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seems to point to the existence of some very strong current of water, 
something that you may call diluvial. You need not call it the Noachian 
deluge, but it is diluvial after all. And with regard to the head of the 
behemoth, it comes out very clearly that man and the mammoth were co- 
existent on the earth, and that the mammoth has been upon the earth 
at a comparatively late period. We find the teeth of this animal in large 
quantities, some of them not covered by anything of marine formation. 
Then, again, there are those birch-trees which have been referred to, and 
which have not yet been fully blotted out, but have been preserved for 
a long time in the water. You would not suppose them to have been 
millions of years where they are found with the leaves upon them. Then 
we find that the animals whose remains have been discovered have been 
travelling about almost everywhere in great numbers, nor do we see any 
improvements in the mammal. There he is, and there he was, and the 
same may be said with regard to man. Man has been exactly the same 
as faras history or science can trace him, always the same animal, whether 
cultivated or uncultivated. There is no improvement with respect to him. 
The species is still the same. In conclusion, I have only to say that I have 
been very much pleased with Mr. Howard’s paper, and I hope Mr. Pengelly 
will write an answer to it. 
Rev. H. Brass, F.G.S. — I beg to thank Mr. Howard for his able paper. I 
have long felt it to be a reproach to the scientific world that the extraordinary 
conclusions as to the immense antiquity of Man arrived at by some of the 
explorers of Kent’s Cavern, have been so long allowed to pass unchallenged. 
I visited the cavern a few years ago, and though one was somewhat hurried 
through it, and not allowed much time for examination, I saw enough to 
make me doubt many of the assertions of the guide, who, by the way, seemed 
somewhat intolerant of any one who presumed to question the correctness 
of his conclusions. I could not help feeling that the deposit of stalagmite 
over a boss bearing (what was assumed to be) the date “ 1688,” was a very 
precarious and unsatisfactory measure of the rate of its formation in the 
rest of the cavern ; for in one part stalagmite was forming at a rapid rate, 
in another very slowly, and in some parts it had altogether ceased ; and the 
thickness of the stalagmite floors varies in different parts of the cavern. 
Moreover, there is every probability that the average rate is continually 
decreasing, and that a much smaller quantity of water, and much less charged 
with lime, finds its way into the cavern than in former times. The lower 
stalagmite floor had been evidently broken through in places, probably by 
some of the later dwellers in the cave, in their search for suitable bones, and 
this may possibly account for a few flint implements being found in the 
lowest breccia. Sir Charles Lyell is not always to be relied on in his 
calculations. For instance, he gives 35,000 years as the time the river 
Niagara has taken to excavate its channel; but he actually bases this calcula- 
tion on the rate of recession of the Falls at their present width , about three- 
quarters of a mile, although ho states that the channel of the river for the 
seven miles of its course below the Falls is only “ from 200 to 400 yards in 
