[26] As was common in Bible illustrations published in our own country a century and a half ago, the old Greek artist has introduced into his medal two points of time. Two of the figures represent Noe and his wife quitting the ark; while the other two exhibit them as seated within it. An English print of the death of Abel, now before me, which dates a little after the times of the Revolution, shows, on the same principle, the two brothers, represented by four figures,—two of these quietly offering up their respective sacrifices in the background, and the other two grappling in deadly warfare in front.
[27] "In preparing the 'Horæ Biblicæ Quotidianæ,' he [Dr. Chalmers] had beside him, for use and reference, the Concordance, the Pictorial Bible, Poole's Synopsis, Henry's Commentary, and Robertson's Researches in Palestine. These constituted what he called his Biblical Library. 'There,' said he to a friend, pointing, as he spoke, to the above named volumes as they lay together on his library table, with a volume of the 'Quotidianæ,' in which he had just been writing, lying open beside them,—'these are the books I use: all that is Biblical is there.'"—Dr. Hanna's Preface to "Daily Scripture Readings."
[28] The raven is said to live for more than a hundred years. I am, however, not prepared to say that it was the same pair of birds that used, year after year, to build on the same rock-shelf among the precipices of Navity, from the times of my great-grandfather's boyhood to those of my own.
[29] The following estimate of the air-breathing vertebrates (that of the "Physical Atlas," second edition, 1856) may be regarded as the latest. It will he seen that it does not include the cetacea or the seals:—
| SPECIES. | |||
| Quadrumana | 170 | ||
| Marsupialia | 123 | ||
| Edentata | 28 | ||
| Pachydermata | 39 | ||
| Terrestrial Carnivora | 514 | ||
| Rodentia | 604 | ||
| Ruminantia | 180 | ||
| —— | 1658 | ||
| Birds | 6266 | ||
| Reptiles | 657 | ||
| Turtles 8 Sea Snakes 7 | } | 15 | |
| —— | 642 | ||
Great as is this number of animals, compared with those known a century ago, there are indications that the list is to be increased rather than diminished. Even by the latest European authorities the reindeer is represented as consisting of but a single species, common to the sub-arctic regions of both the Old and New Worlds; whereas in the "Canadian Naturalist" for 1856 I find it stated, on what seems to be competent authority, that America has its two species of reindeer, and that they both differ from the European species.
[30] If I do not introduce here the argument founded on the great age of certain gigantic trees, such as the Baobab of intertropical Africa, or the Taxodium of South America, it is not because I have any reason to challenge the estimates of Adamson or Candolle. The one tree may have lived its five thousand, the other its six thousand, years; but as the grounds have been disputed on which the calculations respecting their vast age have been founded, and as they cannot be reëxamined anew by the reader, I wholly omit the evidence, in the general question, which they have been supposed to furnish.
[31] The following excellent remarks on the economy of miracle, by Chalmers, bear very directly on this subject:—"It is remarkable that God is sparing of miracles, and seems to prefer the ordinary processes of nature, if equally effectual for the accomplishment of his purposes. He might have saved Noah and his family by miracles; but he is not prodigal of these, and so he appointed that an ark should be made to bear up the living cargo which was to be kept alive on the surface of the waters; and not only so, but he respects the laws of the animal physiology, as he did those of hydrostatics, in that he put them by pairs into the ark, male and female, to secure their transmission to after ages, and food was stored up to sustain them during their long confinement. In short, he dispenses with miracles when these are not requisite for the fulfilment of his ends; and he never dispenses with the ordinary means when these are fitted, and at the same time sufficient, for the occasion."—Daily Scripture Readings, vol. i. p. 10.
[32] For a brief but masterly view of these ancient cosmogonies, see the Rev. D. Macdonald's "Creation and the Fall." Edinburgh: Constable & Co.