Correspondence — Mr. Hoicorth. 135 



and tlie splendid series of cliff sections and caves here. What can 

 be the meaning of this ? Where have we such continuous sections 

 through these same deposits as can be shown in the banks of the 

 great rivers of the Continent ? In what respect are these deposits 

 richer in fossils here than there ? How are the British caves better 

 situated for deciding the question than the caves of Belgium ? I 

 cannot understand what Mr. Reid means. We may indeed institute 

 a comparison, but it is very different to the one made by him. 

 When we cross the Channel, we find the Post-Glacial beds arranged 

 in continuous series over an area of 200 degrees of longitude, in 

 many places in situ, and undisturbed in sections showing the whole of 

 the beds ; while in Britain we are on the extreme edge of these 

 formations, where they are dislocated and broken and fragmentary. 

 Assuredly it follows that on the Continent we have every element 

 for studj'ing the problem correctly, while here we are in perpetual 

 danger at every turn of mistaking a local and sophisticated section 

 for one that is normal. 



Mr. Eeid contrasts my humble position as an antiquary given to 

 respecting authority with his own exalted one of a Member of the 

 Geological Survey, " who has learnt to believe nothing that he is 

 told and only one-half of what he sees." I am not sure that this is 

 a desirable byeway into which to drag the controversy. Such con- 

 trasts might if pressed lead to some unexpected comments. Surely 

 it is better to put aside both geologist and antiquary for the nonce, 

 and to address each of your readers as if he were a keen Philistine 

 apt at judging evidence. Not merely evidence of the senses — for the 

 facts are not in issue ; we are agreed about the facts ; but the more 

 important evidence of inference and induction. In this view may I 

 point your readers to another sentence of Mr. Eeid's ? He says : 

 " The extermination of the Mammoth in Britain and Germany may 

 be referable to human agency, while in Siberia it was gradually 

 killed by the cold and want of food." 



May I ask, nay, entreat, Mr. Reid to furnish one tittle of evidence 

 in support of this emphatic statement? I have tried to supply your 

 readers with a very considerable amount of evidence, all of which 

 tells entirely against such a view. Mr. Reid cannot seriously sup- 

 pose that all this evidence can be answered, by an obiter dictum, a 

 mere dogmatic assertion without any proof whatever, and that your 

 readers will accept it as conclusive, even if all that most exalted 

 brotherhood to whom this generation is under such deep obligations, 

 viz. the Geological Surveyors, were to shout the aphorism in chorus. 

 As to the statement that the Mammoth together with his companions 

 were exterminated by man in Europe, I fear that the Philistine 

 crowd, when it confronts such a statement with our present know- 

 ledge, will assuredly smile diplomatically, if it does not have recourse 

 to some unseemly sarcasms. 



Mr. Reid says a decrease of one degree in the temperature in a 

 century would be very rapid from a geological point of view.' I 

 reply, whether rapid or the contrary, the problem I have invited 

 ^ "Would it not be safer to say from Mr. Keid's geological point of view ? 



