335 
has adduced indicates a course of things leading to the proposition that the 
inferences he has drawn are not quite so satisfactory as the fascinating 
narrative he has given us. 
Eev. H. Martyn Hart, M. A.— Before Professor Hughes replies, I 
think I may say that we all agree in one thing, and that is in being thankful 
that he has given us a specimen of the cautious accuracy Avith which a man 
thoroughly acquainted with a subject proceeds to discuss it. I am quite 
sure that what Ave call religion will not suffer at the hands of Professor 
Hughes. The cause of truth only suffers at the hands of the incautious and 
inaccurate, and of those hasty generalisers Avho can never wait patiently for 
an accumulation of facts ; but upon some one or tAvo isolated cases hurry 
to a conclusion, — a conclusion often very far from being Avarranted. As an 
example of the unjustifiable manner in which this subject has been treated 
by a certain class of writers, I may mention that some time ago a periodical, 
the School Magazine, was edited by Dr. Morell, one of H.M.’s Inspectors of 
Schools, and in its first number was an article on Man. One paragraph 
ran, — that human remains had been found at a depth of 600 feet in the 
Mississippi Delta, and that Dr. Benet Dowler had proved, by “a hard and 
indisputable process of calculation,” that man has been upon the Delta of the 
Mississippi for 57,000 years. I wrote to the writer for his authority. After 
one evasive letter, he Avrote a second time to intimate that I could not have 
much acquaintance with the subject if I was not familiar Avith Nott and 
Gliddon’s Types of Mankind ; and, referring me to the page, he said I 
should find “ the hard and indisputable process of calculation ” there. I 
found the volume in the British Museum, and there read, — that at 
New Orleans borings had been made to a depth of 600 feet, and that the 
base of the alluvial deposit had not been reached, and that when excavations 
for certain gas-works were being made, under the fourth forest level, and 
at a depth of 60* (not 600) feet from the surface, a skeleton Avas found. The 
cranium was in a state of good preservation. The trees were cypresses, and 
by counting the rings of groAvth, and by calculating the time the 
great river takes to make a deposit of an inch, — the Egyptian Nilometer 
being appealed to for the exact number of years !— the precise number 
* Mr. Hart’s absence prevents an apparently needful correction being 
made. Sir C. Lyell, in the fourth edition of his Antiquity of Man (1S73), 
refers to only tAvo instances of fossil human remains haA r ing been found in 
the Mississippi valley ; the first being that of the skeleton of a Bed Indian, 
the cranium in good preservation, found 16 feet beloAV the surface Avhen 
excavating for some gas works : Dr. Dowler considered it to be 57,600 years 
old. Sir C. Lyell cites his opinion with apparent approval (p. 46), and gives 
his reasons, founded upon a calculation as to the rate of deposit of the mud ; 
but Messrs. Humphreys and Abbot, quoted by Sir C. Lyell in the later 
edition of his work as reliable authorities, have calculated that the Avhole 
ground on which New Orleans stands, down to a depth of 40 feet, has been 
deposited in forty-four centuries. Jn regard to the second instance of fossil 
human remains, Sir C. Lyell says, “It is necessary to suspend our judgment 
as to the high antiquity of the fossil” (p. 239 ).— Ed. 
