History of British animals - University of Guam Marine Laboratory

PREFACE.XVon this subjectin a paper in the 22d number of the EdinburghPhilosophical Journal, entitled " Remarks illustrative of the Influenceof Society on the Distribution of British1Animals.'Other observers, undervaluing the cause of extinction here assigned,have imagined, that the speciesreferred to were destroyedby the agency of a violent Deluge, which they consider asidentical with the one recorded by Moses. How this delugecould select a few species only as the objectsof its vengeance,and leave in safety many species living in the same regions, andpossessing nearly the same habits, is a difficulty which the abettorsof the hypothesishave not yet ventured to explain. Shouldthey attempt to account for the safetyof theexisting races, bysupposing that they were preserved in the Ark, they have stillto find proof of the law of exclusion, under the operation ofwhich the now extinct kinds were denied protection. The extravagantpretensions of this hypothesis have been pointed outby the author, in a paper inserted in the 28th number of theEdinburgh Philosophical Journal, entitled " The GeologicalDeluge, as interpreted by Baron Cuvier and Professor Buckland,inconsistent with the Testimony of Moses, and the Phenomenaof Nature.''''Among the extinct animals there are multitudes of species,the relics of which do not occur in the superficial strata, andare never associated with the remains of the extirpated or existingkinds. These are found imbedded in solid rock, and seemto have occupied the surface of the earth, when its physicalcondition and animal and vegetable productions differed greatlyfrom the presentorder of things. By attending to the specificmarks of these remains, the manner in which they are associated,and the strata in which they are imbedded, it is easy to discoverthat they do not all possess claims to the same degree ofantiquity, and that they may be distributed into certain wellmarked Zoological Epochs. In the arrangement of the strata,inclosing these organic remains,there is a definite order of superposition,and there are characters likewise marking groups ofdifferent degrees of antiquity.Hence has arisen the idea ofGeological Epochs, first distinctly intimated by Lister andStenon, and elucidated by a host of subsequent observers.