-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/82a18f9a4b3235c2d4fb2ac8a85547c1.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=jGHuEQnV6bpVV%7Ekiq%7E95umyJcGLY26WSDYD30U-XsNKsg0cf4mWYME7x5aNczHZSNDczz3%7EhWnnq9wMnfb7nf-rc6B-ukc6nN0QO%7E9WgKydDWDDXmKdV5TAiEIEX89SENShITYDJMFOdZR7Apx1ftVlmsBJu5YvnFNzHL0-I5OtSDMDcdPWHtThr42XU7JscNQlo0OvE2hYZi5EG33pk-SLS5haE4uaAQgTBCC9hUaGmaT20LrKkptJgMLeyLYRGfr91vwN79mLFrF9aGxGtKrtrPj22z-DdAPB6izzKZylLfQukV7oIwB0%7EWOKtDzrLz0nSzSNM%7EkcmuKm5vVJiVw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
663419c2ec7863a7f58481d2aedc90df
PDF Text
Text
SCRIPTURE AND SCIENCE
By THOMAS LUMISDEN STRANGE.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
NO. 11, THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD,
UPPER NORWOOD, LONDON, S.E,
1 87 6.
Price Sixpence.
��SCRIPTURE AND SCIENCE.
UMEROUS have been the attempts to make it
appear that the statements respecting the world
and its products presented in what is assumed to be the
word of God, and the facts coming to us from scientific
observation, are not at variance. At the outset of this
contest the biblical defenders made a more or less
plausible stand against the advancing knowledge bear
ing upon the subject, but as information has increased
they have been driven to new shifts to keep their
ground, or have had to retreat where the adverse testi
monies have proved too strong to be resisted. Eor
example, no one now maintains that the earth is the
centre of its associated system and is motionless, not
even revolving on its axis, while in respect of its anti
quity most biblicists are satisfied that the scripture
has to be read in some manner to allow of a period of
immeasurable duration being accorded thereto. On the
antiquity of man the battle is still maintained, though
here also some are disposed to make concessions by
giving up the integrity of the scripture genealogies.*
I have selected, to promote the examination of these
questions, the work of the late Archdeacon Pratt, en
titled “ Scripture and Science not at Variance,” as one
that has occupied its place through a good many edi
tions for nearly twenty years, and as coming from one
of recognised scientific attainments, who was at the
same time a dignitary of the church. The writer thinks
N
* The Legends of the Old Testament (Triibner & Co.), pp
186-189.
�6
Scripture and Science.
the position he has taken up so satisfactory, that, what
ever the facts yet discoverable in the realms of science,
believers in the Bible may rest assured that none can
appear to contradict the statements of the scripture.
The Archdeacon’s examination is confined to what
appears in the first eleven chapters of Genesis. His
view of the narrative of the creation is that the first
and second verses in Genesis relate to a period ante
cedent to the six days, the acts of which are described
from the third verse onwards. In this early period he
conceives all the strata of the earth were laid down,
with their fossilized deposits, till we reach the Quater
nary period in which we stand, and he holds that then
occurred the present creation which was accomplished
in six natural days. Thus the vast antiquity of the
earth and of its stocks of ancient vegetation and animals,
as demonstrated by the geologists, is admitted, while
the existence of the human race is limited to the six
thousand years traceable in Genesis.
The interruption claimed between the first and second
and the third verses of Genesis is not expressed in the
text. To the natural eye a continuous narrative is pre
sented. The first and second verses, as a prelude,
declare that “ In the beginning God created the heaven
and the earth,” and that the earth at this time was
“ without form and void,” and then we are told in what
manner he carried out his work through the six days
occupied in completing it. All that can be designated
creation was, we are to understand, embraced in these
six days. There was no creation before their occurrence,
and none subsequent thereto. This is what in the
natural .acceptation of the text we are taught in Genesis,
and this is the construction that all men put upon the
narrative till facts appeared to disturb its statements.
That in the beginning, before the occurrence of the six
days, there was a vast development of creative power
upon the earth, is a piece of information not communi
cated in the text, but arises solely, as the biblicists must
�Scripture and Science.
7
admit, from the facts ascertained by the scientists, of
which, otherwise, the Bible readers could have possessed
no knowledge. On the contrary, they would come
away, and did come away, with the conclusion that the
operations of God in connection with the earth began
on the first day the text speaks of. Nor is it con
sistent with the statement that previously the earth
was “ without form and void,” to allege that during
this prior period all those orderly strata, stored with
the remains of vegetal and animal forms, which we
see prevailing to the end of the Tertiary deposits, were
laid down upon the primeval crust. The Carboniferous
and Cretaceous sections may be particularly instanced as
occupying each its place in very distinct form, and as
teeming, the one with the remains of terrestrial vegetal,
and the other with those of marine animal life, in
prolific abundance.
The Archdeacon concludes that “ an interval of time
of untold duration ” intervened between the ancient and
the modern creations, and supports himself with the state
ment of M. D’Orbigny, “that not a single species,
either vegetable or animal, is common to the Tertiary
and the human periods/’ admitting, however, that this
is a view commonly disputed by other geologists, and
especially so by Sir C. Lyell. The fact is, in nothing
are competent observers more united than in the opinion
that the products of the earth and sea have been raised
up by continuous action, the changes effected being
graduated by the interlacing of forms with one another,
so that nowhere has there been a belt indicating ab
solute interruption of the creative processes prevailing
at any one period over the whole surface of the earth,
as the view now in question necessitates. The sections
I have just instanced, namely the Carboniferous and
Cretaceous deposits, give evidence of continuity, linking
the old with the modern operations, and showing that
there has been no such disjunction in the courses of
creation as the writer contends for. The peat bogs now
�8
Scripture and Science.
on the surface of the earth appear to be coal in embryo,
and assuredly large tracts of marine exuviae recently
found at the bottom of the Atlantic must be chalk in
embryo. The climatic changes from temperate to
tropical or arctic degrees which the earth has under
gone in remote ages, and is still undergoing, also
demonstrate the continuousness of the creative acts.
M. D’Orbigny, it is to be observed, speaks of there
having been twenty-nine creations separated from one
another by catastrophes which have swept away the
species preceding them. This goes beyond the require
ments of Genesis as interpreted by our author, and it
may be assumed that the observations on which the
statement depends were made over detached surfaces of
the earth, and do not therefore embrace its entire super
ficies. The occurrence of such partial changes or dis
ruptions to which our globe has been subjected by floods,
alterations of levels, or marked alternations of climate,
all geologists will acknowledge, but this by no means
presents us with the chaos of Genesis, for which, it is
universally allowed, the requisite marks are wanting.
It is difficult to conceive the state of things appearing
in the biblical record, as put to us by the Archdeacon,
when even the atmosphere, or ether, with which the
globe is surrounded, had in some manner to be formed
and adjusted when the new creation was undertaken.
The author, in endeavouring to support the language
of the scripture as to this atmosphere, fails to deal with
all that belongs to the representations made.
He
allows that “ the ancients conceived the heavens to be
an enormous vault of transparent solid matter, whirl
ing around the earth in diurnal revolution, and carrying
with it the stars, supposed to be fixed in its substance,”
and he strives to make it appear that the scripture
statements do not necessarily involve such an idea;
but he does not touch upon the true meaning of the
scripture phraseology, or the conditions associated with
this atmosphere, all of which imply its solidity.
�Scripture and Science.
9
The Hebrew term is rakia, which the author describes
as meaning merely an expanse, and therefore possibly an
ethereal expanse, while its true signification is something
expanded by being beaten out thin as might be a solid
substance. It is used in Isaiah xlii. 5 of the earth
which is said to have been thus “ spread forth,” and
accordingly it is rendered in the Septuagint stereoma,
and in the Vulgate firmamentum, in keeping with the
idea of solidity attaching to the atmosphere in early
times.
