THE LAPSE OF TIME. 1 15 



formation of stalagmite is vastly too high, and there- 

 fore that the time allowed for the formation is vastly 

 too low. The famous inscription of 1688 was shown 

 to me a few days back 1 . It was at that very "time 

 wet with the drip from the cavern roof, a drip falling 

 at the rate of thirty-four drops a minute. If the date 

 were really cut in the year 1688 (and there is no 

 reason to suppose that it was not), by our first calcu- 

 lation more than two inches of stalagmite ought to 

 have formed over it. Instead of which there is but 

 a thin veneer, a veneer that was observed upon it 

 more than forty years ago, and which has not in all 

 those forty years increased enough to make such a 

 description of it inappropriate. If the date 1615 be 

 authentic, over which, in the opinion of the superin- 

 tendents of the exploration, not one-eighth of an 

 inch of stalagmite has been formed in more than two 

 centuries and a-half, at the same rate of progression 

 twelve feet and a-half of stalagmite would demand 

 for its formation three hundred thousand years. 



This cavern by itself, therefore this one little crack 

 in the outermost rind of the earth's surface proves a 

 comparatively immense antiquity for the existence of 

 organic life and of human beings upon the globe. But 

 to compare the antiquity of the cavern contents with the 

 antiquity of the limestone formation in which they are 

 contained is positively beyond any intelligible numerical 

 measurement. Yet the limestone formation itself is 

 filled with the relics of living creatures, and in some 



1 Nov. 21, 1870. 

 i 2 



