200 On the Antiquity of the Volcanos of Auvergne. [April, 
Now, when it required so many centuries of research to in- 
doctrinate the public mind in more enlarged ideas as to space, it 
cannot be a matter of surprise that geology, a science of much more 
recent date than astronomy, should not yet have succeeded in 
instilling more correct notions as to the extent of past time. 
Without gomg back to times when this science was so much 
in its infancy, and was so little listened to out of doors, that the 
great body of the laity, as well as of the clergy, imagined the earth, as 
well as all the other celestial bodies, to have been called into existence 
by the direct fiat of the Almighty within the space of six literal days; 
and when it was taken for granted that the period which had elapsed 
since the creation of the universe was comprehended within the 
6,000 years which, according to Archbishop Usher’s calculations, 
had elapsed since the birth of Adam, I can myself recollect when 
geologists of reputation, whilst contending that the days of creation 
must have embraced an extended duration, rather than a compass 
merely of twenty-four hours, took it for granted, nevertheless, that 
the latest epoch in the history of our planet—namely, that during 
which the climate and configuration of the earth’s surface corre- 
sponded in its general features with those it exhibits at present— 
was ushered in by the appearance of man upon the globe, and 
consequently could not be traced back to an earlier date than that 
which on Scripture authority had been assigned for the first intro- 
duction of our species. 
Upon the subject of man’s antiquity I shall not enter ; but with 
regard to that of the earth itself I may remark, that subsequent in- 
vestigations have compelled us to enlarge very materially the 
allowance of time formerly allotted for its formation. ‘They have 
shown us at least that if what is called the post-pleiocene epoch is 
to be estimated as dating its commencement from the setting in 
of that intense cold which characterizes what is called the glacial 
period, if to a temperature such as allowed of the growth of sub- 
tropical plants had succeeded in the same latitudes as those of our 
own island, one as rigorous as that of Labrador at present, and if 
afterwards a gradual change supervened, by which the climate came 
by degrees to be assimilated to what we experience at present, a 
longer interval must be supposed, than our received systems of 
chronology, built upon the assumption that man was a denizen of the 
earth throughout the whole of that period, would allow us to recognize. 
And yet the time taken up in this the latest of the world’s stages 
of progress, if I may so express myself, may bear no larger propor- 
tion to that occupied by the whole series of formations from the 
first dawn of organic life upon the globe to the present time, than 
the distance in space between us and the moon bears to that which 
intervenes between our planet and the sun; just as even the time 
taken up by the deposition of all the rock formations, collectively 
considered, shrinks as much into insignificance by the side of 