The uses attributed to this expanse in Genesis require
for it the element of solidity, or it could not have
divided the waters that were above it from the earth
and the waters that were below, the writer here
showing his ignorance of the mode in which rain is
generated by the free passage of exhalations from the
earth to the heavens. Consequent upon the exist
ence of the solid intervening expanse, when any pas
sage had to be effected from the heavens to the earth,
it became necessary that openings should be made
through the interposed medium. These are termed
“ doors ” (Ps. Ixxviii. 23 ; Rev. iv. 1), or “ windows ”
(Gen. vii. 11, viii. 2 ; 2 Kings vii. 2, 19 ; Isa. xxiv. 18 ;
Mai. iii. 10). The “ windows of heaven had to be
“ opened ” to let down the rain for the deluge, and
to be “ stopped,” or closed, when the rain had to be
shut off (Gen. vii. 11; viii. 2) ; “the doors of heaven”
were “opened” when manna was ‘‘rained down” to
feed the Israelites in the wilderness (Ps. lxxviii. 23) •
“ a door was opened in heaven ” to admit John to the
celestial glories which were above (Rev. iv. 1) : “ the
heavens ” were in like manner “ opened ” when “ visions
of God ” were imparted to Ezekiel (Ezek. i. 1), when
the celestial dove descended on Jesus at his baptism
(Matt. iii. 16 j Mark i. 10 ; Luke iii. 21), when “the
Son of Man standing on the right hand of God ” was
displayed to the sight of Stephen (Acts vii. 56), and
when a vessel full of four-footed beasts was “ let down”
�io
Scripture and Science.
in view of Peter (Acts x. 11) ; and John saw in
anticipation “ heaven opened ” when Jesus, as the em
bodied “ word of God,” has to come down in judgment
upon the earth, seated on a white horse (Rev. xix. 11).
This intervening expanse is also described as something
tangible that admits of being “stretched out” or
“spread out” (Job ix. 8; Isa. xlii. 5; xliv. 24; xlv. 12;
li. 13; Jer. x. 12; Zech. xii. 1), as might be a “ cur
tain” or “tent” (Ps. civ. 2; Isa. xl. 22) ; and in
the last day it is to be “folded up” as a “vesture,” and
“rolled together as a scroll,” and so removed and
“changed” (Ps. cii. 26; Isa. xxxiv. 4; Heb. i. 12 ;
Rev. vi. 14).
The formation of this substantial medium in
terposed between heaven and earth was the work
of the second day. The Archdeacon discriminates
between the various Hebrew words employed to de
note what was “ made ” or “ created,” according the
highest significancy to the term bara. This word
occurs over fifty times in the scripture, and signifies
the creation of something that before had no existence.
It is applied in the first verse of.Genesis to what was
done “ in the beginning,” which the writer contends
was the primitive creation, and it is equally applied to
objects of the last or modern creation, which he distin
guishes as belonging to the “human period.”. Por
instance, it is employed to designate the creation. of
man, of all the animal tribes, and in fact of everything
made during the six days (Gen. i. 27 ; ii. 3; v. 2 ;
vi. 7), and it is specially used in regard to the expanse
or firmament with which we are now occupied (Isa.
xlii. 5). It is apparent thus, according to the writer of
Genesis, as interpreted by the Archdeacon, that this
expanse, or as we now know it to be, ethereal space, had
no existence during the pre-human period, and we
have to understand, how we may, in what manner the
teeming products, vegetal and animal, of the prior
period, whose fossilized remains give evidence that they
�Scripture and Science.
if
were constituted as the life forms now on earth, re
quiring air to support their vitalities, could have
existed without the surrounding ether.
The conversion of the “ days ” of Genesis into ages,
while meeting one difficulty, involves others which are
fatal to this theory. The period, whatever it was,
embraced divisions that represented the occurrence
therein of “ western light ” and “early dawn,” which
the translators recognize as meaning “ evening” and
“morning,” It consisted thus of what we know as
night and day ushered in by the “ western light ” and
the “early dawn.” The third age gave forth seed
bearing herbs and fruit-bearing trees. How was this
to be accomplished without the presence and influence
of the sun which was not “ made ” till the introduction
of the fourth age ? How could plants exist with the
long-sustained alternations of darkness and light in the
ages thus constituted ? During the half age of sunlight
the earth and its vegetable contents would be burnt up
by the continuous heat, and the terrestrial animals
would perish from lack of food. During the supposed
half age of darkness, how could the animals obtain
the constant supplies they need every few hours for
their sustenance ; and are we to conceive the sparrow,
through this long period, perched in repose upon one
leg with its head under its wing ? When the division
of night and day is represented by ages, what meaning
are we to attach to the ordinance that the heavenly
bodies were to “rule over” the “day” and “night,”
“dividing the light from the darkness” as now
effected? We have moreover presented to us the
serious disturbance of geologic order in the existence
of the terrestrial seed and fruit-bearing plants, with an
age intervening, before marine products were created.
The Archdeacon reasons against this class of interpre
ters, disputing the conclusions of Miller, M‘Caul,
Dawson, M‘Causland, and Warington, and supporting
himself on his side with the names of Chalmers, Buck
�12
Scripture and Science.
land, and Sedgwick. Thus the doctors differ, and the
simple student of nature finds them resorting to forced
interpretations and violent assumptions, not warranted
by the text, to free the scripture statements from the
pressure of the realities which, to the natural mind,
ever defeat the asserted revelation.
However the days of Genesis are to be estimated, all
agree that with the formation of man on the sixth day
the acts of creation ended. The Creator “rested” from
his labours, whatever he had designed to do having
been accomplished. People appear to forget the para
sitical growths which infest all organized objects, plants,
and animals. “The human body,” the last of the
forms produced in the days in question, Mr Herbert
Spencer notices is “ the habitat of parasites, internal
and external, animal and vegetal, numbering, if all
were set down, some two or three dozen species, sundry
of which are peculiar to man.” These must have been
introduced after the supposed rest set in. If there
were no men, observes Professor Huxley, there would
be no tape worms. The course of creation consequently
did not end with the production of man. But in fact
there could be no such rest as has been declared, the
maintenance of all things depending on the ever active
sustaining and directing power of him who made them.
No atom in creation is ever at rest, every form is under
going continual change, assimilating what is appropri
ate to it, and advancing or receding and waning under
a constant process of development or decay, and as it
decomposes fresh forms are built up out of its consti
tuents. Can such operations be carried on without the
agency of the constructor of all things ? Has matter
independent capacity to enter into combinations, the
divine ruler refraining from all interference as not re
quired to regulate the results 1 This position biblicists
cannot possibly admit. If “ in him we live and move,
and have our being,” there can be no such cessation of
agency on his part to constitute the rest imputed to
�Scripture and Science.
13
him. It is one ignorant of the processes of nature
going on around us who makes the assertion.
We are told that “by one man sin entered into the
world and death by sin.” Death is hence said to have
been introduced into this creation through the trans
gression of Adam. The remedy appointed is a new
creation, ’wrought out in Christ, in substitution for that
thus tainted and under judgment. The first Adam in
this manner becomes displaced by Jesus, who is
exhibited as the head of the new order of things.
