J^^^- SOME NEW BOOKS. 785 



it is much to be regretted that the authoress has gone astray on 

 a subject which has been so thoroughly threshed out. 



Modern Science in Bible Lands. By Sir J. William Dawson, C.M.G., F.R.S. 

 Popular Edition revised. 8vo. London : Hodder & Stoughton, 1892. Price 6s. 



The wide title of Sir W. Dawson's book obviously allows the in- 

 clusion of a multitude of interesting topics on geology, volcanoes, and 

 early flint implements, before the topography of the Holy Land with 

 the resources and prospects of Bible lands is reached. The author, to 

 do him justice, avails himself of this to the full, and thus succeeds in 

 putting together a volume of much value both to students of the Bible 

 and the Earth. "It is my desire," he writes, "to lay before the 

 reader a clear statement of the local facts wliich have furnished to me 

 the solution of doubtful and disputed questions, and to throw on the 

 Hebrew and Apostolic literature such light as may be afforded by 

 the structural features and geological history of the countries of the 

 Bible." The book, in short, may be regarded as a modern Bridgewater 

 Treatise, and, it may be added, it possesses all those elements of 

 interest which characterised the original treatises. Sir W. Dawson's 

 bias against Darwinism is well known, and it is only fair to state that 

 he here delivers many damaging blows to that theory. Thus the 

 evidence against Pliocene Man is strongly marshalled. " I have 

 for many years," he adds, " maintained the recency of man on geological 

 grounds, more especially on the evidence of the absence of any change 

 in organic beings, or any considerable physical changes since his 

 introduction, and of the rate of cutting of river valleys." He points 

 to the recession of the Falls of Niagara (which is fully illustrated 

 here) as affording conclusive testimony of this. Man belongs, there- 

 fore, to the modern period alone. He has onl}^ existed on the 

 earth for 6,000 or 7,000 years. We give this conclusion valeat 

 qnantiun. It must be left for students to trace its steps for themselves. 

 The character of this book being so wide and covering so much 

 ground, it is possible to discuss numerous subsidiary topics, as it 

 might seem at the first blush, but which form in reality parts of the 

 author's argument. Thus the primitive Chaldasan documents recently 

 discovered are pressed into the service of defending the Bible. 

 Professor Sayce is quoted to show the extreme antiquity of the art of 

 writing. The critical school has often assumed that it was unknown 

 in Palestine before the age of David; whereas, "long before the 

 Exodus Canaan had its libraries and its scribes, its schools and literary 

 men." The characters were in the Babylonian language, not Phoenician 

 but cuneiform, as the tablets of Tel Amarna testify. The flint imple- 

 ments of Egypt, the Nile mud, the pyramids, and a multitude of 

 ancient objects and geological changes are carefully treated. Sir W. 

 Dawson's pages deserve to be seriously weighed, and they are written 

 in so pleasant a style that they attract the reader instead of repelling 

 him by marshalling a number of bare facts. The author's derivation 

 should be borne in mind, however, during this study: "when facts 

 fail to sustain certain theories, we are usually in the habit of saying 

 ' so much the worse for the theories,' not ' so much the worse for the 

 facts,' or at least we claim the right to hold our judgment in suspense 

 till some confirmatory facts are forthcoming." His arguments 

 derived from the border-land where geology and mythology seem to 

 meet are somewhat untrustworthy speculations. They enable the 

 student, however, to understand over what a wide region such enquiries 

 as those which are here pursued must necessarily lead him. 



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