ment between inferences by the two methods as to the character of the immediate causes of geological phenomena, which, as contributing to the completeness of my argument, I shall now point out.

"The Glacial epoch, though for the most part anterior to the valley-drifts and cave-deposits of the Palæolithic age, was still so closely connected with that period that we cannot easily draw a line of demarcation between them." (Lyell, Principles of Geology, vol. i. p. 192, 11th ed.) "There were also great changes in the form of the earth's crust, many movements of upheaval and subsidence, and many conversions of sea into land, and land into sea, during the Glacial epoch." (Ibid., p. 196.) These statements are reconcilable with our theory if it be understood that the Glacial period was synchronous with the interval during which the localities which show marks of glacier-action were much more elevated than they are at present, and that it extended to the epoch of the oscillatory movements (mentioned in the above extract), which issued in bringing those localities to their present level. The period of the valley-drifts and deposits was closely connected with this Glacial period as constituting the termination of it, for which reason also no definite line of demarcation can be drawn between them.

"In Wales the rocks had been exposed to glacial polishing and friction before they sank." "The evidence of the sojourn of the Welsh mountains beneath the waters of the sea is not deficient in that complete demonstration which the presence of marine shells affords." (Antiq. of Man, p. 313.) Such submergence might be produced by the first oscillatory movement, which, according to the theory, would be downward. Marine shells have been discovered "in North Wales, in drift elevated more than 1,300 feet above the level of the sea." (Ibid., p. 313.)

"Professor Ramsay infers, from the position of the stratified drifts of the Glacial period in North Wales, that the full extent of the vertical movement which brought about first the submergence, and then the re-emergence of the land, exceeded 2,000 feet." (Principles of Geology, vol. i. p. 193.)

Referring to geological observations made by Professor Geikie in Scotland, Lyell speaks of them as "requiring for their explanation several oscillations of level and successive submergences and re-elevations of the land." (Antiq. of Man, p. 295.) "There can be no doubt that the physical geography of Europe has changed wonderfully since the bones of men and mammoths, hyænas and rhinoceroses, were washed pell-mell into the cave of Engis." (Huxley, Man's Place in Nature, p. 120.)

As I conceive, the great change was effected then, and Nature's operations have gone on since in comparative quietness.

Murchison arrived at the conclusion that the fossil mammalia at Folkstone were destroyed "by violent oscillations of the land, and were swept by currents of water from their feeding-places into the hollows where we now find them." (Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. vii. p. 386.) Hopkins, in reviewing the question of the Drift, agrees with Murchison in supposing that the Wealden area has been traversed by waves of translation, and in attributing to such agencies much of the drift phenomena. (Ibid. vol. viii. p. li.) See in the Philosophical Transactions, vol. 154, pp. 250 and 286, the views of Mr. Prestwich, who does not admit purely cataclysmic action.

These instances may be enough to show that geologists have been led by observation and discussion of facts, apart from any à priori dynamical theory, to conclusions agreeing in very important points with results derivable from the theory which I have proposed in this essay. That theory may consequently be considered to be capable of embracing in its explanations the classes of facts from which those conclusions of the geologists were deduced, and on that account to be entitled to additional confidence.

Before concluding, it will be right to advert to an argument which might be drawn from geological facts against certain statements in the book of Genesis, indirectly connected with the account of the Deluge. According to our theory, palæolithic men were contemporaries of the antediluvians. Now, it is stated in Gen. ii. 17-21, that the descendants of Cain in the sixth generation had arrived at a degree of civilization and art of which there is no trace in the palæolithic race, so far as may be judged from their implements and mode of life with which geology has made us acquainted, which prove, in fact, that they were mere savages; on the other hand it is to be said that this character of the inhabitants of the parts which geologists have scrutinized may be owing to the distance of those parts from the centres of aggregation and civilization of the antediluvians, which centres may all have been submerged, in fulfilment of the declared purpose of the Deluge, and possibly may have remained submerged, like the sunken forests near the coast of Norfolk. Ethnological considerations seem to point to the conclusion that the earth was repeopled by Noah and his sons, no other designations of the large divisions of the human family having been so generally accepted by ethnologists as those derived from Shem, Ham, and Japhet. This family must have handed down to post