“ The whole creation,” it is said, “ groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now,” waiting for the
deliverance; upon which there is to be “no more
curse,” and “ no more death.” Thus death is brought
in and removed according to the scripture account. It
was the penalty for sin, and disappears when sin no
/ more prevails. Butin the ages prior to man myriads of
animals passed away through subjection to death, and it
is apparent that death is due to an universal law applic
able to all terrestrial fife, and has not been brought into
the world at the particular time, and under the special
circumstances, which the biblical doctrine asserts; and
with the dispersion of the asserted cause of death the pro
vided remedy for death is equally made void. The Arch
deacon allows the feature of the extinct animals to present
“ a formidable difficulty,” and from it he endeavours to
escape by the supposition that man, as originally con
stituted, was exceptionally organized, so as not to be
liable to that end of his physical being which overtakes
plants and animals, and now man himself, as by an
-apparent universal law. The writer confesses that “no
doubt, while ignorant of the fact which the book of
nature reveals, we should conclude from the Apostle’s
words that it was the sin of Adam that had brought
death upon the irrational as well as the rational
creation.” This, he says, is an instance where “ science
comes to our aid to correct the impressions we gather
from scripture,” a result which the students of nature
will of course fully appreciate.
�14
Scripture and Science.
Archdeacon Pratt examines various other matters in
respect of which the scripture statements are ordinarily
called in question on the basis of being at variance with
facts in nature scientifically ascertained, such as the
form and motion of the earth, its antiquity, the
unity of the human race, the common origin of
languages, Hindu and Chinese astronomical calculations,
creation in specific centres, and the phenomenon of the
deluge, reviewing various well-known works touching on
these subjects, namely, Bunsen’s “Egypt’s place in
Ancient History,” Lyell’s “Antiquity of Man,” Dar
win’s “ Origin of Species,” Huxley on the “ Physical
Basis of Life,” and “Man’s Place in Nature,” and
Bishop Colenso on the “ Pentateuch.” Over this well
trodden ground it is not necessary that I should con
duct my readers. I will endeavour, preferably, to meet
the Archdeacon’s challenge that there is nothing possibly
obtainable from natural sources, as observable scienti
fically, beyond what he has treated of, that can prove
at variance with the scripture representations. I have
met him in regard to the earth’s antiquity, showing
that if the subject-matter of the first and second verses
of Genesis relates to that of the verses that follow, the
ancient deposits, stocked with vegetal and animal re
mains, now known of, contradict the idea derivable
from Genesis that the first day of creation occurred
about 6000 years ago. I will now occupy myself, on
grounds hitherto little discussed or understood, with the
time that man may be shown to have been on the earth,
to which the like limit of the 6000 years is commonly
assigned, a position attaching to the Bible statements
from which there seems to be no fair means of
escape.
It is a well ascertained fact that there have been
very marked alterations of temperature upon the
earth, the same region having been visited, for lengthened
periods, with a climate that was at one time tropical, at
�Scripture and Science.
15
another temperate, and at another polar. Europe has
at present a temperate climate, but its coal fields, which
occur in all directions, demonstrate that it had formerly
a degree of warmth equal to the production of tropical
plant growth, and the glacial boulders scattered over
its surface prove that it has also been under the
domination of ice. The fossilized remains of its animals
afford the like indications. When the climate was
temperate, the ox, deer, boar, horse, bear, fox, badger,
weasel, otter, lynx, and beaver possessed the land;
when tropical, the elephant, lion, tiger, hyena,
rhinoceros, and hippopotamus; and when arctic, the
alpine hare, reindeer, musk sheep, woolly mammoth, and
woolly rhinoceros. Melville Island, one of the coldest
places visited by arctic explorers, has coal deposits, and
marks of glaciers have been observed in Europe to about
50°, and in America as far as 31°, north latitude, and
similar signs prove their prevalence within the tropics
in India and Africa.
The indications of glaciers are of a well recognized
order. From some ill understood cause, these ice
formations are subject to a slow, constant movement
upon the earth’s surface, and in their progress they
leave behind them indubitable signs of their passage.
The first is till, or a stiff clay, they grind up as they
move along. This has been found in places to a thick
ness of a hundred feet and upwards, proving the
density and mighty weight of the moving ice deposits.
Another evidence of the passage of glaciers is the
scorings on the rocks over which they have passed.
The till carries with it hard pieces of rock which are
themselves thus scored, and they act as ice chisels,
graving the rocks below along which they are grated.
These marks of scoring run necessarily all in the same
direction, and demonstrate the agency by which they
have been effected.
A third evidence is the occurrence of erratic boulders.
When the lower surfaces of the land are covered with
�i6
Scripture and Science.
a thick coating of ice, the mountain tops standing above
the icy plain are subjected to extreme cold which
splinters off from them pieces of rock, often of consider
able size, and these fragments, falling on the ice below,
travel with it and are deposited wherever the ice finally
disappears. In Scotland, Professor Geikie* informs us,
they are to be traced from the Highlands to the Pent
land Hills, from fifty to eighty miles off, to the lowlying parts of Fife, to the Lammermuir Hills, and
onwards to Strathallan, the Ochil Hills, and the vale of
the Forth, and they are found also in the valleys of the
Clyde and the Irvine. They are met with on the
slopes of the Jura, borne thither from the adjacent
Alps. In India I have seen them on the high plains
of Bellary, eastward of the great range of mountains
running from Bombay to Cape Comorin, and on the
opposite side westward a few miles out at sea off the
coast of Malabar, where they bear the name of the
Sacrifice Rocks, the distances from the mountains being
some hundred and fifty miles in one direction, and fifty
in the other. A correspondent of mine, a scientific
observer, has seen them strewed over the table-land of
Mysore and the lower level of Chittoor where they lay
“ scattered over a grassy plain extending for many
miles/’ this latter region being some 250 miles from
the mountains; and he observed one on St Thomas’s
Mount, near Madras, which must have travelled thither
more than 300 miles. Du Chaillu gives testimony to
the existence of these boulders in equatorial Africa,
which is the more interesting as coming from one who,
while recording the phenomenon, was wholly unable to
account for it. He says, “Not far from Mokenga there
was a remarkable and very large boulder of granite
perched by itself at the top of a hill. It must have
been transported there by some external force, but
what this was I cannot undertake to say. I thought
it possible that it might have been a true boulder
* The, (treat Ice A ge.
�Scripture and Science.
17
transported, by a glacier, like those so abundant in
northern latitudes. . . . Whilst I am on the subject of
boulders and signs of glaciers, I may as well mention
that, when crossing the hilly country from Obindji to
Ashera-land, my attention was drawn to distinct traces
of grooves on the surface of several of the blocks which
there lie strewed about on the tops and declivities of
the hills. I am aware how preposterous it seems to
suppose that the same movements of ice which have
modified the surface of the land in northern countries
can have taken place here under the equator, but I
think it only proper to relate what I saw with my own
eyes.”* The boulders here in question must have
travelled hundreds of miles from the central mountain
region. These ice-borne masses are sometimes of vast
dimensions. Thegreat rock, estimated to weigh 1500 tons,
which forms the pedestal of the statue of Peter the Great,
is one of them. The Needle Mountain in Dauphiny,
measuring 2000 paces in circumference at its base, is
supposed to be another. Others measure 40 feet by 50,
and there are estimates specified of cubic contents of
some running from 1200 to 2250, 10,296, and 27,000
cubic feet, and of weights ranging from 680 to 2310 and
5400 tons. There is one in Sutton Common, Craven,
of about fifty yards in circumference and ten yards in
height, and those I saw off the coast of Malabar werelarge blocks of the size of ordinary buildings.
A fourth sign of glaciers are the moraines, or rubbish
heaps, which have been thrown out laterally in the
onward course of the ice. The moraines of past times
appearing in the Alps denote the passage of glaciers of
immense magnitude, compared with which those of the
present day are mere pigmies. In Canada the ice has
left a bed of drift from 500 to 800 feet in depth.
