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Gladstone, whose remarks on that occasion, I think, were even more pungent 
than they have been to-night. I found that there was a tendency on that 
occasion, though perhaps unintentionally on the part of the speakers, to throw 
great blame upon scientific men. One gentleman frankly stated that geology 
was no science, and at the same time he admitted that he knew nothing about 
it. There was another gentleman who, I believe, is m this room at the 
present moment, who threw a rather hard taunt at scientific men when he 
said they were not acquainted with works upon theology, but that the clergy 
were deeply acquainted with works upon science. But these matters are 
somewhat apart from the very able paper of Mr. Reddie. Whatever may 
have been said by Professor Huxley,- and I am not here for the purpose of 
defending him,— I only wish he were present himself,— I am satisfied that he 
must have been to some extent largely misunderstood, and I am certain from 
what I know of him— of his strong cast of mind and straightforward integ- 
rity of purpose- that there are few men who would more readily give way.to 
argument than himself, as he is at all times open to conviction. Having said 
so much, I will come at once to the moot question of the Nile Valley. I speak 
advisedly when I say that he only incidentally alluded to the accumulations of 
the Nile Valley. If I enter into that special portion of the argument which was 
more or less entered into upon the previous occasion, I hope this Society will 
bear with me, as I shall do so with a view of endeavouring to explain what the 
geologist really wishes to expound. There were sundry statements made the 
other evening with regard to the time required for the accumulation of different 
formations, and certain allusions were made to points in connection with the 
physical history of the Nile Valley, and the existence there of a peculiar 
group of rocks known as the Nummulitic Limestone Rocks, of which, as some 
of the clergy may know, the Pyramids of Egypt were constructed. This band of 
rocks belong to a group of formations comparatively modern m the geological 
history of the world. It ranges from the Bay of Biscay to Central India, 
and also reaches, into the Chinese Seas. These rocks belong to the Tertiary 
acre, but to the older Tertiary period, and lie just above what is known as the 
Chalk Formation. Here, then, you have in the Nile V alley a series of deposits 
of some comparative antiquity. I say comparatively old, because they 
represent one part of the Tertiary period, and from the allusions he made to 
the existence of man in the Tertiary period, I am sure that the Chairman, a 
least, who knows so well what the evidences are, would not be inclined to put 
the date of man’s existence as far back as the older Tertiary period. Then we 
have the sea deposits— the rocks of the Miocene and Pliocene periods. Since 
the formation of the nummulitic rocks, a great part of the land of Europe 
has been added, and all the large cities stand on strata which formed at one 
time the bed of the ocean since the deposit of the nummulitic rocks. This 
then is an argument of some force with reference to the Nile Valley. Again, 
it is pretty certain that the origin of the delta of the Nile is the drift of the 
Nile, though I am quite aware, in reference to this fact, that it may tell as 
much against the geologist as for him. We have no right to measure by 
what we now know, the bringing down of the sandy matter, and depositing 
