producing thereby all the phenomena requisite for a practically universal deluge.

As the reeling or nutation recurred, land which at one time was near the Pole and stood high above the water would at another stage of the nutation be plunged below the water as it approached the Equator, the climate being arctic under the former and tropical under the latter condition; further, these alternations of depression and elevation and changes of climate would recur at intervals, until again the axis of rotation of the external crust coincided with that of the internal mass. It would be most improbable that the same spot of the crust would return to its former position at the Pole. The new position of the Pole, in the good providence of God, is such, that a wonderful balance between the accumulation of ice and its dissolution is maintained, the chief regulating element being the tidal waters, diverted by the projecting continent of America, the warmth of which moderates the climate of all countries bordering on the Atlantic, influences materially that of Spitzbergen, and slowly, it would appear, thaws the remaining old ice of the Glacial period. This theory affords a simple explanation of the changes of climate and physical geography which are proved to have occurred during the Glacial period, but have not received satisfactory explanations; accepting this theory there remains no occasion to estimate geological periods of time by allowing 2 feet in a century as the rate of upheaval and depression of the surface through hundreds and thousands of feet.

No such sudden destruction by water as that which overtook man at one period of his existence could have occurred under such gradual alterations of relative level of land and water. It is necessary to accept a cataclysm as the cause of such a catastrophe, and it is my firm belief that such a cataclysm did

occur.

The extraordinary physical forces in operation during the Glacial, but unknown in any preceding period, are sufficient to account for all the geological peculiarities of that era, besides the crushing-up of mountains, the voluminous discharge of molten matter from the earth's interior, the sweeping and distributing power of water of varied depths moving over submerged hill and dale, here denuding, there accumulating, which forces were common to previous geological periods; there was introduced the force exerted by ice resting and in motion as a river on the surface of the grounds, floating freely or trailing along the bed of the ocean, leaving distinctly the marks of its past action on solid rocks and distributing extensively over the continents of Europe, Asia, and America boulders, clay, gravel, and sand. It is unnecessary to enter into details of the operation of this glacial force. The like operations still continue, but not on the same grand scale. It is not philosophical to argue that all things continue as they were, and that we must take the natural operations of to-day as the measure of those which have passed away. common ways of river denudation" are insignificantly minute when compared with the ways of the enormous degrading, transporting, and dispersing forces to which I have referred.

"The

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Is it not probable that during the Glacial period the tropical regions of the earth were intensely hot and unsuitable for the abode of man, as though the angel with the flaming sword drove man from the garden of Eden there situated? again, was not the unstable condition of the earth sufficient to make Cain a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and that devoid of rain the ground should not yield her strength? Do we not read of Tubal Cain who instructed his fellows to work in brass and iron? Mark, brass first, then iron. And may we not direct attention to God's covenant with man after the Flood not again to destroy the earth with a flood, and explain His setting the bow in the heavens as a token of His covenant ?-at which it is grievous to hear sneers from those who profess to believe in Christianity. It is probable that during the Glacial period the sky was cloudless in the temperate zone; we read that when God formed man He had not caused it to rain on the earth, but a mist went up from the earth. Is it not very probable that until after the termination of the Glacial period the rainbow had never appeared in the sky in man's time?

It seems to me impossible to estimate actual time from any facts which geology presents, but there is nothing in the geological records which should lead us to distrust the records of Scripture.

REMARKS BY THE REV. J. MAGENS MELLO, M.A., F.G.S.

THE subject brought before us by Professor Hughes is undoubtedly one of very great interest, and I venture to send a few remarks which have occurred to me in connection with it. His criticisms upon the evidence offered in support of Miocene and Pliocene man seem to be thoroughly sound, and the evidence adduced proved to be valueless. In confirmation of what he has said regarding the supposed basket-work from Dürnten, I may add that I have frequently seen upon the sea-shore such rolled fragments of wood, softened and shaped by the waves; I have noticed them in abundance at Hastings, and also at Whitby and elsewhere; and where there happens to be much clay they may often be seen embedded in it, and if matted together they would undoubtedly leave their impressions upon cach other's surfaces. I believe I may state that Professor Dawkins does not accept the theory of the human origin of the Dürnten basket-work.

