whole races of the existing mammalia, and greatly modify the physical aspect of our planet.
Fresh discoveries showed, that the diluvial accumulations contained a great variety of deposits accumulated under different circumstances, by water moving in different directions and with various degrees of force: the remains of elephants, mastodons, &c., were found, though rarely, in really tertiary strata, both marine and freshwater; it was further observed, that the diluvial masses were totally absent from some districts, and in others appeared to have gone in various directions from a particular group or range of mountains. Influenced by these considerations and the growing importance of the study of modern causes in action, some of the most eminent geologists of England dissented totally from the views of Dr. Buckland, and declared, from the chair of the Geological Society, their conviction that the diluvial deposits did not belong to the effects of one general flood, and were not really distinguishable in origin, on the one hand, from the tertiary; and, on the other, from the modern effects of the sea, the rivers, and the land.
Perhaps we may be allowed to regret both that the "diluvial" theory, as it was termed, was at first so confidently embraced, and extended to so many phenomena, and that afterwards it was formally abandoned, without that full and patient discussion of the reasons which should ever precede the rejection as well as the adoption of generalisations in science. In one point of view, the sudden rise and decline in popularity of this doctrine may be very advantageous to geology, since many persons who were so inconsiderate as to attach much importance to the seeming conformity of the "diluvial catastrophe" with the Scriptural deluge, may learn from this example the danger of confounding the really independent bases of religious and natural truth; the former resting on moral evidence and the nature of man, the latter on physical facts and the sure laws of nature. Both are true and cannot disagree, but we