In hilly regions the depth which the ice has
attained may be estimated. In Scotland the till has
been seen at heights of 2300 feet, and the stones* A Journey to Asliango-land, 1867, pp. 292-294.
�18
Scripture and Science.
embedded therein have left their marks upon hill-tops
to elevations of 3500 feet. The erratic boulders have
been met with there at all levels up to 3000 feet. On
the Jura they lie to the height of 3450 feet above the
sea. Norway has been under the pressure of ice
estimated at a thickness of 6000 or 7000 feet, and in
Connecticut it has been supposed to have attained in
places that of 6000 to 8000 feet. When the ice
coatings terminate in the ocean, masses are broken off
by the action of the water and are sent adrift as ice
bergs, and some of these are of stupendous size. Capt.
Boss met with one that had stranded in 61 fathoms
of water which was supposed to weigh about thirteen
hundred millions of tons, and Dr Hayes found one to
the north of Melville Bay that was aground in water
nearly half a mile in depth, the weight of which has
been estimated at two thousand million tons. The
glaciers of polar regions are considered to be from
3000 to 5000 feet in thickness. The vast area of
Greenland, containing 750,000 square miles, is, with
the exception of a little strip on its western shore,
covered with ice. The antarctic continent is similarly
buried under ice. Sir J. Ross sailed for 450 miles
along its precipitous cliff of ice, which rose in places
180 feet above the water. From all these indications
Prof. Geikie concludes that Scotland and the neigh
bourhood of the Jura must have been under the
pressure of ice 3000 feet thick. The contiguous
countries were of course similarly circumstanced. It
must have taken long ages to accumulate and disperse
such vast deposits, and Sir Charles Lyell raises the
assumption that glacial epochs are to be measured
by hundreds of thousands of years.
The visitations of the ice have been frequent, and
between them a warm climature prevailed. Professor
Geikie informs us that deposits of glacial till are found
intercalated with stratified beds of sand and clay, these
beds varying in thickness from twenty to forty feet,
�Scripture and Science.
19
and containing layers of peat and other vegetable re
mains, with bones of the extinct ox, Irish elk, horse,
reindeer, and mammoth. Borings at the estuary of the
Forth have disclosed four several deposits of till with
stones, divided from each other by intervening beds of
sand. Similar evidences occur in England, Scandi
navia, and North America. Professor Newbury has
described the occurrence of a regular forest-bed, inter
calated among true glacial deposits, with bones of the
elephant, mastodon, and great extinct beaver. Professor
Geikie comes to the conclusion that there have been
similar alternations of climate through all the older
deposits, as low down as the Silurian beds. Mr
Groll says there is evidence of at least three ice periods
prevailing during the deposition of the Tertiary forma
tions, and he says there are marks of their occurrence
• in the Cretaceous and Permian deposits. Professor
Ramsay considers that there are ice-borne boulder
beds in the Old Red Sandstone of Scotland and the
North of England, as also in the Permian strata. Mr
Milton informs us of such boulders being found in
mines, at the depth of seventy-four fathoms or four
hundred and forty-four feet below the surface. The coal
formations indicate the like changes. “ Every foot of
thickness of pure bituminous coal,” observes Professor
Huxley, “ implies the quiet growth and fall of at least
fifty generations of Sigillariae, and therefore an undis
turbed condition of forest growth through many cen
turies.” The coal seams are separated from one another
by intervening beds of shale and clay-slate, the coal being
evidence of high tropical fertility, and the shale and clay
marking absolute sterility, and thus probably repre
senting the intervention of glacial temperature. In
Coalbrookdale there are ninety such alternations; the
Saurbriicker coal, according to Humboldt, consists of
120 beds, besides many which are less than a foot
in thickness; and the Cumberland, Durham, and
Northumberland coalfield has 147 different strata, the
�20
Scripture and Science.
coal alternating with limestone, sandstone, and clay
slate ; in the Hainaut (or Mons and Charleroi) basin,
says Mr Prestwich, the coal measures are 9400 feet
thick, containing 110 seams; in the Liege basin they
are of 7600 feet, with 85 seams; and in Westphalia
they are of 7200 feet, with 117 seams. The coal seams
in Melville Island and other places in the arctic circle
are evidences of alternations of climate in those parts.
Shells indicating the warmth of the Mediterranean have
been found in the Pliocene strata of England; such as
belong to Senegal occur in the Upper Miocene of
France; fossil palms and other tropical plants have been
met with in the Lower Miocene strata of Iceland; speci
mens of hazel, poplar, alder, beech, plane, and lime
appear in the Miocene of North Greenland within 12°
of the pole, Spitzbergen, the banks of the Mackenzie
Fiver, and Bank’s land; and remains of tropical palms,
and fossil fruits of the cocoanut and custard apple, with
tropical shells, are found in the Lower Eocene strata of
the Isle of Sheppey. Professor Geikie comments on
the long intervals of time necessary to have effected
these changes. “ The disappearance of a mer de glace,”
he observes, “ which in the lowlands of Scotland at
tained a thickness of nearer 3000 feet than 2000 feet,
could only be effected by a very considerable change of
climate. Nor, when one fully considers all sides of
the question, does it appear unreasonable to infer
that the comparatively mild and genial periods, of
which the inter-glacial beds are memorials, may have
endured as long as those arctic or glacial conditions
which preceded and followed them. We have a diffi
culty in conceiving of the length of time implied in the
gradual increase of that cold which, as the years went
by, eventually buried the whole country underneath one
vast mer de glace. Nor can we form any proper conception
of how long a time was needed to bring about that other
change of climate, under the influence of which, slowly
and imperceptibly, this immense sheet of frost melted
�Scripture and Science.
21
away from the lowlands and retired to the mountain
recesses. We must allow that long ages elapsed before
the warmth became such as to induce plants and ani
mals to clothe and people the land. How vast a time,
also, must have passed away ere the warmth reached
its climax, and the temperature again began to cool
down! How slowly, step by step, the ice must have
crept out from the mountain-fastnesses, chilling the air,
and forcing fauna and flora to retire before it; and
what a long succession of years must have come and
gone before the ice-sheet once more wrapped up the
hills, obliterated the valleys, and, streaming out from
the shore, usurped the bed of the shallow seas that
flowed around our island! Finally, when we consider
that such a succession of changes happened not once
only, but again and again, we cannot fail to have some
faint appreciation of the lapse of time required for
the accumulation of the till and the inter-glacial
deposits.”
Various suggestions have been offered to account for
the extremes of climate to which the earth has been
subjected. Sir Charles Lyell has thought that the
altered relations of land and water may have produced
these changes, but in so saying this eminent geologist
can scarcely have weighed all the conditions. It is
obvious that to bury a country at one time under 3,000
feet of ice, and at another to cover its surface with
a heavy growth of tropical plants, requires some far
more potent agency than the distribution of its sur
rounding waters could occasion. Professor Geikie com
bats this view. A possible change of climature incurred
in the progress of the whole solar system through space
is another idea that has been offered. That we pass in
this way through torrid and frigid regions is purely
ideal, nor is it reasonable to suppose that these should
be constantly alternating in correspondence with the
necessities of the case as marked upon the earth’s sur
face. The swaying of the poles in effecting what is
B
�22
Scripture and Science.
known as the precession of the equinoxes, is another
suggested cause. This is a circular movement, the
radius of which is commonly held to be of 23° 28',
accomplished in a period of 25,870 years. Colonel
Drayson,* in view of strengthening this agency,
maintains the radius to be of 29° 25' 47", and the
time 31,840 years. No doubt some change of climate
must be induced as the earth in this movement
alters its position relatively to the direction of the
sun’s rays, but would the variation be sufficient for *
the phenomena ? We are told, and the circumstances
appear amply to warrant the supposition, that the
glacial epochs, in the magnitude of their results,
must be measured by hundreds of thousands of years,
but here a torrid, or an arctic temperature, if thus
to be induced, would recur every 13,000, or at most
16,000 years; nor is the explanation projected as
covering the whole conditions before us. Those
who offer it aim only at changes affecting Europe
to 50°, and America to 31° north latitude, while the
reality is, though hitherto not observed or acknow
ledged, that we have to account for the equator being
covered with ice as the polar regions are at this day,
which the movement in question could not effect.