As to the Pre-glacial man of the Victoria Cave, it seems hardly worth while now to discuss the question whether the clay is a glacial deposit in situ or a remanié, since the bone of contention can no longer be considered human. Any evidence of man's antiquity drawn from the amount of stalagmite which may overlie bones or implements is, I think, altogether untrustworthy. So many varying circumstances affect the rate of the formation of

stalagmite, and the clue which we may have as to those circumstances in any particular case is often so indistinct and broken, that we cannot follow its indications with any confidence. We know that beds of a tufaceous character, such, for instance, as the upper so-called stalagmite of Kent's Hole, may attain many feet in thickness in a very small number of years.

The most weighty evidence as yet before us of a probably high antiquity for man in North-Western Europe appears to be that derived from the alterations in physical geography which seem to have taken place since his advent; such evidence is derived from the present height of certain terraces containing bis works far above the level of existing rivers. Such alterations would

appear to have taken place in the case of the Thames, the Clyde, the Somme, the Seine, and other streams. In some of the instances given, however, the river-banks bordered estuaries, and were probably affected by the tides, in which case we need not look to the slow accumulation by ordinary fluviatile depositions of sediment; and it is possible that where estuarine terraces occur, both the higher and the lower terrace may have been contemporaneously formed, since a high-tide and a low-tide terrace are a common occurrence on our coasts, and the subsequent elevation of the land would account for the present position of the terraces above the level of the river. Such elevation appears to have occasionally been far from slow. Canoes, which seem to have been constructed with metallic tools, have been found 25 feet above the present high-water mark on the banks of the Clyde; and it is a well-known fact that the alteration of some of our coasts has been both great and rapid during the historical period. We have no certain clue as to the rate of changes of elevation in the Pleistocene age. Evidence drawn from inland valleys may require more careful examination, as the cutting power of rivers varies greatly in different districts according to the volume and rapidity of the stream, and also the nature of the rocks passed over; and in times when the country was more densely wooded, the rainfall may have been far in excess of the present average. That the accumulation of bones of the extinct mammalia found in conjunction with human remains in caves cannot all be assigned to the work of a flood is very clear to any one who has taken part in the exploration of such caves. I will refer only to those with which I am best acquainted, viz., the caves of Cresswell; these are, it may be observed, not more than 15 ft. above the present level of the stream. The bones found in them, with but few exceptions, bear no evidence of having been rolled along by a current of water, but, on the contrary, appear to have been left where they are now found, in many cases, by the hyenas, which devoured the carcasses of the animals; the fractured edges are frequently seen to be as sharp as if done quite recently; this could not have been the case had they been subjected to rolling in water for even a very short period. Other evidence of their being the slow accumulations of many years in the spot where they are now found is seen in the character of the beds in which they occur. The floors of the caves are not of one uniform nature, but are distinctly stratified, and contain remains to a certain extent peculiar to each.

There is also the clearest evidence of the animals having lived and bred, if not in the caves, yet in their immediate neighbourhood; the jaws of the hyænas are those of individuals of every age, of the young, with the permanent teeth merely beginning to show through the bone, and of the veteran, with teeth ground down to stumps. The coprolites also of these animals and the bones they have gnawed abounded in some of the caves.

I think there is strong evidence that man was contemporaneous with the now extinct mammalia during a lengthened period and one marked by important physical changes; but how long that period was the evidence as yet is not forthcoming.

