beasts, and pairs of all other living things on the face of the earth. It was to contain food sufficient also for all those creatures as well as for Noah and his family, not only till the flood should subside, but till the earth could produce a fresh supply. Will any sensible man contend that it was large enough for these purposes? "Calculations have indeed been made," says Professor Hitchcock, "which seemed to show that the ark was capacious enough; but unfortunately the number of species assumed to exist by the calculators was vastly below the truth. They supposed there were only three or four hundred species of animals; whereas the number is now estimated at from five to six hundred thousand, for seven-eighths of which accommodations must have been provided, as they inhabit the air or the dry land. Zoologists have already noted and described a thousand species of mammalia, six thousand species of birds, two thousand species of reptiles, and one hundred and twenty thousand species of insects, all of which would have to be provided with space and food. The number of animals, therefore, which would have to be accommodated in the ark, could hardly be less than one million and a half.

And they could not be packed in boxes like dry goods? Each animal would have to have room to move about, and opportunities of obtaining fresh air and food. And there would have to be room for Noah and his family to go among them to deal out to them their supplies of food, and to clean away all filth and refuse.

And many of these animals would be of vast size. There would be two elephants, two giraffes, two hippopotami, two rhinoceroses, seven cows with their seven mates, fourteen buffaloes, fourteen deer, fourteen elks, fourteen sheep, fourteen goats, fourteen, in short, of all animals that divide the hoof and chew the cud, and fourteen of every kind of bird or fowl, from the ostrich and the emu down to the smallest humming bird.

The ark would contain about 56,000 cubic yards. Of this, pairs of twenty of the larger animals would require one-third. Fourteen buffaloes, fourteen milk cattle, fourteen deer, fourteen elks, and fourteen of all the various kinds of clean beasts, would require another third. Fourteen each of thirty or forty of the larger kinds of birds would take up the rest. In short, a ship, a hundred times the size, would not be large enough to contain pairs and seven pairs of all kinds of animals. Look at the vast number of caravans that are necessary to hold the beasts that are exhibited in some of our larger shows. Yet the very

largest of those collections do not contain a thousandth part of the animals that would have to be accommodated in the ark. They contain only specimens of a comparatively small portion of the stranger kinds of wild animals of distant countries. They contain no oxen, no asses, no horses, no hogs, no common fowls, few or none of the commoner kinds even of wild animals, no common birds, no common reptiles; much less do they contain fourteen of every kind of bird, fourteen of every kind of clean beast, and pairs of all other living things. Still less do they contain food sufficient to serve all these various kinds of animals for fifteen or eighteen months. An ark of the dimensions given in the Bible would not contain one-tenth part food enough to supply every living thing for fifteen months, if nothing else were placed in it. Only imagine what a vast amount of flesh would be necessary to supply the bears, and lions, and tigers, and leopards, the wolves and foxes, the jackalls and hyenas, the eagles, the hawks, the vultures and owls, and all the other birds and beasts of prey. Then imagine the quantity of hay, and straw, and grain, and fruit, and vegetables, that would be necessary to feed all the grazing kinds of animals, and all the various kinds of birds and creeping things that live on those kinds of food. Then imagine the vast amount of insects that would be necessary for those numerous kinds of birds, which, like the swallow, live almost entirely on them. Then consider what quantities of flesh and fruit, of grain and green herbage, would be necessary to support those insects. Allow, besides, for room to move among the animals, and then judge whether a vessel or a barn, one hundred and fifty yards long and twenty-five wide, would be sufficient for all these purposes. The area of the three stories would be short of one acre and three quarters, affording one square yard for every two hundred animals, but leaving no room for food and gangways. You could not accommodate two hundred kinds,-you would find it difficult to accommodate twenty kinds,-even of insects in a square yard. And how many square yards would you require for fourteen cows, or a couple of elephants?

9. All those animals Noah had to collect. This would be a terrible task for a man employed all the time in preaching, and in building the ark besides. Those various tribes of animals are scattered over the whole earth, from the equator to the poles, from the deepest valleys up to the regions of eternal snow. To obtain pairs, and seven pairs of them all, Noah would not only have to travel round the earth, but to travel round it in different latitudes and lon

gitudes fifty or a hundred times. And this he would have to do on foot, or by very slow conveyances. For there were no railroads in those days. It is doubtful whether they had even stage coaches or wagons in those early times. And he would have to cross the seas and oceans, and ford the rivers, and penetrate the forest and the jungle, the desert and the swamp. Only imagine the old man making the circuit of the globe in fifty or a hundred directions all alone, while the art of traveling was yet in its infancy; and calculate what length of time it would take him to perform his long and numerous journeys. It would hardly be possible for him to get over the ground he would have to travel, even if he were to walk every day, twenty miles a day, in less than fifteen thousand years. But he had something more to do than walk. He had to hunt. He had to catch pairs, or seven pairs, of every kind of fourfooted beasts, fourteen of every kind of every bird and fowl, and pairs of every kind of creeping things. He had to catch a couple of lions, a couple of tigers, a couple of foxes, a couple of wolves, and a couple of every kind of bears. He had also to catch a couple of elephants, a couple of giraffes, a male and female rhinoceros, and a pair of hippopotami. He must also catch a pair of crocodiles, and a pair of alligators. And he must have a pair of every kind of serpent, from the huge boa constrictor down to the tiny venomous adder. Then he must catch fourteen wild geese, and a wild goose chase indeed he would have, for he would have to take them alive. And he would have to catch fourteen vultures, fourteen turkey buzzards, fourteen hawks, fourteen of every bird on earth. And then he would have to search out and secure pairs of every kind of insect and worm. Some of the insects would no doubt seek out him, such as the mosquito, the tick, and the midge; but most of them would wait for him to seek out them.

