wded; but its living cargo is not yet
completed. A dense cloud of insects, and a vast army destitute of wings,
make their appearance, and clamor for admission. The number of
articulates that must have been provided for is estimated at seven
hundred and fifty thousand species,--from the butterflies of Brazil,
fourteen inches from the tip of one wing to the tip of the other, to the
almost invisible gnat, that dances in the summer's beam. Ants, beetles,
flies, bugs, fleas, mosquitoes, wasps, bees, moths, butterflies,
spiders, scorpions, grasshoppers, locusts, myriapods, canker-worms,
wriggling, crawling, creeping, flying, male and female, here they come,
and all must be provided for.

Nor are these the last. The air-breathing land-snails, of which we know
four thousand six hundred species, could never have survived a twelve
months' soaking; and they must therefore be cared for. The nine thousand
two hundred of these add no little to the discomfort of the
trebly-crowded ark.

Now let the flood come: all are lodged in the ark of safety, and are
ready for a year's voyage. But we forget: the ark has not yet received
one-half of its cargo. The command given unto Noah was, "Take thou unto
thee of all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee; and it
shall be for food for thee and for them;" and we are expressly told that
"according to all that God commanded Noah, so did he."

Food for how long? The flood began in the "sixth hundredth year of
Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month."
Noah, his family, and the animals, went in seven days before this time,
and left the ark the six hundred and first year of Noah's life, the
second month, and the twenty-seventh day of the month. They were
therefore in the ark for one year and seventeen days.

What a quantity of hay would be required, the material most easily
obtained! An elephant eats four hundred pounds of hay in twenty-four
hours. Since there are two species of elephants, the African and the
Indian, there must have been four elephants in the ark; and, supposing
them to live upon hay, they would require three hundred tons. There are
at least seven species of the rhinoceros; and fourteen of these, at
seventy-five tons each, would consume no less than one thousand and
fifty tons. The two thousand four hundred and seventy-eight clean
beasts,--oxen, elk, giraffes, camels, deer, antelope, sheep, goats, with
the horses, zebras, asses, hippopotami,