Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1857-04-17
HUGH MILLER's NEW WORK.

issued from the press of Gould & Lincoln, Bos-
ton, simultaneously with its publication In
Scotland, II is entitled " The testimony OF
the Rocks; or the Bearings Of Geology on the
two TheOlogies, Natural and Revealed. In
the opinion of DR. Hanna of Edinburgh, scot
land il will be found, probably the ablest Ofthe
works of its distinguished auth0s There has
been an extraordinary demand foE it, both In
Great Britain and in this country, 80 much so
as to cause great delay in Its publication. 1t
will probably appear early in April. The pub
fishers having favored Us with advance sheets
of the work, we give the following extracts from
the chapter on - The NOachian Deluge." 1t
will be seen that the author maintains with DIR.
Pye Smith that the Flood was not universal
After presenting a striking and elaborate
argument in support of his position, drawn
from the dimensions of the ark, the 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 progenitOrS Of our existing animals
could not have harbOred within it from any
general cataclysm, does not furnish a stronger
argument against the possibility of any such
HSscmblage than the peculiar manner in which
we now find these animals distributed over the
earth surface. Linnaus held, early in the
last century. that all creatures which now in
habit the globe had proceeded originally from
some such common centre as the ark might
have furnished; but no zOOlOgiSt acquainted
with the distribution of species can acquiesce
IN any such conclusion now. We now know
that every great continent has its own peculiar
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 an
imals in ages long anterior TO that of the NOa-
chan Deluge; nay, that in even the latter geo
logic ages, they were preceded in them by an
lmdlS OF the same general type. There are four
Or ted hy tha
latter naturalists. 1t may be well, however,
instead of running any risk of losing ourselves
amid the less nicely defined provinces of the
Old World, TO draw our illustrations from two
and half provinces of later discovery whose
limits have been rigidly fixed by nature. The
great continents" says Cuvier :" contain spe-
cics peculiar to each; insOmuoh that whenever
large countries of this description have been
discovered, which their situation had kept isO-
lated from the rest of the world, the class of
quadruPeds which they contained has been
found extremely different from any that had
existed elsewhere. Thus, when the Spaniards
hrst penetrated into South America, they did
not find single species of quadruped the same
Is any OF Europe, Asia, or Africa. The puma
the jaguar, the tlpir, the cabiai, the lama the
vlcuna, the slOths. the armadilloes, the Opos-
sums, and the whole tribe of sapajous, were 10
them entirely new ANIMALS, of which they had
no idea. Similar circumstances have required
land and the adjacent islands were first ex-
piOred. The various species of kangaroo, phaS-
c0lOmyS, daSyurus, and perameles, the flying
phalangers, the OrnithOrynchi, and echidna
have astOnished naturalists by the strangeness
OF their cOnfOrmations, which presented pro-
portions contrary to all former rules, and were
incapable OF being arranged under any Of the
systems then in use" New Zealand, though
Slngularly devoid of indigenous mammal and
reptiles, Tor the only native mammal seems to
be peculiar species of rat, and the only ma
tive reptile a small harmless lizard--has a
scarce less remarkable fauna than either of
theSe great continents. 1t consists almost eX-
eluslvely of birds, some of them SO i'll provided
With wings, that, like the 4ciKa Of the natives,
they can Onl y run along the ground And it is
most significant fact, that both in the two
great continents and the New Zealand Islands
there existed, in the latter geologic ages, ex-
tInct fdunas that bore the peculiar generic
Characters by which their recent ones are still
distinguished. The SlOthS and armadilloes of
south America had their gigantic predecessors
IN the enormous megatherium and mylodOn,
and the strongly armed glyptOdon; the kanga-
rooS and wOmbatS Of Australia had their extinct
predecessors in a kangaroo nearly twice the
size 0i the largest living species, and in 50 huge
n WOmbat that its bones have been mistaken
for those Of the hippopotamus and the Ornithic
inhabitants Of New Zealand had their prede-
ccSSorS In the mOnstrOuS birds, such as the di-
nornIs, the aptOrnis, and the palapteryx-wing-
less creatures like the ostrich. that stood from
SIX to twelve feet in height. In these several
regions two g@HeTGtIOlS of species of the genera
peculiar to them have existed-the recent gene
ration by whose descendants they are still in
hlbited, and the extinct gigantic generation
whose remains we find locked up in their soils
am caves But how are such facts reeOncilabIe
with the hypothesis Of a universal deluge?
The deluge was an event Of the existing
creation Had il been universal, it would
either have broken up all the diverse centres,
and substituted one great general centre in
stead-that In which the ark rested OF else at
an enormous expense of miracle, all the animals
preserved by natural means by Noah would
have had to be returned by sUpern0tmraL
means TO the regions whence, by means eguaiIy
s"gerR1tuTaL, they had been brought The
sl3ths and arInadilloes little fitted by nature
fGr long journeys, would have required to be
fCrried across the Atlantic 10 the regions in
which the remains of the megatherium and
c!ypjp,lOn lie entOmbed; the kangaroo and
w1mbat, to the insulated continent that con-
tains the bones Of the extinct macrapus and
phaleolOmys; and the New Zealand birds, in
Guiding its heavy flying quails and its wingless
wood hen TO those remote islands of the Pacific
in which the skeletons Of PdiapteryT tHgeRs
AMI DiROTHLVS CigaHtelS lie entOmbed. Nor
will il avail aught to urge, with certain assert
ers Of universal deluge, that during the ca
tl:Iysm sea and Iand changed tnelr places, ana
that what is now land had formed the bottom
Of the antediIuvian ocean, and Uice UeTSa, what
Is now sea 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 aequiesce in such
an hypothesis; our own Scottish shOres-f to
the term of the existing we add that of the an
cient coast line-must have formed the limits
Of the land from a time vastly more remote
than the age of the deluge. But even suPpos-
ing. for the arguments sake, the hypothesis
recognized admissible, what, in the circum-
stances of the case would be gained by the ad-
nission3 A continuous tract Of land would
have stretched-when all the oceans were con-
tinents and all the continents oceans-between
the south American and the Asiatic coasts
And il is just possible that, during the hundred
and twenty years in which the ark was in
building. n pair Of slOths might have crept by