THE AGE OF THE WORLD. 559 
came extinct since the advent of man upon the earth, like the dinornes and the 
dodo. According to Lyell the period of their destruction, though geologically 
modern, must have been many thousand years ago. According to Owen the 
mastodons were elephants, with molars less complex in structure and adapted 
for coarser vegetable food, ranging in time from the miocene to the upper plio- 
cene, and in space throughout the tropical and temperate latitudes. The transi- 
tion from the mastodon to the elephant type of dentition is very gradual. — 
Toronto Mail. 
THE AGE OF THE WORLD. 
W. M. PAGE, 
According to the reckoning of our Jewish fellow-citizens, who are at this time 
celebrating their religious festivals on account of their New Year Day of Atone- 
ment, and Feast of Tabernacles, it is from the creation of Adam to the present 
time 5,644 years. 
YEARS. 
The Seder 01am Lutha makes it . . 6,243 
The Eastern Jews 6,104 
The Western Jews 6,068 
The Chinese Jews 5j963 
The Seder 01am Rabba 5,635 
Rafcbi Gershom 55638 
Rabbi Habsom 5j624 
Rabbi Nosen 5, 618 
Rabbi Hillel 5,584 
To the above ten Jewish authorities we add below five Christian authorities : 
YEARS. 
Joseph Scaliger .... 5,833 
Petanor Petavius 5,867 
Usher (generally found in our Bibles) 5*887 
Mursham 5,883 
Isaac Newton 5,871 
To the above I add my own . 6,992 
It will be seen that of the above sixteen authorities, no two of them agree. 
It will be seen that my own calculation makes the age of the world more 
than 1,000 years longer than any of the above Christian writers, and 1.348 years 
longer than the date of our Jewish fellow-citizens, who are now celebrating their 
festivals. The learned writer of " Ordo Sseclorum" writes: "That the chro- 
nology of the Scripture history, both as a whole and in many of its details, is 
involved in much uncertainty no one who has given any heed to this subject can 
fail to be aware. Even in the New Testament, enclosed as it is in a richly his- 
