luntarily to bound into this fearful chasm, to their destruction? Is it the practice of wild animals to lose the sense of fear, and, heedlessly, to leap down in the dark, not knowing, nor caring, whether their descent were five or fifty feet? The reverse is the notorious fact, and rare indeed is the instance of any amimal, even the graminivorous, falling into a manifest fissure. Their instincts are quite as strong to avoid danger, as those of men: yet here are animals, of different names and habitudes, who must have plunged down, headlong, in droves, for the mere pleasure of breaking their necks.

But there is another important view of the subject. This chasm, supposing it to have existed, must have been the receptacle, for unknown ages, of a succession of unfortunate animals, who gambled about the orifice of danger, and, for their temerity, paid the forfeiture of their lives. In this case, one effect must necessarily have presented itself. The bones would have been found in different stages of decomposition. Now the observable fact is, that all the bones, in all the caves, bore precisely the same appearance, and clearly evidenced that the animals to which they belonged, must have perished, universally, at the very same time. Does not this emphatically point out the Deluge ?

"The animals were

This is an inadmis

But perhaps, it may be said, probably washed in at the Deluge." sible conjecture; for, in the first place, it would be preposterous to suppose this orifice more than three or four yards in extent. At the period of the Deluge, also, when the "windows of heaven were opened," all caves, with exposed apertures, must have received the drenching rain, and, where, as in this case, there was no eject, have been soon filled, to running over. And this, it should be remembered, must have taken place, before the waters in the valleys accumulated, and aroused

the fears of the animal race. The caves, therefore, being inundated, to their brim, with water, this tremendous opening, which was to receive such floating myriads, would have appeared only like a small pool!

It may further be remarked that, if a few stray animals had fallen into this cavity, filled as it was with water, their specific gravity is so near to that of the liquid in which they were immersed, that if they had been drowned in this small sheet of water, (a contingency hardly to be admitted,) they would scarcely have sunk, and soon after would have floated, (had time allowed) from the internal generation of air, when they would have operated as a warning to other animals. This idea of filling the Oreston Caves with remains, by the animals being "washed in at the Deluge," it is presumed, will now be relinquished. But there is one other supposition which has often been advanced. Some suppose that the bones, in some unaccountable way, fell into the cave, or caves, from above.

It may here be asked, what possible combination of circumstances could have brought to the immediate vicinity of this orifice, such an immense collection of animal remains? If they had been found only at a little distance from the opening, there they would have reposed, and perished. The scoria that issues from a crater, never returns to it again. If this apprehended chasm had lain in a valley, surrounded, like a tunnel, with shelving rocks, winds and torrents might have brought into it, as into a focus, all the bones that were scattered on their sides: but the very observable fact, is, that, instead of this convenient valley, and these shelving circumambient rocks, the whole upper surface of the Oreston Cliffs, presented one down-like level.

The author having expressed his sentiments on the four current hypotheses respecting these animal remains,

and shown a few only of the difficulties with which they are encompassed, he must now finally remark, that he is increasingly convinced of the necessity of allowing the horizontal approach to the caves before contended for. This theory obviates all objections, and is far more reasonable than any other.

Instead of being intricate, the process is clear, and the result just such as admitted facts warrant. He must again repeat, that the Deluge is the only solution to these animal appearances, and no one phenomenon presents a fuller attestation of that overwhelming catastrophe than the innumerable animal remains discovered in the Oreston Caves.

Burnet supposed that, antecedent to the Deluge, the surface of the earth exhibited one uninterrupted level. Many geologists, on the contrary, have supposed that our present mountains existed before the Flood, and that the loftiest of them were covered by the waters; in which case, taking the mountains of Tibet at an altitude of twenty-seven thousand feet, during the recorded forty days' rain, the ascent of the waters must have been nearly seven hundred feet each day! A violent supposition! The truth probably lies between these two extremes. When, by the power of the Almighty, the fountains of the great deep were broken up, probably, many, if not most of the rocky elevations occurred. The dislocated appearance of the earth's superficial strata, seems to justify this inference, and the marine substances found on the summits of the loftiest hills admit of an easy solution, by the supposition that these prominences were borne upward from the bed of the ocean. Hills, where the stratification has not been broken, rarely exceed two thousand feet, and if this elevation be adopted for the highest of the antediluvian hills, it would give an ascent to the waters, during the forty days, from the combined

agency of rain, and the irruption from the earth's interior reservoirs, of fifty feet for each twenty-four hours.

This, it must be admitted, after all, is a mysterious subject, and the ideas here advanced upon it, are to be understood as amounting to no other than conjectures. The Deluge must be regarded as an event involved in inscrutable darkness; to the solution of which, nothing short of miraculous influence can be applied. Sober reasoning has often been violated by the indiscreet affirmations of some speculators, who have not sufficiently distinguished between what may and has been ; between points essentially problematical, and those which, if not susceptible of proof, are, at least, sustained by high moral probability. The Christian cannot doubt the reality of the Deluge, recorded as it is by Inspiration, and confirmed by innumerable physical attestations, but its modus; its efficient causes; and attendant consequences, if at all reasoned upon, should be accompanied with the admission that we know nothing, absolutely, but the naked fact.

On the topics, more accessible to inquiry;

to

which a reference has been made in the course of this investigation, it has been the author's wish, in detailing his opinions, to abstain from all undue confidence. There is no prohibition against expressing new views, where the old are unsatisfactory, but, whenever substantial reasoning shall disprove any position which he has ventured to advance, no individual will become more promptly opposed to it, than himself. The greater the body of thought and observation, which is brought to bear on this very curious subject, the more likely it is that truth should be elicited, and if that end be accomplished, the medium which conducts to it, is of slight importance.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES

OF SOME PREMATURE GENIUSES.

CRICHTON. p. 431.

JAMES CRICHTON was a native of Scotland, and born about 1551. His tutors were, Rutherford, and Buchanan, whose assistance, combined with his fine natural parts, rendered Crichton the prodigy of his age. By the time he was twenty, he had acquired a knowledge of all the sciences, and could write and speak, consummately, in twelve different languages. He had become also a proficient in riding, dancing, fencing, and played, to admiration, on almost all instruments.

At this early age, Crichton proceeded on his travels. Upon arriving at Paris, he sent a public challenge, to all the individuals of that renowned university, to dispute with him in the College of Navarre, that day six weeks, by nine in the forenoon, where he declared, he would attend, and either answer all questions in any art or science, or hold a public disputation in any one, or in all the twelve following languages. —Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic, Greek, Latin, Spanish, French, Italian, English, Dutch, Flemish, or Sclavonian. In the intermediate time, all the learned men of Paris, as well natives, as foreigners, diligently set about preparing themselves for the grand contest, when a young foreigner was to defy all the power of France. Crichton, on the contrary, made no extra preparation for the approaching day, but, confiding in his knowledge, and the promptitude of his recollection, attended exclusively to his amusements, as though this trial of intellectual strength were some unimportant, and ordinary occurrence. memorable day now arrived, when Crichton met his various opponents, and acquitted himself, so as to excite universal admiration. The discussion was continued from nine in the morning, till six in the evening, when the president arose, and extolled him for all his various endowments, so marvellously displayed on that occasion. Four of the principal professors, also, in testimony of their approbation, presented him with a purse, and a diamond ring, and, from that time, this eminent Scotsman, received the appellation of the Admirable Crichton." He acquired equal celebrity at Rome, and other places, but in continuing his travels, he was assassinated, one night, in the streets of Mantua.

The