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JOHN A. GRAY,

PRINTER, STEREOTYPER, AND BINDER, Corner of Frankfort and Jacob Streets,

FIRE-PROOF BUILDINGS.

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THE TESTIMONY OF GEOLOGY TO THE AGE OF THE HUMAN RACE.*

[EDITOR'S NOTE.-In giving place to the following article, which contains an admirable resumé of recent discoveries and opinions on the subject of which it treats, we assure our readers that we are far from accepting as sufficient and satisfactory the data here given, on the basis of which the commonly received chronology of the Bible is sought to be set aside, and the time of man on this earth of ours extended back some "fifteen or twenty thousand years before our era." Aside from these bold theories and startling assumptions, which the reader will let go for what they are worth, we commend the article as worthy of a careful perusal.]

THE progress of discovery in geology has already set aside so many of what were long considered fundamental facts of natural history, and has enforced such a complete modification of the views at one time entertained concerning the history of the earth and its inhabitants, that

*An Account of some recent Researches near Cairo, undertaken with the view of throwing light upon the Geological History of the Alluvial Land of

Egypt; instituted by LEONARD HORNER, Esq., V.P.R.S Phil. Trans. of Royal Society for 1855, p. 105, and 1858, p. 53.

Reliquiæ Diluviana: Observations on the Organic Remains contained in Caves, Fissures, and Diluvial Gravel. By the Rev. W. BUCKLAND, D.D., F.R.S. 4to. London, 1823.

Cavern Researches; or, Discoveries of Organic Remains and of British and Roman Relics in the Caves of Kent's Hole, Anste's Cove, Chudleigh, and VOL, L.-NO. 1

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doubt what the ultimate result must be ; | that all the typical varieties of the human and those who shut their eyes to truth, race were well known, and were as clearly because it is opposed to their preconceiv- marked as they are now by social as well ed notions and convictions, are little aware as physical peculiarities. The negro, for how damaging to themselves and those example, was then a woolly-headed, thickguided by them is the ultimate decision lipped black, with a receding forehead, against them, which must some day be indicating a humbly-developed intellect, adapted to serve rather than command. It is fair to inquire how far the time assumed to have elapsed between the Noachian deluge and the birth of Moses could in the natural course of things have brought about this result; for we find no where intimated any miraculous interference with the laws of nature, and are certainly not justified in assuming any thing of the kind in reference to this point. The history, as read by the picture-writing of the country, and as measured by the ancient monuments and by the change of surface of the ground, tells a very different story; and a careful investigation of the former kind of evidence has led to the conclusion expressed by the Chevalier Bunsen in the following passage, extracted from the preface to the fourth book of his Egyptens Stelle in der Weltgeschichte, published in 1856:

These remarks are intended to apply to a subject already attracting great attention, and likely soon to be the question of the day among all who take an interest not only in geology and archæology, but in the recognized chronology as applied to human and biblical history. Probably few non-scientific persons would hesitate to reply, if asked how long the human race has existed on the globe, that the period was something less than six thousand years; and perhaps most such persons would think themselves bound to this belief by their respect for and confidence in the Bible. With matters of biblical criticism, and the various differences of opinion amongst commentators in this matter, we have here nothing to do; but we may set forth with stating our conviction that the chronology, like the natural history and astronomy, of the Bible is an open question, and a legitimate subject of human research.

There is ample ground in the ordinary range of history, and yet more in the study of language and of the physical differences of the various branches of he human family, to justify an inquiry nto the antiquity of our race.

That cerain events followed each other in a cer

ain sequence, may be true; but that they succeeded each other so rapidly as they must have done to occupy only a few thousand years, is in the highest degree improbable.

No illustration of this is more apposite than the case of Egypt, where we look back with all the aids of history, and with actual records, to a certain point, and trace without much difficulty a series of races, more or less civilized, till we reach the age of the Pharaohs in the time of Moses, when the Israelites departed from Egypt, and the actual history of the Jews as a people may be said to have commenced.

At this time the hieroglyphics clearly prove that there existed among the Egyptians an amount of civilization not inferior in many respects to the highest advances of subsequent centuries; and there is equally satisfactory proof

"An examination of the time from Alexander to Menes, and of the vastly remote codocumentary beginnings of a great developtemporaneous events of Asiatic life, leads us to ment more or less chronologically determinable. But when we come to consider more closely the unmistakable purely historical time, before Menes, of separate kingdoms and particular provinces, we discover that these earlier ages belong to a period when the foundation of that entire language and mythology. The author believes development rested upon the formation of that he is justified in maintaining this to be a fact in historical science.

Records forming a documentary history of nations, extend to about four thousand years before our era; and an early period of long duration must necessarily have preceded these. When we assign to that period a duration of from six thousand to nine thousand years for Egypt, and from fifteen thousand to sixteen thousand years for man's existence, it is no arbitrary and presumptuous application of research, but an emancipation of ourselves from an error which throws every thing into confusion. The first epochs of the history of the human race demand at the least a period of this extent; and its commencement twenty thousand years before our era is a fair starting-point in the earth's history."

It is not in Egypt alone that this kind of evidence exists. Throughout the East there are, among the ancient people there

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