The opinion which is considered as the Biblical view of the case, and according to which all animals have originated in a common centre, would leave us at a loss for any cause by which to account for the special dispersion of animals and plants beyond the mere necessity of removing from the crowded ground to assume wider limits, as their increased number made it constantly more and more necessary and imperative. According to this view, the animals of the arctic zone as well as those of the tropics,--those of America as well as those of New Holland,--have been first created upon the high lands of Iran, and have taken their course in all directions, to settle where they are now found to be strictly limited. It does not appear how such migrations of polar animals could have taken place over the warmer tracts of land which they had to cross, and in which they cannot even be kept alive, in our days, with the utmost precautions: nor how the terrestrial animals of New Holland, which have no analogies in the main continents, could have reached that large island, nor why they should have all moved thither. And, indeed, it is impossible, with such a theory, to account, either for the special adaptation of types to particular districts of the earth's surface, or for the limited distribution of so many species which are found only over narrow districts in their present arrangement. It is inconsistent with the structure, habits, and natural instincts of most animals, even to suppose that they could have migrated over any great distances. It is in complete contradiction with the laws of nature, and all we know of the changes our globe has undergone, to imagine that the animals have actually adapted themselves to their various circumstances during their migration, as this would be ascribing to physical influences as much power as to the Creator himself. And, again, the regular distribution, requiring precise laws, as we find it does, cannot be attributed either to the voluntary migration of animals, or to the influence of physical causes, when we see so plainly that this distribution is in accordance with the geographical distribution of animals and plants in former geological periods. But about this presently. We will only add, that we cannot discover in the Mosaic account anything to sustain such a view, nor even hints leading to such a construction. What is said of animals and plants in the first chapter of Genesis, what is mentioned of the preservation of these animals and plants at the time of the deluge, relates chiefly to organized beings placed about Adam and Eve, and those which their progeny had domesticated, and which lived with them in closer connection.