26 
Mr. A. Tylor, much more of au observer than a theorist, main- 
tains on geological grounds that the high and low level gravels 
are of one formation, closely connected in age, forming one 
continuous deposit at irregular intervals, dating from the time 
immediately preceding the historical period.* The last testi- 
mony of the Oxford Professor, given in his recent inaugural 
discourse, is that “ This last great change in the long geological 
record is one of an exceptional nature.”t 
On the whole I have called attention to an admitted sequence 
of events since the introduction of man which comprises 
physical operations vast, violent, and unusual, as well as long 
ages of uniform action. The time required may have been 
more than our ordinary interpretation of the Biblical narration 
prescribes, but it cannot be maintained that it must have been 
so ; on the contrary, there are not wanting parallelisms be- 
tween the two records that should induce us to accept the 
inferences of a short period from the one, until absolutely 
displaced by proofs, not yet furnished, of a longer period from 
the other. 
I have, in this paper, discussed both fact and hypothesis. I 
have tried to discriminate between the two, and to sum up the 
evidence in the words of the witnesses themselves. This is just 
what eager disputants do not do, and hence arise misunder- 
standings. The Lyellian scheme is a fair working hypothesis ; 
so is that of the Scripturist. Until either is absolutely verified, 
I may adopt one or the other without obloquy ; neither can be 
imposed on me. I accept the latter, and seek to maintain it, 
because, as I have attempted to show, on the testimony of 
geologists, it is the more probable. I have not referred to other 
sciences than geology, affecting this conclusion, for my topic is 
restricted to this one. A parallel process has been going on in 
at least one of these sciences, for I find from Herodotus that 
in his day the priests were given to assign an extreme and 
fabulous antiquity to their nations. The Babylonians counted 
468,000 years from their first king to Cyrus. The Indians and 
Chinese to a much longer period. J Science has reduced these 
to the first dates from Babylonian history 2,234 B.C., and for 
Egyptian only a few centuries earlier, to 2,500 B.C. for the 
Chinese, and to 2,256 B.C. for the Indian; — dates the general 
agreement of which is at least very remarkable, and which bring 
us face to face with a great social, perhaps a great physical, 
break . 
* Nature, Feb. 18. f Ilaivlinson’s Herodotus, vol. ii. p. 2. 
% Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, vol. xxiii. p, 468. 