And all those creatures Noah had to drive or carry along with him, over deserts, continents and oceans, in winter and in summer weather. It would keep him busy to find out and catch a million and a half of animals of all descriptions. It would take him a hundred years barely to catch them all, even supposing him to catch about fifty a day; which would certainly be more than he would be able to capture on those days when he was chasing the wild geese, the swallows, and the buzzards. However, he did it, according to the Bible. He caught the whole million and a half. It has been thought a great feat of Sampson to catch three hundred foxes, and tie them tail to tail; but

what was this compared with Noah's achievement? He captures two, or fourteen, of five hundred thousand different kinds of animals, and drives them before him, or carries them along with him over islands and seas, oceans and continents, and bears on his back food enough to keep them all for fifteen months. All the hunters, all the drovers, all the carriers that ever lived are unworthy to be compared with Noah. Ten thousand men of the present day, the best that you could find, would not be able to do, under the same circumstances, in a thousand years, what Noah did, according to the Bible, in almost no time, and apparently with perfect ease.

10. Well, Noah at length got the monster collection of birds, and beasts, and creeping things, all safe in the ark, with eighteen months' provisions for them all. What next? Naturalists tell us that if tropical animals were to migrate to the temperate zones, and especially to the frigid zones, they could not long survive; and that animals of the temperate and frigid zones would perish, if they were to take up their abode near the equator. Nay more, they assure us, that even within the tropics there are different zones or districts all having their peculiar kinds of animals, which cannot endure the different climates, even of adjoining districts. In short, almost every species of animal has its own province or district, within which it lives and does well; but outside of which it languishes and dies. Hence our naturalists tells us,-even Professor Hitchcock tells us, -that if animals of all the different kinds on earth were brought into one place, nearly the whole would perish,that the idea that all the different species could first be gathered to one spot, and then re-distributed over the whole earth, cannot be admitted for one moment. It would seem, therefore, that the more than Herculean labors of our mighty hunter and unparalleled drover have been thrown away. In other words, the animals never could have been all got into one place alive; and even if they could, they would have quickly perished.

11. They would have perished, even if they had all had a plentiful supply of suitable food, fresh air, and good water, but these they could not have in the ark. They could not have suitable food. How would the buzzards be supplied with carrion, the swallow tribes with insects, the insects themselves with fresh green leaves and herbage? Nor could they have good water. In a flood like that of the Bible the salt water and the fresh would be mingled, and the whole would be unfit for use. The animals would not drink it; and if they did, they would die. Even Noah

and his family would die of thirst, unless they took care to stow away a plentiful supply of water before the mixture took place. And how could the animals obtain a plentiful supply of fresh air? What provision did the mighty carpenter make for duly ventilating his monster vessel? None. The ark had but one door, and that was shut, and but one window, about eighteen inches square, and that appears to have been kept closed. The animals could not live an hour in such a hole. Nor could Noah and his family. Ten or fifteen minutes would have finished them all.

Suppose they could have lived, what a sweet, delicious place that ark must have been. Men who have had to do with wild beasts in menageries, and persons who have kept foxes, bears, wolves, skunks and the like, could satisfy you, that in such a place as the ark, with specimens of every unclean bird and beast on earth, there would certainly be no scarcity of powerful perfumes.

12. Then Noah and his family had all these animals to feed and water, and clean after. The feeding alone would be a pretty tough job. Supposing each animal to be fed once a day, and Noah and his family to work only ten hours, they would have to feed two thousand five hundred every minute. This of itself one would think might keep them busy enough. But they had many of these creatures to water also, and the water must all be drawn up through the window, and carried down one, two, or three pairs of stairs. And all the refuse and filth must be cleared away at the same rapid rate, and carried up one, two, or three pairs of stairs, and thrown out of the window in the roof. Would there not be some very busy times on those stairs?

13. And the animals were all in the dark. And naturalists tell us that but few animals can live in continual darkness. And Noah and his family had to do all their work in the dark. They rushed among the tigers and rattlesnakes in the dark, and in the dark flew up and down stairs; and you yourselves, no doubt, are in the dark as to how such things could be done.

14. Besides, Zoologists tell us, that if the salt and the fresh water were all mixed, even the fish would die. The mixture would not be salt enough for the fish of the sea, nor fresh enough for those of the rivers, so that all would perish.

15. And, further, they tell us that a flood of such duration would kill all the trees, and destroy all vegetation, and that the orchards and forests would have all to be planted again. Yet they tell us that the trees have not been all killed