP. VIII.

A difficulty, which some of these extinct PART III. species occasion to this geology, arises from the circumstance of their not being found in the same places, or the same strata, with those animals whose species have been preserved. Hence, it concludes, that they cannot have co-existed, but must have perished in different revolutions. Assuming the fact alleged to be universally confirmed, which is not the case; yet, the resort to different revolutions, is as unreasonable in this case as in all the preceding. suppose that the palæotheria and elephants did not inhabit the same regions of the submerged continents, as the camelopard and the kanguroo do not inhabit the same regions in the present continents, and that they were therefore not congregated in the same places, which is not only possible, but highly probable; and suppose that their races perished in different subsidences of land, and at different periods of the inundation, which is equally probable; then, they would not have been carried off by the same currents, at the same times, and in the same directions; and then, they would not have been deposited in the same places. Or, if the one was deposited before the other, with an interval of time sufficient to allow the continually agitated bottom of the sea to cast up and accumulate vast masses

CHAP. VIII.

PART III. of its moveable soils above it, before the other was brought and deposited; then, although they had co-existed, yet the one would become imbedded in deeper strata than the other; and thus, the hypothesis of different revolutions is not required, nor sustained, by the phænomena. It is not, therefore, by endeavouring to deduce geological theories from fossil remains, that the eminent naturalist, who has devoted so much ingenuity and zeal to the examination of them, will serve the cause of true knowledge; it is, by applying his anatomical and zoological skill and experience to discriminate between the extinct and the preserved species, and thus, to bring us acquainted with those animal races, which the Author of creation thought fit to exclude from His renovated earth.

CHAPTER IX.

AGAIN, the mineral geology demands more revo- PART III. lutions, to enable itself to unriddle a phænome

66

in penetrating the

non which is presented to it
different strata of the globe. If," it says, "we
"examine with greater care these remains of
organized bodies, we shall discover in the
"midst even of the most ancient secondary
66 strata, other strata that are crowded with
"animal or vegetable productions which belong
"to land and fresh water; and amongst the
"most recent strata, that is, the strata which
66 are nearest to the surface, there are some of
"them in which land animals are buried under
"heaps of marine productions. Thus, the various
"catastrophes of our planet have not only
"caused the different parts of our continent to
"rise by degrees from the basin of the sea, but
"it has also frequently happened, that lands
"which had been laid dry have been again
"covered by the water, in consequence either
"of these lands sinking down below the level of
"the sea, or of the sea being raised above the
"level of the lands. The particular portions

CHAP. IX.

PART III." of the earth also, which the sea has aban"doned by its last retreat, had been laid dry

CHAP. IX.

66

once before, and had at that time produced quadrupeds, birds, plants, and all kinds of ter"restrial productions; it had, then, been inundated by the sea, which has since retired from "it, and left it to be occupied by its own 66 proper inhabitants. The changes which have “taken place in the productions of the shelly "strata have not, therefore, been entirely

66

owing to a gradual and general retreat of the "waters, but to successive irruptions and re"treats; the final result of which, however, has "been an universal depression of the level of "the sea1."

We here plainly perceive the consequence, of navigating an unknown ocean without card and compass. Had the ingenious geologist piloted his course by the Mosaical card, he would have pursued a direct and simple track, conducting him to the haven which he sought; but, having left his card behind him, he traverses and counter-traverses the same ocean in all directions; sees the same head-lands over and over again; and imagines that he is making a steady progress, and that all those head-lands follow each other in regular order of succession. Because

CHAP. IX.

animal and vegetable relics are found buried in PART III. the midst of soils which are too confidently pronounced the most ancient secondary strata, and because land animals are found buried under heaps of marine productions, Cuvier at once assumes, that the various positions of these relics constitute evidences of as many different terrestrial surfaces, successively overwhelmed in the order in which they present themselves; and that they therefore indicate, so many different revolutions. And this might be inferred, with some plausibility, if there were no such thing in the world as mixture and confusion, and if all substances existed, necessarily and always, in a state of unchangeable order and regularity. But, if that is not the case, the ground of the argument at once disappears.

It is surprising that it should not have occurred to this able naturalist, before he concluded, that every stratum in which animal exuvia are found, must have been once a permanent upper surface of the globe, on which the animals dwelt and were nourished; to examine, whether those strata reveal any characters betokening such surfaces, which characters could not have been totally obliterated. But, no such characters pertain to the soils in which the fossil eruviæ of terrestrial animals are found; on the contrary,