[100]. “Our disposition is, and has been, not to multiply miracles after the sort in which this has been done by many more zealous than wise friends of revelation. In all cases we allow the miracle without question, which is distinctly claimed to be such in the Scriptures, and where the circumstances clearly indicate that a miracle was necessary,—we say ‘necessary,’ because we are persuaded that the Almighty has almost invariably chosen to act through natural agencies, and under the laws which he has imposed on nature, whenever they are adequate to produce the required result. We believe it is one of the beautiful peculiarities of the Bible, that it has none of those gratuitous and barren wonders, which form the mass of the pretended miracles which the various systems of false religion produce.... For our own part, we do not wish to hear of small miracles, which leave us doubtful whether there be any miracle at all. If we are to have miracles, let them be decidedly miraculous, and let not our veneration for the Divine character be offended by exhibitions of the Almighty, as laying bare his holy arm to remove the small remaining difficulty which theorists leave him to execute.”—Dr. Kitto’s Biblical History of Palestine.
[101]. We have a fine specimen before us which we brought from Demerara, answering well to Gosse’s description of the iguana found in Jamaica. “In the eastern parts of the island the great iguana (Cyclura lophoma), with its dorsal crest, like the teeth of a saw, running all down its back, may be seen lying out on the branches of the trees, or playing bo-peep from a hole in the trunk.” It is considered a great delicacy by many, but it never seemed Christian food to us, and we never ventured to provoke our palate with a taste.
[102]. Enaliosaurians are sea lizards, such as those found in the Lias; and deinosaurians are terrible lizards, such as those found in the Wealden.
[103]. Ansted’s Ancient World, pp. 164–168.
[104]. Just published by Bohn, in his valuable “Scientific Library;” a marvel of cheapness and value.
[105]. Since writing the above we have met with the following, which proves that this origin of chalk is not so fabulous as some think it:—“Lieut. Nelson, Mr. Dance, and others have shown, that the waste and débris derived from coral reefs produces a substance exactly resembling chalk. I can corroborate this assertion from my own observations, both on some very white chalky limestones in Java and the neighbouring islands, which I believe to be nothing else than raised fringing coral reefs, and on the substance brought up by the lead over some hundreds of miles in the Indian Archipelago, and along the north-east coast of Australia, and the coral sea of Flinders,”—Juke’s Physical Geology, p. 263.
[106]. We take the origin of the word Folkstone to mean, that that old town was once built of the brick that may be made of the galt: it was the folk’s-stone.
[107]. “The Religion of Geology,” &c., by E. Hitchcock, LL.D. &c. p. 70.
[108]. Mantell’s “Geological Excursions,” p. 145.
[109]. Richardson, p. 391.