Another cause for the climatic changes proposed is the
variation in the ellipticity of the earth’s orbit. The
diameter of the ellipse is held to vary by 13 J millions
of miles, which means that the earth is at times 6J
millions of miles nearer to the sun than at others, and
a computation made by Mr Stone of the Greenwich
Observatory for Sir C. Lyell, would show that it occu
pies 515,600 years to bring the earth from one extreme
in this distance to the other. Every 1,031,200 years,
consequently, the earth is nearer or farther away from
the sun by the said 6| millions of miles, and has
travelled back again to the said extreme points. Here
we have certainly the element of time for the periodical
* The last Glacial Epoch of Geology.
�Scripture and Science.
23
climatic changes in what approaches apparent sufficiency,
but will the earth’s altered position in its orbit induce the
requisite variations of heat and cold ? Professor Geikie,
in adopting this movement as a cause of the changes of
climate that are in question, admits “that mere prox
imity to the sun will not necessarily produce a warm
season.” We see in fact that it does not do so. The
sun is not situated centrically to our orbit, and in our
annual course we are therefore at times nearer to him,
and at others more distant, and it happens that when
nearest to him it is mid-winter, and when furthest from
him mid-summer. The heads of the Himalaya and
Andes are nearer to him than their bases, but the re
sult is that the tops of these mountains are covered
with perpetual snow, while a tropical temperature rules
at their feet. This circumstance demonstrates that
atmosphere is an essential instrument in conducting
heat to the earth’s surface; when dense the heat is
freely imparted, when ratified it is dissipated. The
mere alteration therefore of the earth’s distance from
the sun as the ellipticity of its orbit is altered, would
induce no variation of climate, the change being effected
in a space void of atmospheric properties. Professor
Geikie suggests that the two movements last discussed,
namely, the precessional gyration of the earth’s poles,
and the alteration in the ellipticity of its orbit, combine
together to effect the extremes of heat and cold to which
the same parts of the earth are at different times sub
jected. It is not apparent how movements with such
vastly differing periodicities can act in unison for their
results, nor does the Professor here explain himself.
The need to make use of both these movements to
account for the phenomena in view, amounts to an
admission that singly neither of them is adequate for
the purpose. Nor would these movements disturb the
existing alternations of summer heat and winter cold,
so that the extremes of temperature would still annually
succeed each other, over the parts that are in question,
�24
Scripture and Science.
and not be maintained continuously as the exigency
requires.
The true way to account for natural phenomena
the immediate cause of which is not apparent, is to
presume that what occasions the like effects under cir
cumstances open to our observation, must be that which
has produced the same results in the instances remain
ing to be judged of. The disturbances to which the
planet Uranus was subjected led to the discovery of the
planet Neptune. It was known from the conditions of
the spheres in view that their approaches towards each
other in their courses induced such perturbations, and
this caused a search to be made for the unseen sphere
whose presence was necessary to account for the de
flections of Uranus, and thus the existence of Neptune
was brought to light. It is observed how through
atmospheric and other causes rocks and hill-sides are
worn down, and their debris cast upon the lower levels;
how these lower levels are washed away by surface
waters; how still heavier drifts are effected by fluvial
operations; and how sediments in ocean-beds or Jake
bottoms are accumulated; and we become satisfied that
the strata composing the earth’s crust, layer upon layer,
must have been brought together and deposited by
similar agencies in the past ages. The various circum
stances that are connected with the existing glaciers—
the till, the scorings of the rocks, the erratic boulders,
and the lateral moraines, where they occur, prove to us
that glaciers have occupied the land where now no ice
can hold its ground. The conclusion should follow, as
an inevitable consequence, that the conditions which
have produced and maintain the ice coatings in the
present day, must be those which produced and main
tained them when ice similarly prevailed elsewhere in
the bygone ages. That is, the conditions which have
induced the heavy coating of ice with which Greenland
is at this moment covered, are those that were present
and operated in former times when the low-lying parts
�Scripture and Science.
25
of equatorial India and Africa were buried under the
like glacial covering ; and we should be equally assured
that the circumstances which cause the growth of
tropical vegetation in the warmest portions of the globe,
are the same which brought about similar growths in
Melville Island, Baffin’s Bay, and other regions near
the pole, where coal formations, the product of such
growths, are found.
It is evident that the extremes of heat and cold wit
nessed in various places on the earth are due to the
positions of those parts relatively to the sun, his rays
falling in the warm regions vertically, or nearly so, and
in the cold regions very obliquely or for seasons not at
all. We should be prepared then to recognize the
necessity that to induce tropical growths near the pole,
and heavy domination of ice at the equator, the relative
positions of the earth and the sun must have been other
than they now are, and that there have been times
when the sun’s rays fell vertically at the poles and
obliquely at the equator.
It is necessary to apprehend in what manner the
earth undergoes that diurnal revolution which consti
tutes it a globe revolving on an axis. No one will be
prepared to deny that the power, whatever its descrip
tion, is one exerted upon it by the sun. Magnetism,
which the sun indubitably sheds upon the earth,
would effect such a movement. Baron Reichenbach
informs us that the sun’s rays will restore the power of
a weakened magnet, and have converted an iron key
into a magnet. Mr Proctor, citing General Sabine,
says that the magnetic action, connected with the
earth, varies according to the earth’s propinquity to the
sun, being intensified in both hemispheres in December
and January, when its orbit is nearest to the sun.
Magnetic disturbances or storms are now traced to solar
agency, and the aurora is also associated with the same
agency. An iron vessel will exercise a different effect
upon its compass according as it has been constructed
�26
Scripture and Science.
in the line of the magnetic poles, or north and south,
or of the magnetic equator, east and west. The vessels
have thus become magnetic according to the direction
in which they have been exposed to the sun’s influence.
Professor Tyndall notices that magnetic currents will
set a body in rotation, exercising a repulsive force
which drives the object in one direction while an
attractive force draws it round in the opposite line. A
correspondent of mine has verified these circumstances
in illustration of the sun’s operation upon the earth. He
says, “ one of Farraday’s experiments I have myself
made in model. A round ball of wood floats in water,
with an iron wire through its poles. This wire has
been made magnetic in the ordinary way, so that it has
a north and south pole. The ball and its poles now
represent the earth floating in space. By means of an
electro-magnet at some little distance from it, the ball
can be made to rotate on its axis.” Humboldt, citing
Halley, states that there are four magnetic poles on the
earth’s surface, a representation which Mr Proctor en
dorses. These are situated north and south of the
equator, at positions removed therefrom by from 70° to
75°, and lie about 80° on each side of the axis of the
earth’s rotation. There is thus a broad belt of magnet
ism reaching the earth’s surface, prevailing as far as
its spherical form will arrest the magnetic current, and
directed towards it in the line of its axis, by means of
which it may be presumed the earth’s diurnal rotation
is effected or promoted. Mr Crooke’s discovery that
light has a motive power introduces another equally
potent agency, it being apparent that as his disks revolve
in an exhausted receiver by means of the light of a
candle, so will the earth poised in space revolve under
the powerful action of the sun’s rays.
