21 
notwithstanding that they may have been unhesitatingly 
accepted by science in former years, as the deductions from 
alleged facts, are now daily called in question as to their 
accuracy. He observes, ' ' It has been well remarked that 
when two opposing explanations of extraordinary natural 
phenomena are given, one of a simple, and seemingly 
common-sense character, the other complex, and apparently 
absurd, it is almost always safer to adopt the apparently 
absurd, than the seemingly common-sense one ! ! ! " Again, 
the same author remarks, " Common sense, in questions of 
natural science, is tantamount to common nonsense. " Sub- 
sequently to this exposition, the eminent geologist we quote 
illustrates his meaning in a way that would "make angels 
weep," to observe Truth thrust aside, and the God-like 
powers of mind with which man is endowed, debased in 
supporting the merest conjectures in lieu of ascertained 
facts thus recklessly misinterpreted. He states it as "a well- 
established fact that while the medium level of the ocean is 
one of the most fixed lines in nature, the level of the great 
continents, with their table lands and mountains, is an ever- 
fluctuating line. It may seem strange,'' he remarks, " that 
land should be less stable than water. We see 
the tide rising and falling twice every twenty-four hours, 
and the rock ever remaining in its place ; we speak 
of the fixed earth and the unstable sea ; and yet, while we 
have no evidence whatever that the sea level has changed 
during the ages of the tertiary formation, and absolutely 
know that it could not have varied more than a few yards, 
or at most a few fathoms, we have direct evidence that, 
during that time, great mountain chains, many thousand feet 
in height, such as the Alps, have arisen from the bottom of 
the ocean, and that great continents have sunk beneath it 
and disappeared. The larger part of Northern Europe and 
America have been covered by the sea since our present 
group of shells began to exist. . . . On the Indian 
coast " (during the Chilian earthquake of 1822) " the sea 
seemed to be rising at nearly the same time when it appeared 
to be falhng on the American one ; and on the latter such 
was the actual impression entertained by the people — ' it was 
the general belief of the fishermen and inhabitants, not that 
the land had risen, but that the ocean had permanently 
retreated. ' But if it had retreated from the Chilian shore, 
how could it have risen on the Indian one ? In like manner 
the sea appears to be receding from the shores of Sweden at 
the rate of nearly four vertical feet in the century, while it 
seems to be advancing on the western coasts of Greenland 
