he refers to the campaign of one of his generals in Thrace and Macedonia, and his dealings with the inhabitants of Lake Prasius. The words of Herodotus are-" Yet he attempted to conquer those who live upon the lake in dwellings contrived after this manner: planks fitted on lofty piles are placed in the middle of the lake, with a narrow entrance from the main land by a single bridge. These piles that support the planks all the citizens anciently placed there at the common charge; but afterwards they established a law to the following effect:-Whenever a man marries, for each wife he sinks three piles, bringing wood from a mountain called Orbelus; but every man has several wives. They live in the following manner: every man has a hut on the planks, in which he dwells, with a trap-door closely fitted in the planks, and leading down to the lake. They tie the young children with a cord round the foot, fearing lest they should fall into the lake beneath." Here then we meet the custom of lake dwelling in Europe about 520 B.C. date of their existence in other quarters might be brought down to our day. Their existence in Ireland at a time so recent as 1567 can be proved The (2) From one of the lakes two bits of nephrite, or jade, have been obtained. The variety is the green semi-transparent one, known as Oriental nephrite, which is not found native in Switzerland. It must have been brought from Asia, where it is still formed into ornaments and amulets, and worn by the people. The connection of these lake dwellers with the East-the cradle of the human race-is clearly indicated here. (3) Of the two cereals found one is the six-rowed barley (Hordeum hexastichon), a variety obtained by the Greeks and Romans from Egypt, where it is still generally cultivated. This again points to a migration from the East. (4) Small bits of twine and of nets formed of hemp and flax have been discovered. This certainly does not point to an antiquity of 13,000 years! (5) The deposit from which the calculation of years has been made, is one lying near Villeneuve, at the point where the torrent of the Tinière falls into the lake of Geneva. This has in the lapse of time laid down a deep deposit of gravel. The calculation proceeds on the assumption, that the rate of deposit must have been in all time the same as it can be proved to have been since 1710. But this assumption is wholly unwarranted. (6) This review of the pile habitations leads us to the same conclusion as did that of the dust-heaps. We have no proof of an antiquity more remote than what has hitherto been assigned to the Stone Period -an antiquity which does not clash with deeply cherished beliefs as to the time when man appeared on the earth. II. GEOLOGY.-The preceding remarks carry our minds back to a period when man's history in the north and west of Europe is lost in darkness. There is, however, nothing incompatible in the traces he has left of his presence with the history of our race preserved to us in Scripture. But the branch of the subject which now falls to be considered thrusts us, somewhat violently, into a region in which almost every alleged trace of man comes into collision with accepted views of time given us in the Scriptures. Why should this fact be hidden? Yea, why even should we not acknowledge that there are difficulties of a very grave kind implied in it? The acknowledgment does not imply what some imagine. It does not imply that when we make it, our confidence is shaken in the impression of time and the appearance of man gathered from the Bible; it only implies that in our ignorance some element is lost sight of which would have harmonized our conclusions with the utterances of the Word. But while difficulties are frankly acknowledged, we do not allow that any one of these, or all of them, cannot be met by an hypothesis which casts the burden of proof on science, and gives us rest until that be given. It has not been given yet, and we are persuaded never will, or even never can be given. I shall state candidly, and as strongly as possible, the state of the question, and remark on it afterwards. The subject comes before us in several aspects: 1st. There are the conclusions formed from the rate of deposit of mud in the valley of the Nile. In 1858 Mr. Leonard Horner laid before the Royal Society a paper on this subject which gave rise to much controversy, and which, there is good reason to believe, was highly influential in giving a strong bias to several young geologists especially. The startling propositions in that paper were not new. As we shall see Baron Bunsen had already taken up the same views on independent historical ground. An intelligent Egyptian, who had been educated in England, was employed by Mr. Horner to perforate the mud in the Nile valley. This was done in ninety-one places over an area extending from east to west about sixteen miles. At a depth of from thirty-six to forty feet it was found that the mud is the same as that present day. At a period represented by the the Nile overflowed its banks as it does now. VOL. I. being laid down at the lowermost stratum then, But how were data to be 3 U obtained which would determine the rate of deposit in a century? Two points were selected to furnish this-one at the obelisk of Heliopolis, the other at the site of ancient Memphis. Proceeding with the investigation, it is quietly, but most unwarrantably, assumed that the age of the obelisk in 1850 was 4150 years B.C. The space between the bottom of the pedestal and the surface of the ground is 12 feet 4 inches. Giving 16 inches for its socket, you have 11 feet of sediment from the present surface to the level of the original soil. This gives 3:18 inches of deposit in a century. The perforations at Memphis led to a conclusion almost similar, and the rate of deposit was taken on all as 3 inches in a century. The assumption as to the date of the obelisk having been made, nothing hindered the author from carrying out his views. A piece of pottery was found at a depth of 38 feet. On this we have the following startling remarks:-"This fragment having been found at a depth of 39 feet, if there be no fallacy in my reasoning, must be held to be a record of the existence of man 13,371 years before A.D. 1854, reckoned by the above-mentioned increase of 3 inches in a century ; 11,517 years before the Christian era, and 7625 years before the beginning assigned by Lepsius to the reign of Menes, the founder of Memphis; of man, moreover, in a state of civilization, so far at least as to be able to fashion