the widely spread northern one. It is a question whether
even the pied raven of the Faroe Isles be not a distinct bird from the
black raven of our own country: if not an independent species, it is at
least a very remarkable variety. Further, when extirpated in a district,
it is found that, as in the case of the capercailzie and the golden
eagle, the neighboring regions in which the raven continues to exist
fail for ages to furnish a fresh supply. There are counties in England
in which the raven is now never seen; and I am acquainted with a
district in the north of Scotland from which, when a pair that were
known to breed for more than a century in a tall cliff were destroyed by
the fowler, the species disappeared.[28] Such, when examined, are the
arguments drawn by Dr. Kitto from natural science; nor is he in any
degree happier when he resorts to arguments more restrictedly physical.
"If," we find him saying, "the waters of the Deluge rose fifteen cubits
above all the mountains of the countries which the raven and the dove
inhabit, _the level must have been high enough to give universality to
the Deluge_." The only point here not already dealt with,--for I have
just shown that certain species of the dove and the raven might have of
necessity been inmates of the ark, though the Flood had been only a
partial one,--is that which refers to the submergence of the hills over
at least an extensive tract, and to the inference, evident in the
passage, that if lofty mountains were covered in one portion of the
globe, mountains of similar altitude must have been equally covered in
every other portion of it.

The inference here seems to be founded on a common but altogether
mistaken view of some of the grandest operations of nature with which
modern science has brought us acquainted. It has been well remarked,
that when two opposing explanations of extraordinary natural phenomena
are given,--one of a simple and seemingly common sense character, the
other complex and apparently absurd,--it is almost always safer to adopt
the apparently absurd than the seemingly common sense one. Dr. Kitto's
"plain man," yielding to the dictates of what he would deem common
sense,--which, of course, in questions of natural science is tantamount
to common nonsense,--would be sure to go wrong. And we find the remark
not inaptly illustrated by the now well established fact, that while the
medium level of the ocean is one of the most fixed lines in natur