Such being the circumstances under which it may be
presumed the earth is made to rotate upon its axis,,
namely, by the means of power, magnetic and luminous,
cast upon its surface by the governing orb, the sun, in
�Scripture and Science.
17
the direction of its axis, it requires but an alteration in
this line of action to effect those great climatic changes
that have to be accounted for. If this line of action
slowly moves from its present position, passing from the
direction of the poles to that of the equator, the polar
regions become equatorial and the equatorial polar, and
as it completes its circuit these regions return to their
former conditions. Thus may be brought about all
that we have seen to have occurred upon the earth's
surface, tropical plants raised in the polar regions and
ice dominating in the equatorial, nor does it seem reason
able to assume that these effects have been induced in
any other manner.
The sun, it must be remembered, is a moving body,
liable to disturbances from other spheres outside of it,
equally as is the earth. That is, it revolves on its axis,
taking twenty-five days to effect the revolution, and it
is believed to be in progress round some very distant
centre. There are thus systems within systems belong
ing to the heavenly orbs, each under its proper govern
ance. The satellites are specially associated with the
planets that possess them, and are held circling round
their respective governors ; the planets, with their satel
lites, are similarly held circling round the sun; and the
sun, with its attendant orbs, is apparently holding a
like course round its distant governor. The planets
are liable to disturbances from the influences of the
bodies associated with them as these approach them.
The earth has various indications of experiencing such
disturbances. It is swayed at its poles, whereby the
precession of the equinoxes is effected ; this movement
is made in a nutatory or waving line; the earth's circuit
round the sun is elliptic and not circular; its position is
not centrical to this ellipse; and the diameter of the
ellipse is continually changing; furthermore, a constant
alteration in the angle of the ecliptic shows the earth
to be ever undergoing a geographical change rela
tively to its path round the sun. There is then no
�28
Scripture and Science.
improbability, but on the contrary a likelihood, that
the sun is in a similar manner affected by orbs with
which it may be associated in regions beyond our sys
tem, and some consequent disturbance to which it may
be thus subjected might alter the direction of its radiation
towards the earth in the manner contemplated as that
bringing about the climatic changes which are in question.
That astronomers have not detected such a variation
of the polar axis should not be conclusive against its
occurrence. We maybe said to be still in the infancy
of science. It is not three hundred years since G-alileo
was denounced by every astronomer in Europe for
maintaining that the earth revolved daily on its axis.
The nutation of the poles at the precessional movement
was first noticed by . Bradley two hundred and twenty
eight years ago ; the planet Uranus was discovered by
Herschel less than a hundred years ago; it is but
thirty years since Adams detected the existence of
Neptune ; and at the beginning of the current century
but seven minor planets circling between Mars and
Jupiter were known of, and their number now is found
to exceed a hundred, and is constantly being added to.
The nutation of the poles, their precessional gyration,
the variation in ellipticity of the earth’s orbit, and the
change in the earth’s position indicated by the altera
tion of the angle of the ecliptic, are all circumstances
disturbing the earth’s relative position towards the
sun which would interfere with close observation of the
movement of the polar axis that is in question. The
conditions, namely, the long maintenance of the ice
where it prevails, and of tropical heat where that
exists, necessitate that this movement should be a very
slowly executed one, and it would take long intervals,
between accurately recorded observations, to establish
such a movement. It is possible, therefore, that in the
course of time it may yet be ascertained.
I here introduce a communication received by me
in respect of the present production, from a scientific
�Scripture and Science.
29
friend to whom I am already under deep obligations for
aid in following out the theory connected with the
■changes of climature the earth has undergone, which
I have ventured to advance. He says,—
“The grand movement of the earth’s mass* originating
primarily from the sun which is here sought to he
•established to account for the climatic changes every' where evident upon its surface, cannot at the present
day be clearly proved by astronomy, inasmuch as the
change alluded to occupies or involves probably millions
of years during only one revolutionary cycle. To
•detect so slow a change by merely optical observations,
involving errors of refraction of light, in so short a
period as two or three hundred years, is not to be ex
pected. We have no certain method even at this
moment to tell within 8" or 10" what the refraction of
the air really is, and also it varies at different times,
so that to fix the precise position of any part of the
earth’s surface astronomically with sufficient accuracy
to detect the small movement referred to, would be to
imply the non-existence of all disturbing influences.
Even the parallax (the difference between the real and
apparent place) referring to any of the heavenly bodies
is by no means correctly ascertained. This of course
involves most important results. For mere approxima
tion of stellar distances it is accurate enough, but what
is now in view is an exceedingly slow motion of the
mass of the earth corresponding with that of the sun,
leaving the rotation of the two bodies still at their
natural angle—-which as far as our observations extend
has not yet been detected. To prove how easily so
small a quantity has been overlooked : in the most
ordinary observations for transit, it is usual to allow for
what is called a personal equation, that is one man
* This is not as I have expressed the suggested movement. I
take it to be an alteration of the polar axis relatively to the earth,
and not a movement of the mass of the earth relatively to the
polar axis. My correspondent concedes that the case may be as I
have stated it.
�30
Scripture and Science.
looking through the same transit instrument will not
see the sun or a star pass his centre wire at the same
instant of time which another will do with equally good
eyesight. It is therefore obviously inaccurate to cite
the merely optical measurements of astronomy as any
argument against the slow change of the earth’s surface
here asserted in unison with that of its primary the
sun. In hundreds of years hence it will probably be
detected. Several astronomers have lately hinted at the
probability of such a movement.
“ The late observations to ascertain the sun’s parallax,
or, in other words, his mean distance from the earth,
by the transit of Venus over his disc, although taken
in all parts of the globe, so far as we yet know of them,
are singularly discrepant. The French astronomers, with
first-rate instruments, make the parallax 8". 8 79. Our
own deductions are not yet all published, but several of
them show many decimals under this result. Therefore
astronomy is not to be appealed to at present in the
face of geological facts, and these being undeniable, re
main for acceptance to the full measure of their value.”
The contemplated change in the axis of rotation
involves another circumstance, the bearings of which
have to be taken into account. A globe always
revolves on its shortest axis. The earth now does
so, the diameter from pole to pole being shorter by a
little above 26|- miles than the diameter at the equator.
The crust of the earth is known to be elastic, being
subject to continual upheavals and depressions, and
especially at the equator, so that every portion of the
globe has been under water, or raised up out of the
water, becoming at one time sea bottom, and at another
dry land, and its surface, whether below or above the
water, is ordinarily undulating and diversified by high
and low levels, forming the hills and valleys which are
before us. The bulge of the earth at the equator is
attributed to the centrifugal force violently operating in
that direction as the globe whirls in space in effecting
�Scripture and Science.
31
its diurnal revolution. It follows if the axis of rotation
is varied, the equator is correspondingly varied, and the
new region becoming equatorial is subjected to the
high degree of centrifugal force exerted in that direction.
In this way there would be a constant change effected
in the form of the earth as the line of its axis of rota
tion underwent alteration, and the conditions would be
maintained of the shorter diameter in the line of the
axis, and the longer one in that of the equator.
The reasonableness of the solution offered will better
appear upon reducing the proportions of the earth to
dimensions that the mind can easily appreciate. The
crust of the earth, judging from the known stratifica
tions is supposed to measure about twenty miles. Let
this be expressed by one inch, when the earth may be
represented by a globe about thirty-three feet in
diameter. It is quite conceivable that the thin elastic
crust of such a globe would yield to the pressure
of great force continually acting at its centre, so
that its diameter in that quarter might be distended
by about an inch and a quarter, which is all that
the circumstances before us require. But as this
crust is also persistent, brittle, and fragile, the operation
could not be effected without leaving marks of the
exerted force, and these indications actually do appear.
