504 Sir H. H. Hoicorth — Reply to Mr. Jukes-Browne. 



of settling the succession of the surface beds, but in tracing the 

 beginnings of human life on the earth, that we should if we can, 

 fix the horizon of the Mammoth beds. I have therefore applied 

 what I hope is candid criticism to the evidence in regard to them, 

 and the result is a conviction in my own mind that the evidence 

 breaks down or is most unsatisfactory in every case which is 

 supposed to prove that the Mammoth lived after the distribution 

 of the drifts. Mr. Jukes-Browne says that I claim to have proved 

 a universal negative, which is beyond human power. My object 

 was very much more modest. It was merely to conclude from the 

 available, not the unavailable, evidence that the case for the existence 

 of the Mammoth after the distribution of the Drifts entirely breaks 

 down. My conclusion was certainly not the result of d priori pre- 

 judice, for I have openly recanted some of my early views on this very 

 subject, drawn from a partial and imperfect induction. That any 

 one should be deemed guilty of anything but a service to science 

 who subjects the discordant and divergent testimonies of " practical 

 geologists " to criticism, is a curious instance of a reversion to 

 ecclesiastical methods of discussion. 



Mr. Jukes-Browne does not profess to meet my arguments or 

 deny my conclusions, except in one instance, namely, that of Burgh, 

 in Lincolnshire. This is a peculiarly unfortunate instance, because 

 whatever views may have been held about the Mammoth having 

 been an inter-glacial animal, 1 do not know any one who contends 

 that the E. antiquns and the B. lepiorhivns, both of which were 

 found in the bed in question at Burgh, and both of which belong to 

 an older horizon, can have lived during some interval in the so- 

 called glacial age. Mr. Jukes-Browne's test of iny capacity, namely, 

 that I have mistaken one part of the valley of the Ouse for another, 

 is, as your readers can see if they will turn to what I wrote, a test 

 only of ray critic's knowledge of the English language. I have 

 nothing to correct, and nothing to alter in what I wrote, save the 

 spelling of the word remanie, which was due to the printer's 

 ditficulty with my writing ; but I emphatically re-assert my very 

 strong objection to the basing of such a tremendous postulate as the 

 intercalation of a Mammoth period between two ice ages, upon the 

 broken down and utterly fragile evidence which is alone forthcoming 

 to support it. 



Lastly, Mr. Jukes-Browne, who apparently fancies that I am a 

 wealthy man, instead of being a very poor one, bids me dig and test 

 the case in a proper way, like my friend General Pitt-Rivei's has 

 tested other questions. I wish I could afford to dig. for I quite 

 agree with him about the absolute necessity of digging, if we are 

 to test the case properly ; and I have said so very strongly at the 

 two last anniversary dinners of the Geological Society. Nothing to 

 me seems more futile and absurd than that a great public institution 

 like the Geological Survey, should devote years of the work of some 

 of the ablest men it can command, including Mr. Jukes-Browne, 

 and expect them to report upon the most difficult beds in the world, 

 and to do so and to map with no other evidence before them than 



