JOURNAL OF THE TRANSACTIONS 
or THE 
VICTORIA INSTITUTE, 
OR 
PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF GREAT BRITAIN. 
ORDINARY MEETING, February 18, 1867. 
The Rt. Hon. the Earl oe Shaftesbury, K.G., President, 
in the Chair. 
The minutes of the previous meeting were read and confirmed, after which 
the following Paper was read by the Honorary Secretary in the absence of 
the Author j — 
ON TERRESTRIAL CHANGES , AND THE PROBABLE 
AGES OF THE CONTINENTS; FOUNDED ON 
GEOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS AND ASTRO- 
NOMICAL DATA . By Evan Hopkins, C.E., F.G.S., 
Mem. Viet. Inst. 
N OTWITHSTANDING the facts explained by geologists 
# with regard to terrestrial mutations, the generality of 
mankind get so accustomed to and familiar with the configura- 
tions of our continents, during the comparatively brief period 
of their lives, that they look at them as they do at an artificial 
globe, and imagine that they have been the same since the 
days of Adam. The changes of the earth are so slow in com- 
parison to the duration of our lives, that they are overlooked 
and forgotten. From the apparently quiet and regular suc- 
cession of natural events to which we get accustomed, and the 
VOL. II. B 
