154 ^^^ POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



and at the same time believe in the Darwinian theory. There 

 appeared, indeed, here and there, curious discrepancies ; thus in 

 1873 the Monthly Religious Magazine of Boston congratulated 

 its readers that the Rev. Mr. Burr had " demolished the evolution 

 theory, knocking the breath of life out of it and throwing it to 

 the dogs." This amazing performance by " the Rev. Mr. Burr " 

 was repeated in a different form and in a very striking way by 

 Bishop Keener before the QEcumenical Council of Methodism at 

 Washington in 1891. In what is described in the newspapers as an 

 " admirable speech," he refuted evolution doctrines by saying that 

 evolutionists had only to make a journey of twelve hours from 

 the place in which he was then standing and find together the bones 

 of the muskrat, the opossum, the coprolite, and the ichthyosau- 

 rus. He asserted that Agassiz whom the good bishop, like so 

 many others, seemed to think an evolutionist when he visited 

 these beds near Charleston, declared : " These old beds have set me 

 crazy ; they have destroyed the work of a lifetime " ; and the 

 Methodist prelate ended by saying : " Now, gentlemen, brethren, 

 take these facts home with you ; get down and look at them. 

 This is the watch that was under the steam hammer the doc- 

 trine of evolution ; and this steam hammer is the wonderful de- 

 posit of the Ashley beds." 



Exhibitions like these availed little. While the good bishop 

 amid vociferous applause thus made comically evident his belief 

 that Agassiz was a Darwinian and a coprolite an animal, scien- 

 tific men were recording in all parts of the world facts confirming 

 the dreaded theory of an evolution by natural selection. While 

 the Rev. Mr. Burr was so loudly praised for " chopping up Dar- 

 winism and throwing it to the dogs," Marsh was completing his 

 series leading from the five-toed ungulates to the horse ; while Dr. 

 Tayler Lewis at Union, and Drs. Hodge and Duffield at Prince- 

 ton, were showing that if evolution is true the biblical accounts 

 are false, the indefatigable Yale professor was showing his cre- 

 taceous birds, and among them Hesperornis and Ichthyornis with 

 teeth ; while in Germany Luthardt, Schund, and their compeers 

 were demonstrating that Scripture requires a belief in special and 

 separate creations, the Archceopteryx, showing a most remarkable 

 connection between birds and reptiles, was discovered ; while in 

 France Monseigneur Sdgur and others were indulging in diatribes 

 against " a certain Darwin," Gaudry and Filhol were discovering 

 a striking series of " missing links " among the carnivora. 



In view of the proofs accumulating in favor of the new evolu- 

 tionary hypothesis, the change in the tone of controlling theolo- 

 gians was now rapid. From all sides came evidences of desire to 

 compromise with the theory. The strict adherents of the biblical 

 text pointed significantly to the texts in Genesis in which the 



