few words. Not so, if we view them with reference to their origin, and the nature of their occasional contents and little dreams any one, save the professed geologist, what a mine lies hid, in those confused heaps of ruin, for the exercise of man's intellectual faculties. Few subjects indeed have afforded ampler scope for philosophical reflection. In proof of which, I need do no more than refer to the labours and ingenuity of Cuvier on the continent, and of Professor Buckland in our own country: of whom the one, by a scientific examination of the organic remains of gravel beds, in addition to those of some of the regular strata, has brought to light not only numerous individual species, but whole families of animals, which have ceased to exist ages and ages since and the other, with no less labour and ingenuity, has all but exhibited some of these animals to our view in the very act of devouring and digesting their food.

How often, and with what intense interest, has not the scientific geologist perused the original essays of Cuvier; in which, setting out from the casual obser vation of a simple fragment of a fossil bone belonging to some extinct species, he has established not only the class and order, but even the size and proportions of the individual to which it belonged, and the general nature of its food. And how often, in addition to professed geologists, has not an attentive audience of academical students listened with admiration to the clear and vivid eloquence of the other of those philosophers, the Geological Professor of Oxford, while he unfolded that beautiful chain of facts by which he traced his antediluvian animals to their native caves; and exposed to view, to the mental eye at least, and almost to the corporeal, their particular habits, and even the relics of their last meal. And, lest there should be any doubt as to the nature of this meal, he discovered, by a most philosophical, for I will not say fortunate conjecture, unequivocal proofs of the actual remains of it; not only

in its original, but also in its digested state. I here allude particularly to his verification of the masses of digested bone which he has most satisfactorily shown to have passed through the whole tract of the digestive organs of his favourite hyenas; and which are so nearly identical, in every character, with the similar masses that daily traverse the same organs of the living species, as to make it difficult even for an experienced eye to ascertain the difference between them.

It is natural that I should feel a pleasure in recording the well-earned fame of a friend with whom I have lived in habits of intimacy for more than twenty years; and whom, in the commencement of his career, I had the good fortune to lead into that avenue of science, on which he has subsequently thrown more light than perhaps any other English geologist; with the exception indeed of one, the reverend W. Conybeare, the admiration of whose comprehensive and commanding views, as well in fossil as in general geology, is not confined to his own countrymen; the members of the French Institute having attested their sense of his pre-eminent talents by the high honour of selecting him, a few years since, as one of their foreign associates-an honour particularly distinguished by the uncommon circumstance, that it was not only unsolicited, but unexpected, by himself.

On one point, however, of professor Buckland's general theory of the organic remains met with in gravel beds, and in certain natural caverns, I not only differ from him, but think it right to express the ground of that difference. Dr. Buckland's arguments in favour of his opinion that the animals of the gravel beds, and the caverns, habitually frequented the spots where these remains are found, are not only ingenious, but are occasionally supported by facts which almost necessarily lead to that conclusion and it is not intended to attempt to invalidate them. They do not indeed stand in the way of the

nomena.

objection now to be advanced; this objection being applicable to that part of the theory only which considers the destruction of these animals as the effect of the Mosaic deluge. Nor is the objection, in its origin, so much directed against the insulated supposition that these organic remains are immediate proofs of the Mosaic deluge; as against the principle of supporting the credibility of the sacred Scriptures on any unascertained interpretation of physical pheSuch a support appears to be imprudent, as well as unnecessary: because the moral evidence of the credibility of the Scriptures is of itself fully sufficient; imprudent, because we have the strong ground of antecedent analogy, not only in another, but in this very branch of knowledge, for anticipating a period in the progress of science, when particular phenomena may be intepreted in a very dif ferent manner from that in which they are interpreted at present. Thus the explanation of the motions of our solar system, which is now admitted very generally, without any fear of weakening the authority of Scripture, was once as generally impugned on the principle of that very fear. Time was also, and indeed within the last century, when the shells and other organic remains, which are imbedded in the chalk and other solid strata, were considered to be the remains and proofs of the Mosaic deluge; and yet at the present day, without any fear of injuring the credibility of the Scriptures, they are admitted very generally to have been deposited anteriorly to the Mosaic deluge. And who will venture to say, in the infancy of a science like geology, that the same change of opinion may not happen with respect to the organic remains of the gravel beds and caverns. Nor indeed do I think, and I expressed this opinion nearly twenty years since, that the organic remains of the gravel beds and the caverns can be, on even mere philosophical grounds, adduced as physical proofs of the Mosaic deluge. For as according to the Mosaic record it was the intention of the Deity

on that occasion, in the midst of a very general destruction of individuals to preserve species, we should in reason expect, among the organic remains of that catastrophe, a preponderance, at least, of the remains of existing species: since, although some species may have been lost subsequently to the deluge, these naturally would be comparatively few. But the fact is just the reverse; for by far the greater number of the organic remains of the gravel, as of the caverns, belong to species not known now to exist. And with respect to those remains which appear capable of being identified with living species, Cuvier allows that they belong to orders of animals, the species of which often differ only in colour, or in other points of what may be called their external or superficial anatomy; and cannot therefore be satisfactorily identified by the remains of their bones alone.

I do not consider it right to enter into a more extended examination of the question on the present occasion: but, could it be proved that visible traces of the Mosaic deluge must necessarily exist, arguments might be adduced to show both where those traces ought to be expected, and that they do actually exist. But the deluge itself was evidently a miracle, or an interference with the laws which usually regulate the operation of second causes: and whoever admits the force of the reasoning, contained in Butler's Analogy of Natural and Revealed Religion, will be disposed to allow that the visible evidence of the catastrophe may have been purposely obscured, in order to exercise our faith in an exclusive belief of the moral evidence.

I would not lay undue weight on the negative proof arising from the absence of human remains, although they have been in vain searched for, even in parts of the world to which it may fairly be presumed that the human race had penetrated at the period of the Mosaic deluge: but undoubtedly such a negative proof is not without considerable weight; especially when taken in connexion with the theory

of a continental geologist, M. de Beaumont, of whose powers of philosophical generalization Professor Sedgwick speaks in language the most expressive. "I am using," he says, "no terms of exaggeration, when I say that, in reading the admirable researches of M. de Beaumont, I appeared to myself, page after page, to be acquiring a new geological sense, and a new faculty of induction."*

After having taken a general survey of M. de Beaumont's observations and views, Mr. Sedgwick alludes to an opinion which he himself had expressed in the preceding year, that what is commonly called diluvial gravel is probably not the result of one but of many successive periods. "But what I then stated," he adds, "as a probable opinion, may, after the essays of M. de Beaumont, be now advanced with all the authority of established truth-we now connect the gravel of the plains with the elevation of the nearest system of mountains; we believe that the Scandinavian boulders in the north of Germany are of an older date than the diluvium of the Danube: and we can prove that the great erratic blocks, derived from the granite of Mont Blanc, are of a more recent origin than the old gravel in the tributary valleys of the Rhone. That these statements militate against opinions, but a few years since held almost universally among us, cannot be denied. But, in retreating when we have advanced too far, there is neither compromise of dignity, nor loss of strength; for in doing this, we partake but of the common fortune of every one who enters on a field of investigation like our own. All the noble generalizations of Cuvier, and all the beautiful discoveries of Buckland, as far as they are the results of fair induction, will ever remain unshaken by the progress of discovery. It is only to theoretical opinions that my remarks have any application." Page 33.

*See Professor Sedgwick's Address to the Geological Society, 1831, p. 29.