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the various strata of the earth yet explored. When we ask, however, for 
demonstrative proof that these strata could not have been formed in any 
shorter space of time, we are met, not with proof, but the mere assertion that 
they cannot be conceived to have been formed in a lesser space of time. 
When instead of mere assertion, we find attempted proof, from the rate of 
the deposition of mud in deltas, the gradual upheaval of strata in certain 
periods of time, the formation of coral reefs, &c., we find the assumed data 
of calculation altogether upset by other data obtained from a more careful 
survey of the phenomena relied upon. Dr. Burnett treats the subject from 
another point of view ; from a wide range of induction, he argues, from the 
unity of plan, anatomically and physiologically considered, of all the fossil 
remains of the earth yet discovered, for one, not many successive creations. 
Natural history has only been studied with anything like scientific accuracy 
for less than a couple of centuries ; yet within that time we know races of 
animals have become extinct. One picture and a few bones in the British 
Museum and Oxford, are all that we now possess as records of the Dodo. 
We cannot therefore argue, that because an animal has become extinct, it 
belongs to a former creation. Only some two specimens of the encrinite, 
so abundant in fossil strata, have yet been dredged from the bottom of the 
sea, yet there may be zones of animal life, in which it may still exist in great 
abundance, in the vast unexplored beds of the ocean. I do not think that 
geologists need complain if we call their science an imperfect one. It is yet 
in its infancy. The first meeting of the British Association gave a gold medal 
to William Smith, the father of English geology, — so called, because he 
first pointed out the identification of strata, not by their mineralogical 
character, but by their fossil remains. Hasty generalization and reasoning 
on the contents of these strata led to the successive-creation theory, a theory 
opposed entirely to the analogy of the present distribution of creatures on the 
earth. As an example : had Australia been submerged, and its present 
fauna been embedded in sand, clay, or calcareous matter, and then raised 
again, that fauna would certainly a few years since have been classed as a fauna 
of great geological antiquity. Geology, as a science, is one of the most 
difficult and intricate man has undertaken to explore. We need not be 
surprised if its progress be slow. The presumed great and vast antiquity of 
its many strata has not been proved ; the progress of facts tends rather to 
disprove it. In this, geology seems to be passing through the same phase 
which other sciences have done. W e hear little now of the vast antiquity 
of Chinese civilization, though some would still maintain a fabulous antiquity 
for ancient Egyptian civilization. We may doubt, with Sir G. Lewis, whether 
much real progress has been made in deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphics ; 
but analogy with the ideographic writing of the Chinese would lead us to 
suppose that foreign names at least were represented by phonetic characters. 
In this we may credit hieroglyphists, when they decipher the names of foreign 
rulers of Egypt. Judged in this manner, the vaunted antiquity of the 
Zodiac of Denderah, assumed from astronomical considerations, collapsed into 
that of comparatively modern times, by the discovery of its dedication to a 