Some who have written on this subject have spoken of the remains of the sheep and goat, and also of iron, as having been found with the bones of the Pleistocene animals; but that they were contemporaneous there is, I think, no proof; the few isolated cases in which they are said to have been found together cannot be set against the great mass of evidence as to their noncontemporaneity; and the carelessness of workmen, the accidental fall from an overlying deposit, the burrowing of foxes, rabbits, or badgers, might very easily account for the few instances brought forward. There seems to be every reason to suppose that the sheep, goat, and other domestic animals made their first appearance in connection with Neolithic man.

The chief points which it seems to me require very careful examination as to their bearing upon the question of a prolonged antiquity of man, are those relating to finds of implements apparently deposited at a time when the physical geography of the country was considerably different to what it is at present; such finds, for instance, as have been recorded from the drift of Hampshire, which is now deeply cut into by numerous streams, and is also intersected by the Southampton Water. As far as now appears, those implements must have been dropped into that drift at a period antecedent to those physical changes which have so cut up the once-uniform sheet of gravel. We also require further light to be thrown upon the cases I have already alluded to, in which similar finds are recorded from high levels, in localities far removed from the sea; and most especially do we want to know something more as to the time when the separation of these islands from the Continent and from one another took place. The evidence seems very clear that man lived in this country with the Pleistocene mammalia before that separation was brought about. The abrupt line apparently existing between Palæolithic and Neolithic man is very remarkable; as far as I am aware, no signs of an overlap have been discovered. What is the meaning of that sharp demarcation, assuming it to have a real existence? And what length of interval does it imply between the disappearance of one race of man, and the animals which were his contemporaries, and the incoming of the newer race? Is it not probable that the separation of England from the Continent, with various. climatal changes, may have filled up the interval? It is to such a break and to such changes that we are led to look for the explanation of the apparently sharp transition from the Pleistocene into Prehistoric and recent times;

whilst as to the fact of a connection having existed at no distant period (speaking of time geologically) between the continent of Europe and these islands there is abundant evidence, not the least striking part of which is that which shows a gradual diminution as we pass westwards and northwards of plants and animals of existing species, which are common both to Great Britain and the North-Western regions of Europe. It can only be reasonably accounted for by the supposition that the connection was severed before the species had time to spread generally.

REMARKS BY S. R. PATTISON, ESQ., F.G.S.

PROFESSOR HUGHES is so cautious, that his testimony concerning disputed facts has all the strength of an admission. We may, therefore, accept as conclusive, 1st, his denial of any evidence of the existence of man in Preglacial times; 2nd, his statement of the untrustworthiness of stalagmite as a measure of duration; and 3rd, his affirmance of the absence of any measure of Post-glacial time in geology. Into the field thus cleared of positive scientific facts hypothesis enters, and seeks to govern by analogies. Here we do not consider the Professor as equally skilful, or even equally cautious. Unlike his distinguished predecessor at Cambridge, Sedgwick (clarum et venerabile nomen), he repudiates cataclysm in the past, and relies on causes in present operation, and apparently on present rates of action. He argues that all the events indicated have been brought about by minute changes; that this has been the case with the cutting back of the rivers forming the valleys of the Thames* and the Somme, with the change in the groups of mammalia, and the variation in the local freshwater fauna. Therefore, he says, that the time which has elapsed since the deposition of the flint implements is "enormously long," a vast time," a "great lapse;" implying that it is far longer than is assigned by the ordinary Mosaic chronology. But the power of these analogies depends entirely on the circumstances of the two cases being equal. Surely Professor Hughes cannot hold that this is the We affirm, on the contrary, that the elevation of the inland cliffs and of the coast, the traces of violent land movements, the tokens of alternate immense rushes of water and ice with periods of repose and tranquil sediment, the excavation of materials by side-cutting and their rolling and re-sorting, are phenomena which, in the extent indicated, do not now occur, and can never have occurred from causes now in action at the present or any other conceivable rate of uniform progress. If this be so, or if it may be so,

case.

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* A Member, writing from Cirencester, states that he has not observed evidence of the "cutting back" higher up the stream of the Thames.