Calcutta Delta, 543 



however keen we may be in our endeavours to gather converts to our 

 creeds, that truth, and truth alone, is the end for which we labour. 



It would appear from the remarks on the deposits of the Calcutta Basin 

 contained in the 3rd No. of the Journal, that about 3333 years ago, the 

 conglomerate now found at four hundred and eighty feet below the 

 surface was deposited by the rivers, which flowed down from high 

 mountains, situated about thirty miles from Calcutta, at a time when 

 the seaward face was as far north as one hundred and twenty -five miles 

 from Fort William. 



The untenability of such an argument will I think be presently made 

 apparent; and perhaps furnish proof, of which every day gives fresh 

 examples, of the difficulties, those must ever experience in accounting 

 for geological changes, who rejecting or disregarding the historical 

 facts of the Scriptures, proceed to found their theories solely upon the 

 phenomena and appearances of the strata of the earth.* 



Thus, it is said, that " the fossils of the Jumna, of the valley of the 

 Nerbudda, of the sub-Himalayan range of the Irawaddi, have been 

 identified with each other, and it appears probable, that to this series 

 may also be added the fossils of the Delta." f 



Now it is an acknowledged and indisputable fact, that the fossils of 

 the Sub-Himalaya are diluvial, or the produce of the Mosaic deluge, 

 which by the common consent of geologists, was the last of the great 

 changes that have happened upon the earth. J 



It will follow, therefore, as matter of course, if the conglomerate of 

 the Delta be likewise diluvial, that as things which are equal to the 

 same, are equal to one another, it must have been deposited by the 

 deluge also. The identity likewise of the strata " extending from 

 about four hundred and fifty to four hundred and eighty feet below the 

 surface of Lower Bengal," with the succession of strata at the base of 

 the Himalaya, would, as Lieut. Smith justly observes, " lead us to 

 believe, that they owe their origin to the same mighty ocean, which 

 reached to the foot of the mountains." § 



But we are informed, that the conglomerate gives proof of having 

 been deposited by rivers, which flowed from high mountains within 

 thirty miles of Calcutta. 



* There cannot be one rule for geological investigation and another for botanical ; science 

 must be inductive and founded on observation. The Scriptures, according to Dr. Buckland, 

 refer merely to the origin of things as far as related to man himself. — Ed. 



t Calcutta Journal Natural History, No. 3, p. 339. 



t We are not aware of this point having been settled in regard to the Sub-Himalayan 

 fossils. — Ed. 



§ Ibid. p. 339. 



