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of this world, I do not, therefore, admit the great antiquity of man. I think it remains to be proved that the extinct animals are of the great antiquity that has been assigned to them.* Bearing in mind that Mr. Hamilton says, "We are daily becoming more convinced that no real natural breaks exist between the Faunas and Floras of what we are accustomed to call geological periods," I think the following remarks are worthy of consideration.

"The first step in the false inductions geology made, arose from the rash deduction that the order in which the fossil remains of organic being were found deposited in the various strata, necessarily determined the order of their creation; and the next error arose from blindly rushing to rash conclusions and hasty generalizations, from a very limited number of facts and the most imperfect investigations. There were also (and indeed are still) some wild dogmatisms as to the time necessary to produce certain geologic formations; † but the absurdities of the science culminated when it adopted from Laplace the irrational and unintelligible theory of a natural origin of the world from a nebula of gaseous granite, intensely hot, and supposed to be gradually cooled while gyrating senselessly in space. This necessitated the further supposition of a long lapse of ages before this gas-world cooled down; when again it was supposed that a hard granite crust would be the result, with the still hot liquid granite-matter inside! Then it was supposed (whence or how not explained) that rain would fall upon the hardened granite, and that it would break up into soil, gravel, &c., &c., in the course of another lapse of ages or millions of years; and so on and on, always supposing some fresh occurrence, without the most remote attempt at explaining how any one of them could have naturally occurred, and always allowing ages upon ages to intervenc, as if to give time enough for totally inadequate causes to produce the continued series of improbable effects, which, without a Deity and without a design, were to result in this glorious world!

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But, although we have now got rid of the "Azoic" strata, and the Azoic ages of this world of ours, it is nevertheless worth while to suggest that, even had they existed, and even had all the fossils ever discovered been embedded exclusively as was long supposed to be the case, this would not have afforded any proof of the sole existence of the lower orders found in the lowest strata at any particular time; but only that such animals as naturally

*In a Paper read in the Royal Institution of Great Britain by the eminent geologist Mr. Prestwich, on the Flint Implements found at Amiens, he said,— "That the evidence as it then stood, seemed to him as much to necessitate the bringing forward the extinct animals towards our own time, as the carrying back of man to the geological times." (Quoted from Cosmogony, by Evan Hopkins, Esq., C.E., F.G.S. Second Edition, 1865: Longmans.)

In an able review of Sir William Logan's Geological Survey of Canada, which appeared in The Times of 21st of October, 1864, the following remark occurs, with reference to arguments based upon these "immense geological periods":"In order to expose the fallacy of such an argument, it would be only necessary to appeal to a few of these Canadian geological monuments, the true interpretation of which, we believe, will establish the fact that the element of time has very little share in the alteration and crystallization of the sedimentary rocks."

occupied the bottom of the oceans were the first to be embedded, when the first deposits of sediments were thrown down into the waters.

Were the world even now overwhelmed with a flood, and great masses of earths of various kinds carried violently into the sea, it must be evident that sponges and sea-anemones, and other lower orders of living organisms in the sea, which inhabit or are fixed at its bottom, would immediately be embedded in the sediment, while only an occasional fish might be poisoned or otherwise accidentally covered over. In time, however, the waters might become unfit even for the fish to live in, and many of those dying would be embedded in other sediments [superimposed]. As the waters rose, the reptiles and amphibia would next be drowned and embedded; while land animals would mostly for a time escape to the higher grounds. But were the waters still to rise, even they, and also man at last, would be swept away, though, probably, in most cases their carcases would not be embedded in sediments, but floated and dashed about, to be left [in caves, or] on the surface of the earth, and to waste away on the subsequent subsidence of the waters. Moreover, at the time of Noah's flood, it must be remembered, that many parts of the world may have then had no human inhabitants, and that strata formed in such regions would therefore necessarily be wanting in the remains even of human workmanship, though man might have lived contemporaneously in other regions of the globe, and his remains might be embedded there.

But no traces of man having been found by geologists in what was then supposed to be the oldest strata, it was concluded that man did not exist on the earth at all when these strata were formed; and long periods and intervals were therefore assigned between the time of the various formations."

This was published before Mr. Hamilton's Address was delivered. And now (the author goes on to ask), when the evidence of man's co-existence with certain extinct species of animals is admitted by the authorities, what is the consequence?

"Not a modest consideration of the whole series of geologic theories, which had rashly proclaimed Holy Scripture untrue, but which have been found to be really untrue themselves; but only further rash and extravagant generalizations, with a fresh atheistic theory tacked on to the others, to render the whole again somewhat more plausible! The long times and intervals between the various formations and the "geologic periods" are not given up; but only the abrupt divisions between each are abandoned, and man is now pushed further back into antiquity,' and is supposed to have been originally a savage, developed by some unexplained process, in the course of millions of ages, out of a gorilla or chimpanzee !"*

7. These observations by an anonymous author are, of course, not quoted as of any "authority," but only as a view of the whole state of the case that may fairly be entertained. Having alluded to Professor Ansted (on p. 14) as sending the official answer to Dean Cockburn, refusing to re-open the discussion of the nebular theory in the Geological Section of the British Association in 1844, I have the satisfaction of being now able to quote from

Fresh Springs of Truth (chapter on "The Scriptures and Science "), pp. 104, 105, 113-115. (London: Griffin & Co., 1865.)

what that learned Professor has more recently written in his Geological Gossip; and which will be found an ample justification of the very strongest things I have said throughout this pamphlet. I commend Professor Ansted's candid remarks to the special consideration of Dr. Colenso, Dr. Temple, and the two or three gentlemen who have favoured me with somewhat hypercritical strictures upon some sentences in the Circular of 24th May and the Scientia Scientiarum.

"An account (says the distinguished Professor) of the correction of the mistakes in geology might furnish matter for many amusing and instructive chapters in a work like the present. Few of the younger geologists of the day, and fewer still among general readers, have any idea of the extent to which opinions have become imperceptibly modified in many important departments of geological science within the last quarter of a century, while there have not been wanting several absolute and formal recantations enforced from time to time by direct discovery. The great cause of this is to be found in the inveterate habit that almost all of us have of over-estimating the value of negative evidence.

Geologists examine a certain district, and remark the absence of some objects or group concerning which there seems no good reason why it should not have been handed down as perfectly as some others that have been preserved. At once the theorist jumps to the conclusion that the tribe of animals not represented had not been created. A theory is soon built up on the strength of it; for no one can oppose it without having the onus probandi' thrown upon him. But some fine day the required fact is discovered, often to the disgust of the theorists, to the equal vexation of the student, and it would almost seem to the annoyance of everybody.

The first impulse of human nature is to put the unlucky discovery on one side-say nothing about it :-most likely it will bear investigation, and therefore don't let us have the trouble of investigating it! It is so painful to be stopped in a pleasant career of progress, and to be obliged to examine carefully, and weigh fairly, the evidence in regard to a matter we thought settled when we began work some twenty years ago.*

A troublesome Frenchman-M. Boucher de Perthes-took it into his head that some remains of men ought to be found in gravel. M. Perthes, although he found plenty of specimens, and published an octavo volume about them, and even offered his specimens to the savants of Paris, could not obtain a hearing. Few readers, either in France or England, seem even to have been aware of his book. The subject was tabooed, because people's minds were quite made up on the subject, confiding in the strength of the negative evidence, which really meant little more than a total absence of inquiry."

One of my critics recently boasted in print that he continued now to teach the same geology he had done for fifty years!

JOURNAL OF TRANSACTIONS.

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