GEOLOGY. 1> ( J9 



liad an air of authority, that of the Buddha, dates 544 years before 

 Christ. The era of Vikrarnaditza, of better authenticity, dates but 57 

 years before Christ ; aud that of Saka, probably more authentic, only 

 79 years later than our own. The Chinese mode of reckoning was 

 by cycles of sixty years, making the first year of the first cycle cor- 

 respond with the year before Christ 2397. Even this, if it could be 

 relied on, would only carry us back to the time when the Chinese, a 

 people placed, like the Hindus, under very unfavorable circumstances 

 for development, had already attained a civilization which gave them 

 the power of recording events, while it took no account of the long 

 ages which must have elapsed before. After noticing the structure of 

 various languages, and observing that there were many languages of 

 simple structure, just as primitive as those of complex formation, the 

 writer observed, that it appeared to him the structural character 

 which languages originally assumed, would, in a great measure, be 

 fortuitous, and depend on the whim or fancy of the first rude founders. 

 Adam Smith, and he thought justly, supposed that the first rude at- 

 tempts would consist in giving names to familiar objects, that is, in 

 forming nouns substantive. Adjectives, or words expressing quality, 

 as of a more abstract nature, would necessarily be of later invention ; 

 but verbs must have been nearly coeval with nouns ; while pronouns 

 he considered as terms very abstract and metaphysical, and as such 

 not likely to have existed at all in the earlier period of language. 

 " Number," Adam Smith said, " considered in general, without any 

 relation to any particular set of objects numbered, is one of the most 

 abstract and metaphysical ideas which the mind of man is capable of 

 forming, and consequently is not an idea which would readily occur to 

 rude, mortals who were just beginning to form a language." And the 

 truth of this view of the formation of numbers was corroborated by 

 our observation of rude languages, in which the process seemed, as it 

 were, to be still going on under our eyes. Among the Australian 

 tribes, "two," or a pair, made the extent of their numerals. Other 

 tribes had advanced to count as far as five and ten. Malayan nations 

 had native numerals extending to a thousand. The two hands and 

 the ten fingers seemed to have been the main aids to the formation of 

 the abstractions which Adam Smith considered so subtle ; and this 

 would account for our finding the numeral scale sometimes binary, 

 but generally decimal. However great the difficulty of constructing 

 languages, there was no doubt they were all conquered, and that by 

 rude savages ; and the Sanskrit language, in all its complexity and 

 perfection of structure, was spoken and written at least three thousand 

 years ago, by men who, compared with their posterity, were certainly 

 barbarians. The discovery of the art of writing implied an advanced 

 state of civilization, the fruit of very long time ; and from the sketch 

 he had given of the formation of language, the conclusion was, he 

 thought, inevitable that the birth of man was of vast antiquity. 



THE FUTURE OF THE HUMAN KACE. 



Many geologists and naturalists, including Agassiz, think that it can 

 be shown by anatomical evidence that man is not only the last and 

 highest among the living beings of the present period, but that he is 

 the last term of a series, beyond which there is no material progress 



