75 
After this caution on the part of Sir Charles Lyell, one 
which he so strangely neglects himself, we cannot be deemed 
unscientific or unduly instructed if we refuse to admit that 
any scientific proof has been given that the Nile valley is any 
older than the most recent period assigned to the Noachian 
Deluge. 
With regard to Sir Charles Ly ell's assumed age of 100,000 
years as the minimum time in which the Mississippi delta 
has taken to accumulate, and Dr. Dowler's estimate of 50,000 
years for the antiquity of the skeleton found sixteen feet deep 
in Mississippi mud, I cannot do better than quote from Pro- 
fessor Kirk's admirable little work, The Age of Man Geologi- 
cally considered in its Bearing on the Truths of the Bible. 
[London: 1866.] 
“ The most important of all the accumulations of mud to which attention 
has been called in connection with the age of man upon the earth, is that 
formed by the Mississippi. The delta of this great river covers an area of 
many thousand square miles. It has required, according to an estimate of 
Sir Charles Lyell, above 100,000 years for its formation. If we assume that 
the delta in question is on an average of 200 feet deep, this estimate will 
call for 500 years as the time for adding a single foot to its surface ! only the 
one-fifth part of a foot, less than two inches and a half, in a century ! less 
than the fiftieth part of an inch in a year ! The reader will observe how the 
power of fancy grows in this wild logic. 
“ First, the thirty-second part of an inch in a year — then the fortieth part 
— now the fiftieth part ! Can any man in his senses soberly look at this 
as matter of fact and worthy of being associated with the name of science ? 
Yet we shall see that all-important conclusions are derived from it. In one 
part of this delta, at a depth of sixteen feet from the surface, ‘ beneath four 
buried forests, Dr. Dowler found some charcoal and a human skeleton.’ The 
worthy Doctor ascribes to this man, whose skeleton was thus found, an an- 
tiquity of 50,000 years ! Sir Charles Lyell says that he ‘ cannot form an 
opinion as to the value of the chronological calculations ’ by which this result 
is gained. We think he might be able to form a very strong opinion on the 
subject if he were earnestly disposed. First of all to take the growth of the 
mud — 50,000 years for sixteen feet ! This beats Sir Charles with his 
100,000 years for the several hundreds of feet in the whole delta, and beats 
him hollow. But then there are ‘ four forests,’ only these are packed in less 
than sixteen feet of space, for we must allow something to have lain above 
the uppermost of the four. If these 1 forests ’ grew on the spot we must have 
soil for each to grow in, as well as space in which it could lie, and all this in 
less than sixteen feet ! Yet we must give 50,000 years to this miniature 
formation in geology. A stream capable of burying forests so as to pack four 
of them in less than sixteen feet of vertical space when forming its delta, is 
to be, nevertheless, allowed not less than five centuries to lay down twelve 