The strata originally laid down horizontally by deposi
tion in water, are twisted and turned in every direction,
and the more so the lower down they are situated, and
in mines, whether of coal or of metals, the seams or veins
are invariably broken through, the fractures often
occasioning in the metallic mines the loss of the lode
that has to be followed up, it being difficult to discover
where the severed portion has been left. These faults,
as they are termed in mines, are sure to occur at suffi
cient depths. The process of the equatorial distention
is, it must be assumed, maintained continuously, and as
the same portion of the globe is brought repeatedly to
undergo it, it follows that the deeper we penetrate the
�32
Scripture and Science,
earth’s crust the more will there be evidence of its
disturbance. The marks of violence that the crust of
the earth exhibits, and the constant alteration effected
in its levels, are thus circumstances necessarily to have
occurred under the polar movement contemplated. The
theory offered of the change in the direction of the axis of
the earth’s rotation may hence be seen to embrace all
the conditions which it should cover, nor has any other
solution yet been proposed that can he admitted as
affording a satisfactory explanation of the observed
phenomena.
There are other features which illustrate the move
ment in question, and which at the same time afford
the means of rebutting Archdeacon Pratt’s conclusion
that there have been two distinct creations, an ancient
and a modern one, and that the latter period, having
man connected with it, is to be confined within the
limits of 6000 years. These are the cave deposits, and
especially those of Kent’s Cave, near Torquay, which I
will proceed to trace out.
The explorations in Kent’s Cave have been conducted
under the supervision of a Committee of the British
Association since the year 1865, two of the body being
the well known geologists Messrs Vivian and Pengelly,
whose reports are annually laid before the public through
the medium of the Association. In this cavern are six
distinct deposits, namely (1) of back mould forming
the surface floor of the cavern ; (2) a floor of granular
stalagmite ; (3) a stratum of red cave earth ; (4) a floor
of crystalline stalagmite ; (5) a stratum of brown rock
like breccia; (6) another floor of stalagmite. The
bottom of the cave has, in most parts of it, not yet
been reached. The soft or granular deposit of stalag
mite, forming the second in the above series, remains
intact as originally laid down; the next floor of stalag
mite, which is hard and crystalline, is in parts undis
turbed, and in parts has been broken up into large
fragments which have been in places forced through
�Scripture and Science.
33
the three superior strata, and thus sometimes exhibit
themselves at the surface floor of the cave; the rock
like breccia and the third floor of stalagmite have both
been broken up. The stalagmite formations which
have thus suffered run to several feet in thickness, in
some places to as much as twelve feet, and are thus of
great density and strength, and through all these
deposits are large blocks of the solid rock of the cavern
that have been from time to time torn from its sides
and roof. The present condition of the cavern is quite
sound, not a splinter being detached within it by the
heavy blastings that occur. The question arises, What
has led to the recurrent floors of stalagmite and to the
disruptions of the stalagmite and of the rocky lining of
the cavern ?
The stalagmite floors are formed by the dropping of
water through the limestone roof, which slowly deposits
the lime below. Something must have occurred to
have arrested the drip at the completion of one of the
floors, and to have set it free again for the formation of
another floor, and from the extent of the intervening
accumulations of cave earth or breccia, the period of the
interruption must have been a lengthened one. The
phenomenon, it is apparent, is due not to a local but a
general cause, for there are distinct floors of stalagmite
in other caverns; for example, there are two in the
Windmill Hill Cave at Brixham, also in Poole’s Cavern
Buxton, in the Caves of the Wye, and in the Trou de
la Naulette, near Dinant, in Belgium. The recurring
glacial and warm periods which visit the earth at once
account for what has happened. When the cave has
passed into the icy temperature, the drip has been frozen
up and arrested, and when it has passed into a suffi
ciently warm temperature, the drip has been let loose,
and the formation of a fresh floor of stalagmite has
ensued. The breaking up of the stalagmite floors, and
the disruption of the rocks within the cave, are just
what would occur when the cavern entered into the
�34
Scripture and Science.
equatorial region and ’became subjected to the violent
distention in that quarter effected by the centrifugal
force there in operation. The Committee who are
exploring the cavern say that some power like that of
an earthquake has been necessary to cause the disrup
tions in question, and the polar changes contemplated
would introduce just such a power. The upper floor of
stalagmite can have passed but once under the pressure
at the equator, and being soft and yielding has not
suffered in the process. Time has altered the consist
ency of the second and third floors, and made them
hard and unyielding, as is the condition of the com
pacted breccia between them ; these have been
equatorial more than once, and the pressure upon them
which twists the strata of the earth and snaps solid
beds of coal across, has sufficed to break them up. The
same cause has also splintered off the rocks within the
cavern, and left masses thereof occupying every stage of
its deposits.
Cape Farewell, or the southern point of Greenland,
stands in about 60° N. Lat., and Disco Island,
off the western coast of Greenland, in about 70°
N. Lat. The glacial line may be said to lie mid
way at about 65°.* In the entire circle, consequently,
there would be two sections at the North and
South Poles, measuring about 50 degrees each where
ice would prevail, and between them would be two
regions of warmth, temperate and tropical, measuring
about 130 degrees each. The cavern may be supposed
to have been in a position relatively to the sun corre
sponding to 65° S. Lat. on the Eastern hemisphere
when the third, or lowest floor of its stalagmite,
began to be formed, the same being completed when
the cave reached a position corresponding to 65° N.
Lat. Then it may be presumed a glacial epoch ensued,
* Capt. Bach says that the sub-soil, twenty inches below the
surface, is perpetually frozen in latitude 64° North (Narrative of
Arctic Land Expedition, p. 479-)
�Scripture and Science.
^5
and the drip was frozen up and ceased till the cave,
passing across the pole, came to be in a position
corresponding to 65° N. Lat. on the Western
hemisphere, when the drip was resumed and the
second floor formed. After that must have occurred
another glacial epoch, till 65° S. Lat. on the
Eastern hemisphere again became its position, when
the first or uppermost floor now in course of completion
began to be formed. The cave would seem thus to
have experienced two seasons during which ice domi
nated, and three (the last not yet concluded by the
measure of about 15 degrees), during which warmth,
temperate and tropical, prevailed. The animal remains,
which are found chiefly in the cave-earth intervening
between the superior and the second floors of stalag
mite, denote the passage of the cave through these
various climates, there being those of the ox, horse,
sheep, deer, hare, rabbit, pig, rat, fox, wolf, badger, bear,
and beaver to mark the prevalence of a temperate
climate, those of the hyena, elephant, lion, and rhino
ceros to show a tropical climate, and those of the rein
deer to indicate an arctic climate.
It would have been interesting had the Committee
afforded the means of judging what the periods may
have been that have been requisite for the formation of
the floors of stalagmite, and so of estimating the time that
may be occupied in effecting a complete revolution of
the polar axis. But though they have not ventured
upon any such calculation, they give us grounds of
assurance that the periods in question have been very
lengthy ones. At one spot where a former explorer
cleared away the stalagmite twenty-eight years ago, a
constant drip has left a formation, covering a few inches
only, to the thickness of writing paper. At a place
called The Crypt of Dates are inscriptions of names and
initials cut into the stalagmite by visitors, with dates
reaching back to 1618, and yet after a lapse of two
centuries and a half, in a region where the drip is un-
�36
Scripture and Science.
usually copious, and the stalagmite, consisting of the
superior and second floors, here brought together, is
above twelve feet in thickness, these letters, which it is
supposed were never more than an eighth of an inch in
depth, remain still unobliterated. At another place
called The Arcade, there is a boss of stalagmite measur
ing forty feet in circumference, and fully thirteen feet
in height, on the upper part of which is an inscription
of the year 1604, the condition of which shows that the
stalagmite “ has undergone no appreciable augmentation
of volume ” during the period of more than two and a
half centuries that has gone by. Mr Vivian, in a paper
of his on the evidences of Glacial Action in South
Devon, referring to a place in Kent’s Cave called The
Cave of Inscriptions, containing names and initials on
the stalagmite, one of which is of the year 1688, sug
gests that the rate of deposit thereupon may have been
“one-tenth of an inch” “during each one thousand
years.” He does not give the thickness of the stalag
mite at this spot, but supposing his rate may be appli
cable to the twelve feet of stalagmite at The Crypt of
Dates, the period required for that accumulated deposit
would be 1,440,000 years.
