William Denton

“ Why should the beasts, birds, and creeping things be destroyed? What had the larks, the doves, and the bob-o-links done? What had the squirrels and the tortoises been guilty of, that they should be destroyed?
He proceeds to inform Noah how he will do this: "And behold I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth shall die." And we are subsequently informed that "every thing that was in the dry land died." But why not every thing in the sea? ”

“ You seem to forget that all things are possible with God: he could have packed these animals into an ark of one-half the size, brought them altogether in the twinkling of an eye, and returned them as rapidly. ”

“ The sheep would need careful protection from the lions, tigers, and wolves; the elephant and other ponderous beasts would require stalls of great thickness; much room would be required to enable them to obtain needful exercise, and for the attendants to supply them with food and water; and a vessel of the size of the ark would be taxed to provide for these beasts alone; and to crowd in, and preserve alive, beasts and birds, was an absolute impossibility.
But there are of reptiles six hundred and fifty-seven species; and Noah was to take into the ark two of every sort of creeping thing. ”

“ It falls, as we see, and takes its place with all other human fallible productions. For knowledge, we go to Nature, our universal mother, who gives her Bible to every soul, and preaches her everlasting gospel to all people. ”

“ And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth, and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark." Had the man who wrote this story been a lawyer, and had he known how these would-be-Bible-believers, and at the same time geologists, would seek to pervert his meaning, he could not have more carefully worded his account. It is not possible for any man to express the idea of a total flood more definitely than this man has done. ”

“ Ants, also, for the ant-eaters of America, the aard-vark of Africa, and the pangolin of Asia. The great ant-eater of South America is an animal sometimes measuring eight feet in length. It lives exclusively on ants, which it procures by tearing open their hills with its hooked claws, and then drawing its long tongue, which is covered with glutinous saliva, over the swarms which rush out to defend their dwelling. Many bushels of ants would be needed for the pair of ant-eaters before the ark landed on Ararat. ”

“ Many animals live upon insects; and this must have been the most difficult part of the provision to procure. There are nineteen species of goatsuckers; [12] and there must have been in the ark two hundred and sixty-six individuals. These birds feed upon flies, moths, beetles, and other insects. What an innumerable multitude must have been provided for the goatsuckers alone! But there are a hundred and thirty-seven species of fly-catchers; and Noah must have had a fly-catcher family of nineteen hundred and eighteen individuals to supply with appropriate food. ”

“ Animals change, it is true, and all species have probably been produced from a few originals; but the process by which this is accomplished is so slow in its operation, that we have no knowledge of the formation of a new species. We know that lions, tigers, and cats of various species, existed long before the time of the deluge, and dogs, wolves and foxes; and we find mummied cats, dogs, and other animals in Egypt, as old or older than the deluge, so little changed from those of the present time in the same locality, that we cannot recognize any difference between them. ”

“ Not one but would eat its weight in a month, and some much more. A full-grown lion eats fifteen pounds of flesh in a day: there are two species of lions; and the four would eat twenty-two thousand pounds in a year. There would be, at least, three thousand animals [11] feeding upon flesh; and, if we calculate that they averaged two pounds of flesh a day, this would give a total of more than two million and a quarter pounds of flesh to be stored up and distributed. And since dried, salted, or smoked meat would not answer, this flesh must have been taken into the ark alive. ”

“ Thus, when the Spaniards first penetrated into South America, they did not find a single species of quadruped the same as any of Europe, Asia, or Africa."
The white bear is never found except in the arctic regions; the great grizzly bear is only found in the neighborhood of the Rocky Mountains. Nearly all the species of mammals found in Australia are confined to that country, as the wingless birds of New Zealand are confined to that, and the sloth, armadillo, and other animals, to South America. ”

“ Australia for its marsupials and other peculiar animals; and every large island, and most of the small ones, to obtain those forms of life that are only to be found in each. From the island of Celebes, they must have taken the eighty species of birds that are confined to it, which would require them to catch, cage, feed, and convey eleven hundred and twenty specimens: a no small job of itself. Ten men that could accomplish that, and carry them safe to Armenia, would do all that men could do in ten years. ”

“ Hence, for the flood to destroy man alone at so recent a period, it must have been as wide spread as the earth.
Even according to the Bible account, the garden of Eden, where man was first placed, was somewhere near the Euphrates; and in sixteen hundred years the race must have rambled over a large part of the earth's surface. The highest mountains in the world, the Himalayas, are within two thousand miles of the Euphrates. That splendid country, India, would have been occupied long before the time of the deluge ”

“ Rösel calculates that two hundred species subsist on the oak; but the oak must be in a growing condition to supply them with food. In no other way, then, could the insects have been preserved alive than by large green-houses, the heat so applied as to suit the plants of both temperate and tropical climates, and the insects so distributed among them, that each could obtain its appropriate nourishment. ”

“ Supposing all the additional water needed to drown the world was fresh, when mingled with the water of the sea, as much as one-tenth of it would be salt water, and this would render it utterly unfit for drink. ”

“ If we leave out the cetacea, that live in the water, and the cud-chewers, which are the clean beasts, we have one thousand eight hundred and twenty-five species; and male and female of these, a total of three thousand six hundred and fifty. ”

“ Few persons have an idea of the difficulty of keeping even the common birds of a temperate climate [22] alive in confinement for any length of time. Food that is quite suitable in a wild state may be fatal to them when they are kept in the house. Linnets feed on winter rape-seed in the wild state, but soon die if fed upon it in-doors. "They are to be fed," says Bechstein, "on summer rape-seed, moistened in water ”

“ It would be impossible even for some birds. How could the ostriches of Africa, the emus of Australia, and the rheas of South America, get there,—birds that never fly? There are three species of the rhea, or South-American ostrich ”

“ If these animals were fed on other substances than hay, the extra difficulty of obtaining and preserving those substances would counterbalance any advantage that might be gained by the economy of space. ”

“ Fruit would be necessary for the four hundred and forty-two monkeys, for the plantain-eaters, the fruit-pigeons of the Spice Islands that feed on nutmegs, for the toucans and the flocks of parrots, parroquets, cockatoos, and other fruit-eating birds. ”

“ The most recent zoölogical authorities enumerate two thousand and sixty-seven species of mammals, or, as they are commonly called, beasts. Of cetacea, or whale-like mammals, sixty-five; ruminantia, or cud-chewers, one hundred and seventy-seven; pachydermata, or thick-skinned mammals, such as the horse, hog, and elephant, forty-one; edentata, like the sloth and ant-eater, thirty-five; rodentia, or gnawers, such as the rat, squirrel, and beaver, six hundred and seventeen; carnivora, or flesh-eaters, four hundred and forty-six ”

“ How they crossed the mountain [20] streams, and lived when passing over broad prairies, it would be difficult to say. A mile a day would be a rapid rate for these slow travellers, and it would therefore require about forty years for them to arrive at their destination. ”