diluvians the knowledge of art and the skill they had attained to before the Flood, which they gave proof of in the building of an ark; for otherwise the science and civilization which eastern nations were in possession of at no long interval after the Flood can hardly be accounted for. It is true that we learn from geology that the neolithic postdiluvians were also savages, who gained their livelihood for the most part by hunting; but their implements exhibit a much higher amount of art and polish than those of their paleolithic predecessors (in consequence, it may be, of the influence of advancement in knowledge and art in the new centres of civilization), and, in fact, admit of favourable comparison with implements that have been used in this nineteenth century in islands of the Pacific by our contemporaries. For these reasons it cannot be affirmed that the revelations of geology respecting the degree and the stages of art among the Palæolithic and Neolithic races are contradictory to the statements in Gen. ii. 17—21.

From the whole preceding argument, I draw the following conclusion. Since it has been shown in Division III. of the argument, that many geological facts and phenomena indicative of the violent action, at a certain epoch, of a widely extended cataclysm, may be accounted for by a dynamical theory of physical causation, which, at the same time, as shown in Division II., explains the recorded facts of the Noachian Deluge, being, in fact, suggested by them, it is reasonable to conclude that the cataclysm of geology and the Deluge of Scripture are identical events (only one such having befallen the human race), and that so far as the reality of the former is established by physical science, the reality of the other may be inclusively inferred. Also, it follows, as a corollary from the general argument, that geological science does not actually point either to a deluge-epoch, or an antiquity of man, that can be shown to be inconsistent with historical statements in the book of Genesis.*

* Before this paper appears in the Journal I beg permission to add in a note, that on reconsideration of the arguments in Section III., from which I infer that the largest of existing mountain-ranges were elevated at the epoch of the Deluge, I have come to the conclusion that the contemporaneous changes in the contours and positions of continents and islands, caused by the disruption of the earth's crust and its floating on the interior liquid mass, might have been of much greater intensity and extent than, at first, I ventured to surmise, and might account for the occurrence, within a comparatively brief interval, of phenomena which have been supposed to extend over periods of incalculable length. For instance, the discovery of remains of arctic fauna in temperate regions, and the reverse phenomenon, might be explained by a transfer of the floating habitats of the animals from, one position to another on the earth's surface; and the existence in caves (as in Kent's cavern) of

The CHAIRMAN.-I am sure that all will join with me in conveying the thanks of the Institute to Professor Challis for his very valuable

to the Rev. T. M. Gorman for having so kindly read it.

paper, and

The HON. SECRETARY.-Letters have been received from various members, who are unable to be present here to-night, expressing their approval of Professor Challis's paper; and one from General Boileau, F.R.S., commends it as a really satisfactory paper upon the subject.

