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gate theories introduced by former great names.” TIic Dean 
afterwards addressed the President of the Geological Society 
arfolbws 0 — 68 ° f hlS l6tterS t0 Professor Sedgwick. He wrote 
“ The members of the British Association have always been accustomed to 
act m strict unison. They discountenance all difference of opinion, and seem 
bound jurare in verba nw/jistri. Professor Sedgwick could not, therefore 
with propriety appear publicly in opposition to the nebulous theory ; and at 
the same time considerations for his own character would not allow him to 
stand up m support of what he knew to he an absurdity.” 
The Dean, after challenging objections to his own theory 
andargnments, agreeing with the Mosaic Cosmogony, goes 
say ! hat there are § e °logical facts which prove the long existence of the 
world through many ages. I say there are no such facts. Here we are completely 
and plainly at issue. Produce, then, some one or more of these facts ; and if I 
cannot fairly account for them without supposing the very long duration of 
the earth, I am beaten _! I am sflenced ! But if you do not produce such 
facts, and retreat, like Professor Sedgwick, from the challenge, confess, or let 
your silence confess, that the whole doctrine of a pre-Adamite world has been 
a mistake too hastily adopted by men of talent and learning, and too apt, 
i e all other persons, to draw general conclusions from a few particular facts.” 
In a subsequent passage, which need not be quoted, the Dean 
refers to the Geological Society as a “valuable body,” adding 
m a foot note. Most valuable, as haying furnished us with un- 
expected and unanswerable proofs of the waters haying once 
thlf teh h th 6X « £ S ,° that i4 would a PP ea D that at 
hat time, the orthodox geologists taught that the facts of 
geology proved the universality of the deluge, which Bishon 
Colenso, on May 16th, 1865,— drawing his inspiration, no 
doubt, from what he now regards as geological science— de- 
clared to be an impossibility” in such absolute terms, as 
even to draw forth a disclaimer from the president of the 
Anthropological Society of London. 
. But 14 ' be ® aid , tllat the nebular theory has now been 
given up by Sir Charles Lyell, not on account of arguments 
such as those adduced by Dean Cockburn, but because it has 
been found, from the constitution of granite, that its formation 
'if P ro f eeded from a watery crystallization, and not 
fiom the fiery dry heat, which the nebulous theory ignorantly 
ascribed to it. That is very true. Even in the absence of 
a knowiedge of the constitution of granite, and for various 
other and more obvious reasons, Dean Cockburn was enabled 
to declaie the nebulous theory is really nonsense.” But 
if, nevertheless, it was really believed in, merely or chiefly 
