BOG 
THE GEOLOGIST. 
NOTES AND QUERIES. 
The Computation of the Mosaic Chuonology. — 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, ^Ii. 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 'BibKcal Researches,' observes: — ' There is no point in 
which archaeologists of aU 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 French 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 1 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 wa«i 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 are 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 
that 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), stUl 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 
