664 Proceedings. 



must be forgiven if I hint that tliis tBmptation is one into which not a few fall who 

 cannot be said to be very juvenile observers. I will illustrate my meaning from the 

 science of geology. How many imposing arguments we will say as to the duration of 

 man upon the earth have been based upon such calculations as those made in regard to 

 the length of time it would take to accumulate a certain thickness of river deposit over 

 the bone which had been found, or the position of a bone in a bed of gravel. What room 

 there is in such cases for a variety of circumstances not taken into the calculation, but 

 which, nevertheless, may so afi'eet the issue as to render the conclusion almost worthless. 

 Take the former example. There are the considerations which arise from fluctuations in 

 the force of the stream, the climatic conditions, the character of the material deposited, 

 the likelihood of the pre-existence of swamps, etc., and yet we find the number of inches 

 of mud which the observer found to have been deposited within a given time during 

 his own opportunity of enquiry to be taken as the unit of measure ; or if we have 

 gravel beds and the like under our notice, especiallj' if the country be a mountainous 

 one, we have to take into the account — not only the even flowing stream we see in years 

 of fair weather, and with its banks protected at all dangerous points by modern appliances 

 to keep the stream to its appointed bounds — but the stream as it was when perhaps 

 lower Ij'ing snows swelled its volume as they yielded to the summer sunshine, or primeval 

 forests attracted a more copious rainfall higher up its course. In such cases resistless 

 floods might bring down more material in a few hours than would be accumulated in 

 years under the conditions which now prevail. A night might overwhelm a whole tribe 

 of natives encamped by the stream in a destruction still more dire than that terrible fate 

 which overtook the ill-starred settlers, but a year ago, in their peaceful homes at Motueka, 

 the boasted happy valley. Numbers from Nelson went to be sorry witnesses of what they 

 could not from mere reports believe, viz., that the little river, transformed into a tori'ent, 

 had torn down from its banks such masses of detritus as to cover fields and gardens in a 

 general ruin, in some instances to the depth of the fences which surrounded them. It 

 might hereafter be concluded that the transport of so much material was the work of 

 years. 



Another very unrel'able class of evidence is that derived from the fossils exhumed 

 from the floors of caves ; it is often almost impossible to say how many times these have 

 been disturbed though the appearances may seem to betoken no intrusion. The finding 

 of a broken tobacco pipe under circumstances which appeared indistinguishable from 

 those \inder which the instruments and ornaments which had belonged to ancient 

 Britons were obtained, was calculated to dispel conclusions which would otherwise have 

 appeared sound. It was bad enough to discover that the tooth, at first fondly taken to 

 be that of a young cave hyana, was only that of a dog, but the other thing was not to 

 be got over. Noav let us suppose that instead of that instrument of vile purpose, which 

 the ancient Britons could never have been so degenerate as to have used, the tooth of 

 Ursus iifeleus had been turned up, the argument would have been thought undeniable 

 that the ancient inhabitants of Derbyshire — for the cave of which I am speaking is in 

 that county —had to do battle with that extinct animal. I am not saying that there is 

 no evidence for the contemporaneity of the cave-bear with man, but sho\ving how easy it 

 is even for good observers to be deceived. The cave floor may be as completely hardened 

 by the traffic of a multitude of feet within the last few years, during which excursionists 

 have penetrated everywhere, as in a century or so when visits were only paid to such 

 places under pressure of necessity as hiding places in times of trouble. The point upon 

 whith I am insisting is that under the inductive system, which is the plan scientists 



