ted. It is probable that the animal was caught while devouring the twigs which grew upon the peat. He probably flourished long after man's creation.

The Indians have their traditions of the appearance of an immense animal in the Ohio country, which President Jefferson, in his notes on Virginia, refers to the mastodon. The South American Indians have traditions of a giant naked bear, and another animal resembling Jefferson's megalonyx. Other North American legends speak of the great elk or buffalo, which, besides enormous horns [tusks], had an arm [proboscis] protruding from its shoulder, with a hand at its extremity. Lyell, in speaking of extinct quadrupeds in his "Second visit to the United States," says, "that they were exterminated by the arrows of the Indian hunter is the first idea presented to the mind of almost every naturalist."

Within a hundred years the entire carcasses of an elephant and a rhinoceros have been dug out of the frozen mud of Siberia. The former, when living, was protected from the cold by an abundance of long hair. Its flesh was eaten by dogs when discovered. The impression derived from all these examples is, that these gigantic animals have lived almost to our time. These and similar facts, when carefully studied, will afford interesting inferences.

Accuracy of calculations. One of the assumptions upon which the arguments for a very great antiquity of man are based, is the so-called "uniformitarian theory." Though possessing many elements of truth, it must not be carried out too rigidly. This theory is the especial hobby of Sir Charles Lyell, and the principal part of his writings have been composed in its defence. It assumes that the rate with which changes are now going on in the earth's crust must be taken as the measure of the duration of the ancient life-periods. It also assumes long intervals of quiet between the successive ages of action, denying suddenness of change, and maintaining that old species have gradually died out, and the new ones been as slowly introduced.

We take the ground that while upon the whole, the opera

tions of nature have been uniformly progressive in all the later periods, the agencies acting with variable intensity have been too numerous to admit of accurate calculation. The time may come when such estimates will be reliable; at present they are very inferior to historical records, and must always defer to them. For instance, a conglomerate at Tisbury in England contains silver coins of the reign of Edward I. The deposit must be more recent than the reign of that king, even if the uniformitarian theory would carry it further back. Another example is in the Egyptian monuments. Bunsen ascribes the age of Menes, the earliest king to 3643 B.C., and Lepsius to 3893 B.C., or at the most about six hundred years earlier than the deluge, according to the Septuagint. Now these dates are so well established that they are accepted as an approximation to the truth, especially as they agree with astronomical estimates of the ages of the pyramids,1 and they should form the basis of geological calculations. Therefore when we find gentlemen obtaining very different figures for these events from geological data, the presumption is against the calculators, even if we did not also discover that the facts were not accurately stated. It has been calculated from the time required to raise the valley of the Nile a few inches, that bricks dug from the depth of sixty and seventy-two feet were deposited there from twelve thousand to thirty thousand years ago. This is from six thousand to twenty-four thousand years earlier than the first king, according to the monuments. The error is from one to five hundred per cent in excess of the true amount. we accept the mean of this three hundred per cent proper ratio of the variation in all uniformitarian calculations? It is easier to find a geological than a historical variable; therefore the former must generally yield to the latter in cases of discrepancy.

Shall

as the

A very important variable in geological calculations is change of level. This agency keeps all terra firma in motion, though much more rapidly in some districts than

1 Annual of Scientific Discovery for 1863, p. 286.

others. For instance, our Atlantic coast from the Delaware river to Nova Scotia is gradually sinking. Since the Romans were in Great Britian, a part of Scotland has been elevated twenty-seven feet. In Hoosic, N.Y., a hill has risen within the past fifty years so much as to conceal from certain farmhouses a mountain in Bennington, Vt., twenty-five hundred feet high. There may be changes of hundreds of feet in the interior of a continent during any geological period, which would not be generally noticed, yet this is a highly important variable, seriously affecting all calculations. Elevation would increase the amount of rain and snow, augment rivers, and, a greater thickness of deposit would be the result. Similar oscillations, as Lyell has shown, may change the climate of a continent. Now, if we wish to obtain accurate geological calculations of time we must know exactly what oscillations have been in progress for several thousand years, and what the difference has been at the extremes of altitude. The reader may judge of our knowledge of these changes, when he bears in mind that until the accidental discovery of the rising of Russell Hill in Hoosic, few geologists imagined that .different parts of the same township would rise or fall unequally. Who knows how many hundreds of similar cases may exist, of which we shall never be informed? We can estimate changes of level on the shores of the oceans, but changes in the interior do not leave indelible marks behind them.

