“These bones, presenting no trace of having been rolled up and down, occurring only fractured as we find those of our domestic animals, and sometimes joined together in the form of skeletons, often even as it were heaped up in common cemeteries, clearly demonstrate, _that the catastrophe which has destroyed the living beings to which they belonged must have overtaken them in the_ SAME CLIMATES WHERE WE MEET WITH THESE RECORDS OF THEIR FORMER EXISTENCE. “The quantity of nourishment which such huge animated masses required, and their numbers, proved by the existence of the carnivorous kinds, _render it probable that the countries where we find their remains_ ONCE _enjoyed a temperature, if not warmer, at least more favorable to vegetation_.” MALTE BRUN, _Physical Geography, Book 12_. In the above quotations, the data on which our argument rests are so clearly sustained there needs no comment. The authority given is unquestionable, and could be corroborated by scores of weighty names, and in reference to all the _northern_ countries of Asia, Europe, and America. It is impossible to read the above extracts without being convinced that those tropical and equatorial animals lived, flourished, and died _where_ their remains are _now_ found. And it is equally impossible to avoid another conclusion; viz: that there must have been a heavy vegetation on those plains, where _now_ the rein-deer can scarcely pick up a blade of grass. From these convictions no other inference can be drawn, but that the temperature of the _frigid zones_, was anciently much higher than at present; and of course the general temperature of the earth also. From the perfect preservation of these fossil remains; from the fact that they are found in their relative position, bone to bone, and, in some instances, with their _hair_, _skin_, and _flesh undecayed_, it is obvious, _the animals must have perished by a catastrophe which overwhelmed them suddenly, and was, instantaneously followed by a freezing of the overwhelming waters_. Such was the catastrophe of the _scripture deluge_, which _physically_ was competent to perform the phenomena, as shall be shown presently. Let us now see if we do not arrive at the same conclusion by examining the _fossil_ VEGETABLES. At Portland, England, the Rev. Dr. Buckland finds fossil plants _akin to the cycas family of Malabar_, from which he concludes, “it is probable that the climate of these regions, _at the time when the oolites_ (a series of rocky strata) _were deposited, was of the same warm temperature with that_ (the tropical) _which produces a large proportion of the existing cycadeæ_.” URE, _New Syst. Geol._ p. 433.