Semi-weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1853-18??, 1857-04-25
HIGH MILLER'S NEW WORK.
gBe 7Heoru of q Uniceysal Dezuge.


The Theory of q Unicersal Detuge
The work on which Hugh Miller was engaged,
ard 10 which he gave the last touches only 'ne uSy
before his death, will very shortly be 'ssueu run
the press of Gould & Lincoln, Boston, shei'al an.
ously with its publication in Scotland. u ~ p e"u-
tied g The testimony of the ROCKS or tne PEA
ngs Of Geology on on the ", tMo of DR. Hanna Edn
hnrpb. Scotland it will be found, prooaoly' 'ne
shlsst Of The works of its distinguished au-
thor There has been an extraordinary W.
mand for it, both in Great Britain and IN 'n's cou
try SO much so as to great delay IN us pun mn
cation 1t will probably appear early In april ans f
the work, we give the following extract from the
chanter on The Noachian Deluge.' 1t will DC seen
that the author maintains with DIR. Pye Smith that
the Flood was not universal. After present'nga
striking and elaborate argument IN support OF MS
position, drawn from the dimensions OF the ARK, tne
author takes up new line of argument as follows:
But the very inadequate size OF the ark, though
conclusive proof that ALL or nearly ALL the progen'
itors of our existing animals could not nave hafoor
ed within it from any general cataciysn, uoes NV
furnish a stronger argument against the poss'o''.y
of any such assembage than the peculiar manner
in which now find these animals distributed over
the earths surface LinnseuS held, early in the last
century, that all creatures which now lnhaot the
globe had proceeded originally from SUCH common
centre as the ark might have furnished; but no ~
ologist acquainted with the distribution OF species
can acquesce in any such conclusion now. "eno"
know that every great continent mas us owl p.:u
liar fauna that the original centres OF distribution
must have been not one, but many further that the
areas or circles around these centres must have been
occupied by their pristine animals in ages long an
terror to that of the Noachian DeuSe; nay, that IN
even the latter geologic ages, they were Preceedeo
in them by animals of the same general type. lhere
are fourteen such areas or provinces enumerated by
A.. n no well however. IN
stead of losing ourselves among the less nicely de-
fined provinces of the Old World to draw our illus
trations from two and half provinces OF later dis
covery, whose limits have been rigidly fixed by ma
ture "The great continents" says Culver, ICON
tain species peculiar to each; inSomuch that when
ever large countries of this description have been
discovered, which their situation had kept isolated
from the rest of the world the class of quadrupeds
which they contained has been found extremely df-
ferent from any that had existed elsewhere. Thus,
when the Spaniards first penetrated into South
America, they did not find sing species OF quad
ruped the any of Europe, Asia or Africa
The puma the jaguar the tapir, the cabai, the Ia
ma, the vcuna the soths the armadilloes, the opos-
sums, and the whole tribe of sapajous, were to them
entirely new animals, of which they had no idea
Similar circumstances have required i'll our own
time, when the coast of New Holland and the ada
cent islands were first explored. The various spe-
cies of kangaroo, rhascolomyS, dasyuras, and per.
echidnse have astonshed naturasts by the strange
ness of their conformations, which presented pro-
portions contrary to all former rules and we're lncapa
Bile being arranged under any Of the systems then
in use." New England, though singularly devoid OF
indigenous mammal and reptiles, for the only native
mammal seems to be peculiar species of rat, and
the only native reptile small harmless l!zard-has
scarce less remarkable fauna than either of these
great continents. 1t consists almost exclusively of
birds, some of them i'll provided with wings, that,
like the aeika of the natives they can only run along
the ground. And it is most significant fact, that
both in the two great continents and the New Zeal
ands there existed in the latter geologic ages,
tnct faunas that bore the peculiar generic charac-
tiers by which their recent still distinguish
ed. The sloths and armadloes of South America
lad their gigantic predecessors in the enormous meg
atherlum and mylodon, and the strongly armed
glyptodon the kangaroos and wombats OF Austral-
ia had their extinct predecessors in kangaroo near
ly twice the size Of the largest living Species and in
so huge a wombat that its bones have been mistaken
for those of the hppopotamus; and the ornithic in
habitants of New Zealand had their predecessors in
the mOnstrous birds, such the dinornis, and the
aptornis and the palapteryx-wiingless creatures
like the ostrich, that stood from six to twelve feet in
height. In these several regions two generations of
species of the genera peculiar to them have existed
the recent generation by whose descendants lhey
are still Inhabited and the extinct gigantic genera
ton whose remains We find locked up in their soils
and caves. But how are these facts rcconcilabe
with the hypothesis of universal deluge?
The deuge was an event of the existing creation.
Had it been universal it would either have broken
up all the diverse centres and substituted one great
general centre instead-that in which the ark rested
or else, at an enormous expense of miracle, all the
animals preserved by natural means by Noah would
have had to be returned by supernatural means to
the regions whence, by means equally Supernatural,
they had been brought. The sloths and armadloes,
IL -. 1. ~ II l..
required to be ferried across the Atlantic to the
gions IN which the remains of the megatherium and
gyptodon lie entombed; the kangaroo and wombat,
to the insulated continent that contains the bones of
the extinct macrapus and phalcolomys; and the New
Zealand birds, including its heavy flying quals and
its wingess wood hen, to those remote islands ofthe
Pacific in which the skeletons of Palupteryr ingens
and Dinormus giganteus lis entombed. Nor will it
avail aught to urge, with certain asserers of uni
versal deluge, that during the cataclysm sea and
land changed their places, and that what is land
had formed the bottom of the antediluvian ocean,
and Ulce cerso what is had been the land
on which the first human inhabitants of the earth
increased and multiplied
No geologist who knows how very various the
ages of the several table lands and mountain chains
in reality are, could acquiesce in such an hypohe-
sis; our own Scottish shores-f to the term of the
existing add that OF the ancient coast line-must
have formed the limits of the land from time vast
~ more remote than the age OF the deluge But
even supposing, for the arguments sake, the n.y.
pothess recognized admissible, what, in the crcum-
stances of the case. would be gained by the adms-
sion? continuous tract of land would have
stretched-when all the oceans were continents and
all the continents oceans-between the South Amer
lean and the Asatic coasts And it is just possible
that during the hundred and twenty years in which
the ark was in building, pair of sloths might have
crept by inches across this continuous tract from
where the skeletons of the great megathera are bu.
RED to where the great vessel stood But after the
Hood had subsidized, and the change in the sea and