Narrative of the surveying voyages of his majesty's ships Adventure and Beagle (vol.2): between the years 1826 and 1836 : describing their examination of the southern shores of South America, and the Beagles's circumnavigation of the globe

680 A FEW REMARKS the idea that animals migrated to various quaiters of the globe, surely do not reflect that the swallow, the Avild swan, the wild goose, the wild horse, the Norway rat, and numerous other creatures, now migrate periodically in search of food or a better climate. Similar instinct may have taught animals to wander then, till they reached the places suited to them;* and there the same instinct would retain them. Want of proper food, or climate ; or the attacks of enemies,-f- may have destroyed stragglers who did not migrate ; therefore, when we find no kangaroos in Europe, it is no proof that kangaroos did not once exist there. Elks are now found in North America — we know they were formerly in Europe — is that race here now ? During the first few hundred years after the flood, extraor- dinary changes may have taken place in the geography of the world, in consequence of the drying and altering of various portions ; also from the effects of volcanic eruptions and earth- quakes, occasioned perhaps by electric action on newly-exposed land, as well as by other causes. Many places, now islands, may have been united to a continent for a considerable period after the deluge ; much land may have sunk down, much may have risen up, in various parts of the world. Such changes are said to be going on even now. though on a small scale (Lyell, Darwin, &c.) ; what may they not have been during the first few centuries after the flood ? Volcanic eruptions, such as those of the Galapagos, Andes, Etna, Auvergne, Indian Islands, &c., were then perhaps in such activity as they have never shown since. What the division in the earth was, in the days of Peleg, does not distinctly appear : but it could only have been a separation from the true faith ; a partition of territory among men ; or some mighty convulsion, some rending or contraction, * We see abundant evidence that either living creatures are adapted to particular climates and localities, or that climates and localities are adapted to particular creatures ; which latter, it has been proved by many authors, are altered by any material change of the former. t It should be remembered, that man was allowed to eat flesh after the flood. Gen. ix. ver. 3.