xen, the horses, the
deer, and the goats, with the lighter carnivora, who, as they would die
last,--some of them not until the final disappearance of the
hill-tops,--would of course be entombed in the upper deposits. Such is
the hypothesis of the Dean of York,--a hypothesis of which it may be
justly affirmed, that it is well nigh as ingenious as the circumstances
of the case permit, and against which little else can be urged than that
it must seem rather cumbrous and fanciful to the class who do not know
geology, and, on the whole, somewhat inadequate to the class who do.

The Flood, however, is not left to do the whole geologic work, by even
such of the anti-geologists as assign to it the largest share. A great
unrecorded convulsion which accompanied the Fall is held by some of
their number to have greatly assisted, by laying down the older
formations of the fossiliferous rocks; and very much is said to have
been done during the extended antediluvian period that succeeded it. One
of perhaps the most amusing though least known of the writers that take
this special view is a Scotchman, resident in a secluded provincial
town, who for the last twelve or fifteen years has been printing
ingenious little books against the infidel geologists, and getting
letters of similar character inserted in such of our country newspapers
as are ambitious of rendering their science equal to their literature.
And from the great trouble which he has taken with the writings of the
individual who now addresses you, he seems to regard them as peculiarly
unsolid and dangerous. According to this profound cosmogonist, the world
before the Fall was rather more than twice its present size, and very
artificially constructed.[39] It was a hollow ball, supported inside by
a framework of metal wrought into hexagonal reticulations, somewhat like
the framework of the great iron bridge over the river Wear at
Sunderland; and which had an open space in its centre, occupied by a
vast tubular furnace lying direct south and north, which threw out huge
volumes of flame towards the poles. Over the reticulated framework there
rose a great, thick _firmament_ of metal, which formed the inner shell
of the globe; over the metal there lay a considerably thicker shell of
granite; and over the granite, a thinner shell of a substance not
specified, perhaps not known, but which, from its being completely
water-tight, served the purpose of the layer of asphalt or _terra cotta