70 SELECTIONS FROM HUXLEY 



proof that the chalk can justly claim a very much greater 

 antiquity than even the oldest physical traces of mankind. 

 But we may go further and demonstrate by evidence of the 

 same authority as that which testifies to the existence of the 

 5 father of men, that the chalk is vastly older than Adam him- 

 self. 



The Book of Genesis informs us that Adam, immediately 

 upon his creation, and before the appearance of Eve, was 

 placed in the Garden of Eden. The problem of the geograph- 



ioical position of Eden has greatly vexed the spirits of the 

 learned in such matters, but there is one point respecting 

 which, so far as I know, no commentator has ever raised a 

 doubt. This is, that of the four rivers which are said to run 

 out of it, Euphrates and Hiddekel are identical with the 



15 rivers now known by the names of Euphrates and Tigris. 



But the whole country in which these mighty rivers take 

 their origin, and through which they run, is composed of 

 rocks which are either of the same age as the chalk, or of later 

 date. So that the chalk must not only have been formed, 



20 but, after its formation, the time required for the deposit 

 of these later rocks, and for their upheaval into dry land, 

 must have elapsed, before the smallest brook which feeds 

 the swift stream of "the great river, the river of Babylon," 

 began to flow. 



25 Thus, evidence which cannot be rebutted, and which need 

 not be strengthened, though if time permitted I might indefi- 

 nitely increase its quantity, compels you to believe that the 

 earth, from the time of the chalk to the present day, has been 

 the theater of a series of changes as vast in their amount, as 



30 they were slow in their progress. The area on which we 

 stand has been first sea and then land, for at least four alter- 

 nations ; and has remained in each of these conditions for a 

 period of great length. 



