INTRODUCTION.

How defective is History, and how small a portion of that which does exist is known to any one person! Britain was connected with the Romans about four hundred and eighty one-years: of which a space of three hundred and twenty years is a perfect blank. What little is known is collected from the incidental mention of that island by Roman, and a few Greek authors; Britain itself, it is supposed, not having produced any writer whatever. Siberia was above three centuries governed by the Moguls; and not a word of its history, during that period, is to be found, except what may be gleaned from authors foreign to that extensive region,-Persians, Chinese, Russians, and European missionaries and travellers.

The pride of man, in his intellectual attainments, is humbled at the reflection, that he who can "unfold all Nature's law," measure the diameter of the sun, and the distance of the stars, should, at the same time, be frequently as ignorant as the savage of the most important events which occur, during his own existence, on the

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atom of the universal frame which he inhabits. Scarcely any one in Europe believed the narrative of Marco Polo. The information received since the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope, has proved the truth of that intelligent traveller's book in a remarkable degree. At the death of the Black Prince, Timur Bec had worn the crown of Zagatai about seven years; but his exploits had been confined to Persia and his wars with the Mogul princes who possessed Siberia. It is, therefore, very probable, that these heroes never heard of the existence of each other; although a battle, in which ninety thousand men were killed*, would have commanded the admiration of that great conqueror.

To this day, in most parts of Africa, the assurance that, in other countries, elephants are tamed and ridden, passes as one of the "white man's liest." And can this be wondered at, when my Lord of Gloucester, on examining the grinder of an Elephant, (which animal was dug up at Gloucester, and King James sent Lord Herbert of Cherbury to ascertain if it were a giant's), assured Bishop Hakewill, that "he himself was not confident that it was the tooth of a man?".

The discovery of fossil bones of Elephants and certain other animals, has filled the world with amazement; and though history, imperfect as it is, presents us with the solution of the enigma; it

See Mezeray, Historiographer of France with a pension of four thousand livres. He gives the particulars of the two days at Crecy: Hume states the number of both days to be thirty-six thousand and six hundred.

† A French vessel touching on the coast of Guinea, some of the crew were taken before the king, who was seated upon a log under a tree with the queen, both naked, attended by four guards with wooden pikes: this was his majesty's Court of Justice. His enquiry of the strangers was, whether they talked much about him in France? Montesquieu, Persian Letter XLIV.

Bishop Hakewill's Apology, p. 229.

is quite astonishing that no one has hitherto searched into the historical origin of the most remarkable of these remains *.

The ingenuity of the greatest and most respectable authors has been tortured to invent abstruse systems and causes for what appeared so truly wonderful. They, however, have failed to convince mankind of the truth of their hypotheses. The various theories of the earth have been resorted to. Of those which are supposed to have reference to the subject of this essay, the following are the principal; but they are all involved in such difficulties, that perhaps the mind of no person has ever been satisfactorily convinced of the truth of either of them.

Leibnitz supposes that the earth was a luminous fixed star; which, after burning for many ages, was extinguished from a deficiency of combustible matter; and that, when cooled, the moist vapour fell and formed the ocean. This theory is deemed altogether hypothetical.

Buffon conjectures that the earth was a portion of the sun, detached from it by the oblique stroke of a comet; and that, being removed to a considerable distance from the sun, it gradually cooled, and the vapours condensed by degrees and fell down in water. But this original formation of the earth has been thought hypothetical by all, and by many fanciful. It has, however, hence been supposed, that what are now the frozen regions, were once warm enough, from the earth's own heat, to maintain wild Elephants, Rhinoceroses, &c. t. Others have imagined that the obliquity of the ecliptic was

* The writer has perhaps been more attracted to this subject than any other person, by the circumstance of his having passed upwards of twenty years of his life in Hindostan and Russia.

+ See Rees's Cyc. "Earth," "Deluge." Encyc. Brit. "Mammoth."

Pallas at first concluded that the Northern regions had been sufficiently warm to be the native country of Elephants, Rhinoceroses, &c. but, on seeing the spots where bones were

INTRODUCTION.

once so great as to include the Arctic Regions within the tropics. But the obliquity being caused by a vibratory, not a rotary, motion; and the mean variation not ever amounting to one mile in a century, renders it impossible that the Arctic Regions could have ever been warmed by that operation, so as to affect this question: for, granting that the obliquity does arise from a rotary motion, it would require more than sixty thousand years to produce a difference of only ten degrees of latitude: and how would this accord with the finding of a Rhinoceros upon the sand of the bank of the river Vilui, in Siberia, Lat. 64°, with the skin upon the head, and the eyelids not destroyed?

A long list of eminent authors attribute the fossil remains of Elephants, and other animals in question, to the great Deluge. "I give the fact," says Pennant, "let others, more favoured, explain how these animals were transported from their torrid seats to the Arctic Regions. I should have recourse to the only one we have authority for, and think that phenomenon sufficient. I mention this, because modern philosophers look for a later cause: I rest convinced, to avoid contradicting what can never be proved." It is not to be supposed that this amiable man and excellent writer deemed that this fact was required in support of the truth of the deluge, scarcely any one doubting it, and, least of all, a philosopher like Pennant. In addition to holy writ, almost all the historians of the world agree in this catastrophe; and, therefore, the deluge stands not in need that this additional testimonial should be substantiated. In matters of science, truth alone is the object which every one ought to have in view; and, with regard to the present inquiry, the usual interests and customs of society will perhaps be sufficient to bring

found in Siberia, he changed his opinion, and thought they could have been transported only by a sudden inundation. Rees's Cyc. "Elephants' bones."