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sounder frame of mind, when Cuvier and Buckland were at the height of 
their celebrity ; and I would earnestly press upon those who may feel an 
interest in the subject of geology to examine whether there is not more 
reason in believing that there was a universal Deluge than there is in a 
belief in the existence of ice 83000 feet thick in Connecticut, 7,000 feet thick 
in Scandinavia, and 3,000 feet thick in Scotland, while beds of similar 
thickness filled the whole of the valley between the Alps and the Jura, in 
Switzerland, so that blocks of granite slid down from the Alps, carried by 
that huge glacier, and planted themselves on the Jura. I do think that, 
under the circumstances, I may be pardoned for retaining the impressions 
created by my earlier studies, and for holding that no more doubtful scientific 
conjecture has ever been put before the public than is contained in the 
glacial theory, treated on in the writings of Lyell, and of Dr. James 
Geikie, in his published work, entitled The Great Ice Age. I trust I 
have not been inaccurate in any of the statements I have made; but I did 
not notice until yesterday that this subject was to be brought forward, and 
I have not had time to refresh my memory in regard to it. There is one 
point on which I would supplement what has been said with regard to the 
cutting of the river channel by the Falls of the Niagara. Is it not assumed 
that the rock through which the river is cutting that channel has always 
been of the same hardness? We know that there was a human skeleton 
found in a rock in the West Indies, and that it is now in the British 
Museum. When that man’s body first became embedded in the limestone 
it could not have been as hard as it since became. Is it not, then, very con- 
ceivable that at the period the Falls of Niagara began to cut their present 
channel, the rock may have been very much softer than at the present day, 
and much in the same condition as that limestone ? 
The Cuarrnman.—It struck me, as I read the paper, that the weak point 
in it was, what appeared to be, the arbitrary assumption as to the cutting of 
one inch of channel round the boulders, in a thousand years. 
Mr. CuarLeswortu.—-Quite so, 
Mr. Hassexu suggested that if there were any earth round the boulders 
there would be a very great alteration in the course of time. 
Mr. CuArteswortu.—I should suppose that if any of thuse boulders were 
on the soft earth the rain would soon sweep away a good deal of it. 
Mr. Hassrii.—I agree with Mr. Charlesworth as to the uncertainty 
of calculations which are based on the assumption that what has 
happened in the past has gone on at the same rate as what is occurring 
now. It was well known that a severe frost, in a particular year, will 
break off many inches, or even yards, of rock ; and in the case of Niagara 
one sharp winter might have the effect of rending away several feet of the 
rock, I do not think any one would hold that denudation goes on at 
the same rate during all periods of time. The inference is in favour of 
the rate differimg with varying circumstances. Then again, as to the 
supposed thickness of the ice in Scandinavia and elsewhere during the 
