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THE ARGUMENT FROM THE NUMMULITIC ROCKS OF THE 
NILE-BASIN AND THE CHALK FORMATIONS. 
I am glad that here we have no important question of fact 
to occupy our time. The character of the Nummulitic lime- 
stone strata maybe admitted, as lucidly described by Professor 
Huxley, with a very slight qualification. He says the existence 
of the nummulites, and of other organizations of sea-habitants 
embedded in these strata, affords evidence that this nummulitic 
limestone was formed at the bottom of the sea. He also 
speaks of it as having been “ deposited” there ; and it is that 
word deposited which requires to be accepted cautiously, as 
we shall yet see. But he goes on, — 
u Therefore before the Nile valley was formed, the land of Egypt [meaning 
this nummulitic formation] was down at the bottom of the sea ; raised by 
subterranean forces ; and must have existed not only 7,000 years, but all that 
epoch which by slow accumulation would have furnished such a mass of 
nummulitic rock, spreading as it does from Hampshire to China.” 
Then he asked, “ How many years would this take ? Thirty 
thousand ? ” And he replied, “ More. The time which this 
process occupied was an enormous period. . And even this is 
but as it were an incident in the history of this earth — no more 
than the shadow of a cloud passing over the history of the 
world.” Then the Professor proceeded, (as described in the 
Saturday Review,) “to unroll the long series of geological forma- 
tions which had preceded the chalk.” Next he compared the 
old chalk formations to the chalk-ooze of the Atlantic now ; 
and reminded his audience that chalk is one mass of the exuviae 
of foraminifera and other organisms that once lived and could 
only have existed at the bottom of the sea under the same 
conditions as they exist now. After which he said : — 
“ A million years could not have produced this chalk deposit of 1,100 feet 
thick, — whether less or more it makes no difference, — but it is clear that this 
world was not made 6,000 years ago.” 
I trust I have fairly epitomized Professor Huxley^s state- 
ment. Now, I wish you to analyze it, and see clearly how 
much of it is certain, and how much is merely conjectural. 
In the first place we must take away the 7,000 years, he thought 
he had proved, for the previous mud deposit of the Nile ; and 
therefore it is not certain that the nummulitic rock must have 
existed all that time. But then he says, we have all the long 
epoch required for “ the slow accumulation ” of the mass of 
