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variable one is occasioned by the melting of the snows on the high lands, 
from which the tributaries of the Nile flow, and, therefore, it is right to say 
that while it is uncertain as to the quantity of water and the rapidity of the 
flow, so will it be uncertain as to the quantity of the deposit. Precipitation 
in the Nile valley in all cases depends upon what is taking place more than 
a thousand miles off, at its sources, and its supply is peculiarly variable. 
This disposes at once and for ever of the Nile deposit as a chronometer. 
(Hear, hear.) The argument has been well disposed of before in the minds 
of some people, but it seems it has been brought up to do duty again. As 
regards the geological portion of the paper, while I may say that it is a proper 
thing to carry the war into the enemy’s camp, we ought to do it with great 
caution, and to carry it on with reserve. Mr. Mitchell has expressed his 
adhesion to Sir Charles Lyell’s view against the successive creation theory. 
If Sir Charles is not in favour of that view, it is because he wishes to place 
the time of creation farther from us, because in accordance with his arguments 
as to geological formation it is a necessity that creation should be further off 
than most of us put it. But it is not possible to sustain his position. It is 
not right, I think, to speak of the successive creation doctrine as a theory, — 
it is a fact. It is a fact that we stand on a deposit of London clay which 
contains a large marine fauna ; and that, not far from where we are, there is, 
underlying the London clay, an ocean bottom of chalk. There are in some 
parts evidences of deep seas, in others of shallow seas and banks, and there 
is not a single fossil in all these deposits like anything we have now, except 
the foraminifera, and they are small microscopic objects, the examination of 
which requires a very high power. Therefore it is a fact ; and to deny the 
so-called theory of successive creation is to throw ourselves into the arms of 
those who are advocates of the Darwinian system. (Cries of “No, no.”) 
Mr. Mitchell. — I have not taken that view at all : I have guarded myself 
against it. 
Mr. Pattison. — I wished to guard Mr. Mitchell against a view at which 
we should all be shocked. In our day, if we wish to carry war into the 
enemy’s camp on so well-ascertained a thing as geology, we must be very 
careful as to the position we take, and ought to be certain that we are correct 
in our conclusions. 
Mr. Reddie. — Sir, the last speaker has laid down the law to us rather 
absolutely about the certainty of this successive creation theory ; and I should 
not have risen again if he had not done so. But I should like to call the 
attention of the speaker, as well as of the meeting, to what has been said 
upon this matter by an authority quite as eminent — namely, Mr. Hamilton, 
the President of the Geological Society of London. In his annual address 
for 1865 he stated that “we are daily becoming more convinced that no 
natural breaks exist between the faunas and the floras of what we are 
accustomed to call geological periods.” (Hear, hear.) 
Mr. Pattison. — By no breaks in the creation Mr. Hamilton meant that 
from the first there has been gradual progress in the formation of animal 
life. 
