Further, in a universal deluge, without special miracle vast numbers of even the salt water animals could not fail to be extirpated; in particular, almost all the molluscs of the littoral and laminarian zones. Nor would the vegetable kingdom fare greatly better than the animal one. Of the one hundred thousand species of known plants, few indeed would survive submersion for a twelvemonth; nor would the seeds of most of the others fare better than the plants themselves. There are certain hardy seeds that in favorable circumstances maintain their vitality for ages; and there are others, strongly encased in water-tight shells or skins, that have floated across oceans to germinate in distant islands; but such, as every florist knows, is not the general character of seeds; and not until after many unsuccessful attempts, and many expedients had been resorted to, have the more delicate kinds been brought uninjured, even on shipboard, from distant countries to our own. It is not too much to hold that, without special miracle, at least three fourths of the terrestrial vegetation of the globe would have perished in a universal deluge that covered over the dry land for a year. Assuredly the various vegetable centres or regions,--estimated by Schouw at twenty-five,--bear witness to no such catastrophe. Still distinct and unbroken, as of old, either no effacing flood has passed over them, or they were shielded from its effects at an expense of miracle many times more considerable than that at which the Jews were brought out of Egypt and preserved amid the nations, or Christianity itself was ultimately established.[30]