SCIENCE. 



65 



Yor>, would not only be of great interest to the geo- 

 logist but of direct economic importance to all interested 

 in shipping, harbor improvements, reclamation of land, 

 etc. The records of deep wells and soundings in the 

 salt marshes that have a bearing on this subject are 

 tabulated in the paper published by the Academy. On 

 the Newark Meadows and in Newark Bay the rock bot- 

 tom is from two to three hundred feet below the present 

 surface. East of Bergen Hill soundings show a depth to 

 rock nearly as great. The following list taken from the 

 tables mentioned above, give some of the soundings on 

 the borders of the deeply eroded channels of the Hudson, 

 East and Harlem rivers : 



Hudson River, foot of 23d St., 250 



feet from the east building line of 



the river street 175 ft. to rock. 



Hudson River, foot of Bethune St., 



20 ft. W. of bulkhead line 176 ft. rock not reached 



Hudson River, pier 60 (old No.), 20 



feet W. of bulkhead line 175 ft. to rock 



East River, N. Y. Tower of Brook- 

 lyn Bridge 107.4 ft- to bed rock 



East River, Brooklyn Tower of 



Brooklyn Bridge 38 '* 



East River, pier 41, N. Y , 200 ft. 



from the building line of South st. 91 " 

 East River, pier 18, 200 ft. from the 



building line of South st 60 " 



Harlem River at High Bridge, centre 



of river 70 ft. rock not reached 



Harlem River, Madison av. Bridge, 



centre of river 75 " " " 



As shown on the Coast Survey 



Charts of New York harbor, the 



water in the Hudson off" Castle 



Point is 50-65 ft- deep 



In East River, W. of Blackwell's 



Island 107 " " 



In East River, at Hell Gate 121 " " 



" " near Ward's Island. . 170 " " 



In New York Harbor 60-80 " " 



In the Narrows 60-116 " " 



In the Kill Von Kull 25-54 " " 



In Arthur's Kill 20-35 " " 



These measurements, none of which give the m x mum 

 depth of the old channels, clearly prove that the drain- 

 age system about Ntw York was at no very distant time 

 several hundred feet below the present water surface. 

 It might be shown wiih equal certainty that we are liv- 

 ing many thousands of feet below what would have been 

 the surface of the county had there been no erosion. 



THE SOULS OF PLANTS AND ANIMALS. 



By the Rev. Dr. Thomas Hill. 



The only things concerning which we can arrive at 

 absolute certainty are space, time and spirit. -Their ex- 

 istence and some of their attributes are announced in 

 every act of self-consciousness. Their existence and 

 attributes are not matters of inference, but of direct 

 sight. Matter, on the other hand, can substantiate its 

 existence only by inference from these primal truths of 

 space, time and spirit. All natural sciences are matters 

 of mere deduction from the data furnished by mathe- 

 matics and mental philosophy. All the business of life, 

 (our manufactures, commerce, history), relaiing primarily 

 to material things, rests in the same way, ultimately on 

 truths of space, time and spirit ; that is on mathematics 

 and philosophy. The conclusions at which we arrive in 

 the historical and natural sciences are therefore more or 

 less probable ; and the probability may reach a degree 

 that is practically indistinguishable from certainty. 1 am 

 practically as sure that this sheet of paper would burn 

 if I held it in the gas jet, as I am that two straight lines 

 cannot enclose a space. Nevertheless the first truth is a 



matter of contingency and probability, the second of ab- 

 solute knowledge. These truths of absolute certainty, 

 of direct intuition, concerning space, time and self-con- 

 scious mind, are not contingent ; they remain true, 

 though heaven and earth pass away, and the perception 

 of them is that which puts the stamp of immortality on 

 the human mind. 



But in addition to these fields of direct sight, the 

 three fields of truth outside the conscious mind, are of 

 the highest value. In the first place the certainty of the 

 existence of other minds, is as near absolute certainty as 

 it is possible for a truth of inference to be. That there 

 are other men about me, and there is an Infinite Mind 

 above us all, are truths which are practically as certain 

 as the axioms of geometry. In the second place my 

 fellow men are acting and have been acting, thinking, 

 writing, painting, composing, legislating, warring and 

 making peace, manufacturing and inventing for thou- 

 sand of years ; and the study of their history is the 

 richest and most fruLful method of developing my own 

 powers, and learning to know myself. In the mini place 

 the field of space and time in which their history is cast 

 is full of this wondrous matter, which gives them their 

 opportunities, their means, their tools ; without it mental 

 or moral life is inconceivable ; consciousness itself is 

 awakened to activity only through contact with matter ; 

 space and time are visible only through motion as a 

 phenomenon of matter. 



Here then is a great object of study, worthy of man's 

 thought. Socrates was fearful lest Plato should spend 

 too much time on questions relating to the measurement 

 of matter ; Dr. Johnson in the Rambler carried Socrates's 

 implied censure much farther than the old philosopher 

 himself would have done. Swift in his voyage to Laputa 

 satirizes the students of physical science ; the newspapers 

 of our own day indulge occasionally in laughing at the 

 technicalities of the scientific man ; even men as wise 

 as the Autocrat of the Breakfast Table utter occasional 

 words of disparagement in speaking of scientific pur- 

 suits. But Plato's geometry has done as much for the 

 intellectual and purely spiritual development of our race 

 as Socrates's morality ; and the physical philosophers of 

 Europe, during ihe past three centuries, have, despite 

 their own trequeut ignorance of spiritual things, been of 

 immense advantage to spiritual philosophy. 



The relations of space are the earliest object of our 

 scientific research. The first really intellectual ideas in 

 a child's mind are those of geometric form. Hence all 

 sciences that flow directly from geometrical relations are 

 likely to be earliest developed. Mechanics preceded 

 chemistry, and the classification of plants and animals 

 by their outward forms preceded the knowledge of phy- 

 siology, animal or vegetable. 



Let us look then a moment at the geometrical study of 

 material things, and see what it involves. Material forms 

 suggest to the child the consideration of shape. He 

 early learns to abstract form from the outward things and 

 compare likeness in form only. He is but a few months 

 old when the smallest drawing ot a man, a dog, or cat, 

 is recognized at sight. In a few years he takes the fur- 

 ther step of looking by reason beyond the picture of 

 imagination, and seeing the unimaginable realities in 

 space itself. He conceives, for example, a sphere. But 

 that portion of space which lies in a given sphere, sur- 

 rounding a given point, has no properties by which it is 

 distinguished from other parts of space. This is the 

 Leibnnzian argument by which some modern writers 

 would disprove the existence of space ; that its pans are 

 indistinguishable and therefore coincident. But the 

 geometer answers : No ! by an act of mind I seize upon 

 any point ot space and hold it as the centre of any sphere 

 I wish to consider. When he has thus seized upon and 

 considered a portion of space, bounded and separated 

 from the surrounding space, by an act of his pure intel- 