clay into vessels, and to know how to harden it by the action of a strong heat." Yet this was not new. Bunsen ("Egyptens Stelle in der Weltgeschichte"), assuming the authenticity of the chronology of the Egyptian priest Manetho (B.c. 300), leaps to inferences even more startling. He speaks of "records forming a documentary history of nations extending to about 4000 years before our era, and an early period of long duration must necessarily have preceded these. When, on the grounds set forth in our fifth book, we assign to that period a duration of from 6000 to 9000 years for Egypt, and from 15,000 to 16,000 for man's existence, it is no arbitrary and presumptuous application of research, but emancipation of ourselves from error which throws everything into confusion. The first epochs of the human race demand, at the least, a period of this extent, and its commencement 20,000 years before our era is a fair starting-point in the earth's history." But the answer to this is, that, before Manetho's chronology can be taken as authentic, we must have proof that the documents which he collected were contemporary with the events described in them. This we have not, and, indeed, are not likely ever to have. Did the generalizations of the historian first suggest to the geologist his peculiar line of corroboration? Perhaps it would be uncharitable to hint this. Be it as it may, his inferences are as little reliable as those of the historian. Were they to be of value, he would need to show us proofs that the rate of deposit has been in all times the same— that there had been no interferences with the course of the river, and that there was no way by which bits of pottery could get to such a depth unless it had been originally laid on the surface and then gradually covered. Now it is known that the rate of deposit has considerably varied even in recent times. The French savants sent by the first Napoleon calculated, on evidence as good as that of Mr. Horner's, that the rate is five inches in a century. Besides, Egyptologists have shown, that one of his standards of comparison, the statue of Rameses II. at Memphis, could not have had mud deposited around it till the destruction of the city, which took place only 800 B.C. Then as to the pottery, bits of Roman earthenware have been found even deeper down than that so triumphantly alluded to by Mr. Horner-a fact which would cast the Roman occupation of Egypt ten or twelve thousand years before the days of Cæsar and Antony! The Nile mud conclusions are baseless as Baron Bunsen's inferences. 2nd. Conclusions drawn from the presence of flint implements in drift gravel. In looking at this aspect of the question it would be unwise to hide, that the apparent grounds for assigning to man a far higher antiquity than we have been accustomed to do, have much more in them to command our serious consideration than any of those yet noticed. They will, moreover, continue to be pressed on the public attention, because several accomplished young geologists have committed themselves to their advocacy. The sooner then that thoughtful men be asked to hear the opposite opinions the better. In 1838 M. Boucher de Perthes, of Abbeville, Department of the Somme, France, published a work entitled De la Creation, in which he assured his readers, that sooner or later traces of antediluvian man would be discovered. In 1846 in another work, De l'Industrie Primitive, ou les Arts et leur Origine, he announced that his convictions had been well-grounded, his hopes realized. Flint implements were found in beds, whose age geologists had been in the habit of recognizing as pre-Adamic. A year later M. B. de Perthes published a separate work on the subject entitled Antiquités Celtiques et Antediluvienne. For several years no notice was taken of the alleged discoveries. But in the long run the attention of Mr. Prestwich, a well known and accomplished geologist, was called to them. Mr. Prestwich and Mr. Evans, a skilful antiquary, visited Abbeville, became converts to the views of M. B. de Perthes, and returned to England to make known the discoveries in the valley of the Somme to men of science. The geological aspects of the question were brought before the Royal Society in two papers by Mr. Prestwich in 1860 and 1862. These papers are very able. The general conclusions arrived at are, that the gravel in which the implements are imbedded was formed during the glacial period, that the animals whose bones are found associated with them, co-existed with the men who formed the implements, and that there was no break between the highest tertiary strata and the present epoch, as is shown by the gradual and uninterrupted succession of life from the pleistocene period till the present time. Man then existed in pre-glacial times. A controversy sprung up touching the flints themselves. Are they artificial or natural? May they not have been chipped naturally into their present form? Has the effect of intense frost, for example, in splitting flinty and jaspery stones, been taken into account? This controversy may be held settled. Few, if any, are now found who doubt that the flint implements are artificial. In a paper communicated to the Society of Antiquaries and published during the present year, by Mr. Evans, a list is given of more recent discoveries of worked flints in drift gravel, and special attention is called to British localities in which they have been found. Mr. Evans believes he has adduced facts which "afford strong, if not conclusive, evidence of the existence of man at that remote period, when the Siberian mammoth roamed through our forests, the extinct rhinoceros and hippopotamus frequented our marshy jungles and broadly flowing rivers, and the mighty tigers, bears, hyænas of our caverns preyed upon herds of oxen and horses of species now extinct." This review might be greatly extended, but let us try and condense the results of research into a few sentences. It is alleged 1st. That the beds in which the flint implements and the associated mammalian bones occur are of pleistocene age, and do not bear traces of cataclysm or great disturbance. 2nd. That these beds were formed at the period when the men who made the flint implements, and the mammalia whose bones are found in the same deposits, lived. In a word, that men and these animals co-existed in time. 3rd. That these beds are of immense antiquity-stretching far into the past beyond the commonly accepted age of the human race. If there be truth in these allegations, prevalent views of the time |