Another variable is the succession of forests. A diversity of causes, both known and unknown, may operate in the change. The character of the soil, liability to destruction from fire, the comparative speed of the growth of different species, the competition between them, the amount of moisture received according to the elevation of the land, are some of the known variables affecting the duration of each forest. Those who have observed the accumulation of alluvial deposits in valleys very well know that a stratum of sand may be ten times greater one year than another; but 1 American Journal of Science (2d series), Vol. xxxviii. p. 243.

which shall be taken for the standard? The existence of extensive forests about the sources of streams affects the amount of water in the rivers, rendering their flow equable; but when the trees have been cut down the water rushes in floods for a short time, and is scarcely perceptible the rest of the year.

The great truth taught by geology concerning man is this, and it is perfectly harmonious with the Biblical record, even if evidence should suggest an enormous antiquity to the race: Man did not appear upon the globe until a very late epoch of the Alluvial period; and no one can instance a single example of a species introduced later. It was fitting that the monarch of the animal kingdom should be introduced last into a world whose continents had been inhabited for ages by his servants, who had purified the atmosphere and fertilized the soils for his benefit.

The Noachian Deluge.

The opinions in respect to the nature and causes of the Noachian deluge have been various and conflicting. There has been more agreement since the investigations of my father, Dr. Pye Smith, and Hugh Miller. Geological principles illustrate the mode in which the waters may have been accumulated and the people destroyed. A more exact explanation may be expected when the geology of Asia shall have been thoroughly explored. We will present the most acceptable views on this subject in a series of propositions:

1. The Noachian deluge could not have deposited all the organic remains found in the solid rocks, nor could these strata have been formed between the birth of man and the flood. These statements do not require formal proof, as they constitute the basis of all correct geological reasoning. 2. The Noachian deluge does not correspond with the Drift period of geologists. Fifty years ago this was the common doctrine. The latter was an overwhelming deluge, but long anterior to man.

3. Deluges similar to the Noachian have frequently occurred

in geological history. changes of level, and partial or complete exterminations of life. The proofs are, changes in the dip of the strata, in the material of the deposits, in the life, and often there were outbursts of volcanic matter. A great fall of rain is not the necessary accompaniment of any of these phenomena except the last. Some of these oscillations may have been as rapid as the Noachian, particularly when the entire life-systems were overwhelmed. Doubtless every partial extermination witnessed more or less change of level. It was only the precautions adopted by Noah that preserved any of the antediluvian fauna. Evidences of this submergence may yet be discovered, where remains of the works and bones of men have been accumulated in favorable localities. It would not be strange if the extinct mammals of the stone age were destroyed by some catastrophe similar to the deluge.

They have been coincident with

4. The Noachian deluge was probably not co-extensive with the earth's surface. This view has been generally adopted since the beginning of the present century.

(a) A universal deluge was unnecessary: it would not be required to overwhelm more of the earth than was inhabited, and the population was probably confined to a small area.

(b) It would be contrary to analogy to suppose all the continents to be submerged at once, so that there should be a universal ocean. There is plenty of water, however, to accomplish such a result provided the land should sink and the beds of the ocean rise. Nearly three fourths of the present surface are covered with water, and the average elevation of the land is less than the mean depth of the ocean. But if the universal flood were derived from rain, one miracle must produce and another remove it; for rain by the present laws of meteorology is derived from existing water by evaporation and condensation, and ultimately returns to its source by a cyclical statute.

(c) The ark built by Noah was not large enough to contain pairs of all the land animals, besides their food. This vessel was probably four hundred and fifty feet long, seventy-five