230 
Deluge rising above the highest of these entrances. I cannot 
say that I find no difficulty in believing this ; but it at all 
events gives us a sufficient explanation, if such a view of the 
Deluge is admitted. 
Mr. Pengelly’s hypothesis of the gradual admission of small 
portions of earth is, I confess, inexplicable to me, and m- 
c conceivable also. 
Mr. Pengelly (p. 632) finds me “ very troublesome in the 
matter of quotations;” but why should he bestow so much 
pains on me as to write pages in correcting the errors in the 
early proof of my paper (which had been sent in order to 
afford him as much time as possible to prepare any observa- 
tions thereon) when the People’s Edition, already corrected , 
had been sent a few days afterwards, and was, as he says, in 
his hands ? This was surely a work of supererogation ! 
May I not hope that he sees some promise or potency of 
good in me after all ? for he says (p. 651), “ Mr. Howard * 
admits the genuineness of the f flint tools/ and the con- 
temporaneity of the men who made them, with the extinct 
cave mammals, I ash for no more from him” 
This, then, I would hope is the end of the lesson , for all that 
I have omitted may be read in the report above alluded to, to 
which I direct my readers. 
My conclusion is, that the calculations supposed to be 
founded on scientific facts, observed in the Caves of Devon, 
in favour of the vast antiquity of the human species are 
entirely illusory ; and that, instead of refuting my paper, Mr. 
Pengelly has assisted my argument in several ways. I am 
satisfied that his theory is equally deceptive in other respects 
besides that part of it which concerns the stalagmite ; but I 
rest here ! 
I find in Dr. Geikie’s Prehistoric Europe (p. 83) the follow- 
ing passage, which, considering the strong penchant displayed 
by the writer for the long chronology of man’s residence on 
the earth, is certainly remarkable. 
“ Thus, it is evident that the present scale of stalagmitic 
accretion in Kent’s Caverns cannot be safely relied upon as a 
standpoint by which to judge of the time required for the 
formation of the old pavements underneath which the 
pleistocene cave-earths lie buried. The question of age, as we 
see, is not so easily settled, for we have to take into account 
the effect produced by previous climatic conditions ; and, as we 
* This I admitted without examination on the authority of Mr. Pengelly 
and his friends . 