Rev. H. ST. JOHN READE.-Allow me to preface my remarks by relating an anecdote. Not long ago, a schoolmaster of my acquaintance was about to give a lesson on Genesis vii. and viii. He consulted Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, and, being struck with the arguments in favour of a partial deluge, and not seeing its inconsistency with an orthodox belief in the inspiration of the Bible, he laid before his pupils both theories-the universal theory and the partial theory,--and, without pledging himself to either, stated the principal arguments for each. One of the boys wrote home to his father to say that he had been told by one of the masters that the Deluge was not universal. His father wrote to one of the governors to say that the boy had been taught that the Bible had not been inspired; and the council recommended the master to resign his position at the end of the term. That schoolmaster was not myself, but I was his friend, and I am still a schoolmaster, and my boys are taught the elements of science and read manua of geology. I come to this Society to learn how best to teach scientific knowledge in conjunction with Bible History; and I feel sure that the reason why so many parish clergymen have become members is, that they may not denounce as false in the church what they admit to be true in the lectureroom; and I for one shall welcome any hints upon this point. The education of the young is a most important matter in every respect, and this is the question which touches it most nearly in the present day. As things are now, we rest the whole moral teaching of our boys on Bible History ; and it is absolutely necessary to find a plain, straightforward interpretation of the Scripture narratives, which shall leave those narratives manifestly consistent with the ultimate standards of what is right and true--with the demonstrable conclusions of science, no less than with the good of mankind in general and with the best aspirations of honest hearts. If this cannot be done, we must alter our system altogether. If you puzzle a boy about the plain meaning of a familiar Scripture narrative, he will puzzle himself about the meaning of a plain Scripture precept. When his faith in the narrative totters, his faith in morality will totter also.

Rev. GEORGE HENSLOW.-In any remarks I may make I do not propose to enter upon any consideration of the subject of inspiration; but to deal with the fact of the Deluge as recorded in Genesis, as being such as falls

two layers, separated but in succession, containing animal remains of the same classes, and in large proportion of the same species, might be due to the earth's surface being swept over by successive waves of the Deluge consequent upon repeated oscillations of the crust (see p. 79).

within the scope of our endeavours to explain it by a purely physical interpretation. With regard to the origin of the account in Genesis, I believe Mr. George Smith's remarkable discoveries in the libraries of the Assyrian kings may throw some light upon it. I will argue on the subject apart from the question of inspiration; for the object of the paper now before us is to introduce physical causes-at least, in part-to account for what we read in the Biblical narrative. It is a curious fact that geologists seem now inclined to adopt somewhat more extensively, the theory of fire instead of that of water, as a mechanical agent, though it is scarcely probable that we shall have the old battle fought over again between the Plutonists and Neptunists. There are the theories of Mr. Belt, however, and of Mr. Croll and others, concerning the glacial epoch; while the first of these endeavours to account, also, for the Deluge by means of melting ice. Thus we have two exactly opposite causes suggested to account for the same phenomenon; and it is for those who take either side to accept the theory which accords best with their own views. With regard to the primary or fundamental cause of the Deluge, Professor Challis proposes to begin with what-so far as I understand it— the facts do not warrant; and that is, an increased heat in the centre of the earth. If he introduces such a physical cause, the question may be asked, Where are you to stop? or where are you to bring in miraculous agency, and where do you limit purely physical causes? He looks to physical causes as far as he can, and beyond that to miraculous agencies; but why should he assume the latter just because at a certain point the causes cannot be explained, but which, by aid of more extended knowledge, would probably prove to be purely natural as well. He ought to show why some causes are physical and others miraculous. Now, granting his supposition, we may observe that the results due to his supposed igneous cause are quite as easily explained by aid of the phenomena of the glacial epoch as well. He compares the earth to a sort of bubble. The central heat causes the upheaval of the sea-bottom, which in turn upheaves the water, and then the evaporation resulting from increased heat, produces torrents of rain. But regarding the same phenomenon from the glacial point of view, the exposure of a certain area of the sea-bottom is accounted for in a totally different way, even to its being thrust up, though not by the expansive force of heat from below. Similarly with regard to rain: there is strong evidence of a great "pluvial period"-referred to by Mr. Tylor the other day-subsequent to the glacial period, when the vapour, instead of condensing as snow to increase the ice-caps, came down as rain. Thus we have two phenomena— the exposure of a certain portion of the now submarine area (by the removal of a large body of water by evaporation and its subsequent condensation as ice at the polar regions), as well as a great pluvial period, and both arrived at from totally opposite sources. Professor Challis alludes to the origin of mountains as caused by molten matter bursting through and forming their substance; whereas it is well known that it is only volcanoes that are constructed of ejected matter, and that, too, without any upheaval of their