Museum 394 XXVII. Skeleton of Megatherium 403 XXVIII. Ideal View of the Quaternary Epoch--Europe 416 XXIX. Ideal Landscape of the Quaternary Epoch--America 419 XXX. Deluge of the North of Europe 425 XXXI. Glaciers of Switzerland 445 XXXII. Appearance of Man 468 XXXIII. Asiatic Deluge 483 DIAGRAM AT END--Ideal Section of the Earth’s Crust, showing the order of superposition or chronological succession of the principal groups of strata. PREFACE. The object of “The World before the Deluge” is to trace the progressive steps by which the earth has reached its present state, from that condition of chaos when it “was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep,” and to describe the various convulsions and transformations through which it has successively passed. In the words of the poet-- “Where rolls the deep, there grew the tree; O Earth, what changes hast thou seen! There, where the long street roars, hath been The silence of the central sea.” It has been thought desirable that the present edition of the work should undergo a thorough revision by a practical geologist, a task which Mr. H. W. Bristow has performed. Mr. Bristow has however confined himself to such alterations as were necessary to secure accuracy in the statement of facts, and such additions as were necessary to represent more precisely the existing state of scientific opinion. Many points which are more or less inferential and therefore matters of individual opinion, and especially those on which M. Figuier bases his speculations, have been left in their original form, in preference to making modifications which would wholly change the character of the book. In a work whose purpose is to give the general reader a summarised account of the results at which science has arrived, and of the method of reasoning regarding the facts on which these generalisations rest, it would be out of place, as well as ineffective, to obscure general statements with those limitations which caution imposes on the scientific investigator. In the original work the Author had naturally enough drawn most of his facts from French localities; in the translation these are mostly preserved, but others drawn from British Geology have been added, either from the translator’s own knowledge, or from the works of well-known British writers. It was considered desirable, for similar reasons, to enlarge upon the opinions of British geologists, to whom the French work scarcely does justice, considering the extent to which the science is indebted to them for its elucidation.