306 



THE GEOLOGIST. 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



The Computation of the Mosaic Chronology. — Sir, — Will you inform 

 me in your next number on what data the computation of the Mosaic chrono- 

 logy is made to give a period of some 5,000 or 6,000 years since ? I think we 

 ought in the present state of relationship between geology and the bible to 

 look carefully at both sides of the question in every aspect. — Yours truly, 

 Edw. Allen, Bridport. 



The President of the Geological Society, Mr. Leonard Horner, in the last 

 annual address, treated at some length on this subject. We give his remarks 

 without comment of our own. 



" Modern discoveries in ethnology and philology afford cumulating proofs of 

 the very remote antiquity of the human race. The Rev Dr. Williams, in his 

 review of Bunsen's f Biblical Researches,' observes : — { There is no point in 

 which archaeologists of all shades were so nearly unanimous as in the belief 

 that our Biblical chronology was too narrow in its limits ; and the enlargement 

 of our views, deduced from Egyptian records, is extended by our author's 

 reasonings on the development of commerce and government, and still more of 

 languages, and physical features of race. How many years are needed to 

 develope modern Erench out of Latin, and Latin itself out of its original crude 

 forms ! How unlike is English to Welsh, and Greek to Sanscrit, yet all indu- 

 bitably of one family of languages ! What years were required to create the 

 existing divergence of members of this family ! How many more for other 

 families, separated by a wide gulf from this, yet retaining traces of a primeval 

 aboriginal affinity, to have developed themselves, either in priority or colla- 

 terally ! The same consonantal roots, appearing either as verbs inflected with 

 great variety of grammatical form, or as nouns with case-endings in some lan- 

 guages and with none in others, plead as convincingly as the succession of 

 strata in geology for enormous lapses of time.' 



" There undoubtedly exists a widespread belief that the first existence of 

 man belongs to a period not very remote from history or tradition. Every dis- 

 covery which threw a doubt on the correctness of that belief was, until very 

 recently, regarded, even by well-instructed geologists, as an imperfect observa- 

 tion, in which concomitant circumstances have been overlooked, which would 

 have shown that the inference of a great antiquity was erroneous ; nor have 

 those who were led to make such inferences been always exempt from the 

 charge of irreverently maintaining opinions at variance with Sacred Writ. 

 To what cause can we ascribe this incredulity ? How does it arise that, while 

 the statements of geologists that other organic bodies existed millions of years 

 ago arc tacitly accepted, their conclusions as to man having existed many 

 thousands of years ago should be received with hesitation by some geologists, 

 and be altogether repudiated by no inconsiderable number among other edu- 

 cated classes of society ? It is true that negative proof is brought forward 

 thai human bones have never been found associated with those of extinct ani- 

 mals ; but granting this to be correct, which recent discoveries show that it is 

 not (and the rarity of their occurrence is capable of being accounted for on 

 many reasonable grounds), still against such merely negative evidence we have 

 undeniable proofs, in numerous places, of the existence of such an association 

 with man's works, and even many instances of his having applied the bones of 