The glacial phenomena have been traced by geologists
through the Tertiary and all lower strata down to the
Silurian formation, and here in Kent’s cavern is appa
rent proof that in the modern period in which the
cavern stands have occurred two glacial epochs. Thus,
in correspondence with other abundant indications of a
like tendency, we have evidence of the continuity of
the creative processes, and that there has been no such
interruption thereof as Archdeacon Pratt calls for in
order to establish his idea that there have been two
distinct creations, an ancient and a modern one; and
the vast time that must have been occupied in forming
the stalagmite floors of the cavern, three in number,
with interruptions between the periods caused by the
domination of ice, puts an end to the supposition by
�Scripture and Science.
$7
which he is bound, that what he terms the modern
creation can possibly be brought within anything like
the limits of six thousand years.
The duration of man upon earth, hundreds of thou
sands, and it may be millions of years, beyond the
period marked out in Genesis, is also apparent from the
same quarter. The upper floor of stalagmite in Kent’s
Cave contains, with the remains of extinct animals,
paloeolithic flint implements and charred wood, and in
a portion twenty inches in depth in this deposit have
been found a human tooth and portion of a jaw-bone
containing four teeth. In the cave-earth below have
been discovered similar flint and chert instruments,
burnt bones, charred wood in great quantities, and
“ bone tools and ornaments, consisting of harpoons for
spearing fish, eyed needles or bodkins for stitching
skins together, awls, perhaps, to facilitate the passage
of the slender needle or bodkin through the tough
thick hides, pins for fastening the skins they wore, and
perforated badger’s teeth for necklaces and bracelets.”
In the breccia, below the second floor of stalagmite,
which is described to be in places upwards of twelve
feet in thickness, have been found fifty-six flint and
chert implements and flakes, together with numerous
teeth of the cave bear, five teeth and a portion of the
skull of the lion, and the jaw of a fox—the remains of
the hyena, with his coprolites, which abundantly appear
in the superior cave-earth, and the bones of the various
animals which he may have there dragged in, not
occurring in this more ancient deposit. “ A glance,” it
is said, “ at the implements from the two deposits,” (the
cave earth, and the breccia), “ shows that they are very
dissimilar. Those from the breccia are much more
rudely formed, more massive, have less symmetry of
outline, and were made by operating, not on flakes
purposely struck off from nodules of flint or chert, as
in the case of those from the cave-earth, but directly
on the nodules themselves.” A great age, the Committee
�38
Scripture and Science.
conclude, has intervened between the two eras with
their distinctive deposits, tools, and men; one particular
massive implement they specify, measuring 4'5 inches
by 3 inches, as the finest and the oldest specimen
in the breccia, and this was met with four feet down
in this very ancient and solid deposit.
The evidence for the antiquity of man afforded by
Kent’s cave is consonant to what appears in other
directions. Just such remains of men and animals
occur in other limestone caverns below their stalagmite
floors. So far back as the year 1774, human bones
and fragments of rude pottery, with bones of bears and
hyenas, were found in such a position in caves of
G-ailenreuth in Franconia ; in a similar position, under
a dense crust of stalagmite, Dr Schotte and Baron von
Schlotheim met with human bones, some of which
were eight feet under the remains of a rhinoceros, in
the caves of Kostritz in Upper Saxony; in a breccia
floor, below cave-earth and stalagmite, in the Caverne
de Chauvaux, near Namur, Belgium, Professor A.
Spring discovered five human jaw-bones, a parietal
bone, and a flint hatchet, in contact with remains
of the eland, auroch, and other animals; and in sandy
clay, three metres and a half below the second floor of
stalagmite in the Trou de la Naulette, Belgium, were
found a human jaw-bone, two teeth, and an arm-bone,
with the fragment of a reindeer horn, which had
apparently been bored by some sharp instrument.
Archdeacon Pratt, as his theory made imperative on
him, disputes the fact that vestiges of man have existed
in the Tertiary deposits, but there are certainly seem
ingly reliable statements, showing that they have there
appeared. Mr James Watson is reported to have dis
covered portions of a human skull at Altaville, near
Angelos, Calaveras county, California, in a stratum of
undisturbed Tertiary, at a depth of 130 feet, in a min
ing shaft; M. Desnoyers and the Abbe Bourgeois are
said to have found bones of the elephant and rhinoceros,
�Scripture and Science.
39
with figures of animals engraved thereon, in the upper
Pliocene strata at Prest, near Chartres; in a similar
deposit at Calle del Vento, near Savona, M. Issel, and
in the still deeper Miocene at Selles-sur-Cher (Loire-etCher) the Marquis de Vibraye, are said to have dis
covered bones in like manner exhibiting the figuresMf
animals engraved on them ; and in 1873, Mr Prank
Calvert made known, through Sir John Lubbock, that
from a cliff of the Miocene period, in the vicinity of
the Dardanelles, he extracted a fragment of the joint
of a bone of the dinotherium or mastodon, measuring
nine inches in diameter and five in thickness, with the
figure of a horned animal deeply incised thereon, and
traces of seven or eight other figures which were nearly
obliterated, as also a flint flake and some bones of
animals that had been “ fractured longitudinally,
obviously by the hand of man for the purpose of
extracting the marrow, according to the practice of
all primitive races.”
Mr Calvert concludes from
his own and other such like discoveries, that it is
“ established beyond a question that the antiquity of
man is no longer to be reckoned by thousands, but by
millions of years.”
"With the statement in Genesis, in respect of the
period when the world was formed and occupied by the
human race, thus violently overthrown, the whole
scheme of artificial religion prevailing in Christendom
falls to the ground. The history of Adam, biblically
given as that of the first man, is an essential feature in
this scheme. If he disappears, or was not the first of
the race, the tale of what happened in the garden of
Eden is made void ; and the circumstances narrated to
account for the introduction of sin into the world
becoming unreal, equally unreal must be the special
provision offered to our acceptance as made for the
sin. If we have to do away with the first Adam, it is
impossible to retain upon the scene the second Adam
who was to replace him. The latter is derived from
�4©
Scripture and Science.
“ Enos which was the son of Seth, which wTas the son
of Adam, which was the son of God,” hut if there was
no such root for man as this Adam, created hut 6000
years ago, and the family have really been in existence
hundreds of thousands, and it may be millions of years,
and have sprung from some other stock, the genealogy
proves to be a nullity, and the personage in whose
favour it has been constructed, in the position asserted
for him, becomes in like manner removed from the
field of fact. And thus knowledge, based on possession
of the actualities, always puts an end to fiction, or the
imaginative representations of the ignorant.
TURNBULL AND SPEARS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Scripture and science
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Strange, Thomas Lumisden
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 40 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. A critique of John Henry Pratt, Archbishop of Calcutta's 'Scripture and Science Now at Variance' (London, Hatchard, 1858) using evidence of glacial geology. Printed by Turnbull and Spears, Edinburgh.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Thomas Scott
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1876
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
CT187
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (Scripture and science), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Subject
The topic of the resource
Religion
Science
Conway Tracts
Religion and science