-adjutor. To see this precious stick of wood, in fear, Sir; "I can't, Sir."' "Not drink!-you don't come here to The merry mortal said, by way [pray," of answer. "To pray, Sir! no:"-" My lad, 'tis wellCome, here is our friend Sach [ever] ell! · Here's Trappy! Here's Ormond'!--Marr! In short, so many Traitors we drank, it made my crani -um nappy. th' had drest me, I took my leave, with many a tear, who blest me. The Master said, they might believe him, So righteously (the Lord forgive him) he'd govern, He'd show me the extremest love, too stubborn. So far, so good: but now fresh fees Began (for so the custom is) my ruinFresh fees! with drink they knock you down; You spoil your clothes, and your new gown you spue in. I scarce had slept-at six, tan tin The bell goes-Servitor comes in, gives warning: I wish'd the scoundrel at old Nick ! I went to prayers exceeding sick that morning. One who could come half drunk to prayer, They saw was entered, and would swear at random ; Would bind himself, as they had done, derstand them. REVIEW OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. Fairholme on the Mosaic Deluge. 1837. IT is well known that the learned and ingenious author of this work differs from the reasonings and conclusions of many of the leading geologists of the day, as respects the account of the Creation and of the Deluge. Their opinion is, that there have been several deluges on the face of the earth; that these deluges have been partial, have been violent, have occurred at distinct æras, and that among them that it is impossible to fix on any one, which we could assert to be the scriptural or Noachic deluge others deny the universality of that deluge; and all agree that many of these catastrophes occurred in periods most remote, and consequently presume the earth, before it was inhabited by man, to have existed, to use the language of the professor, for an eternity. These reasonings Mr. Fairholme disputes: he does not agree as to the immensely remote age of the earth, and he considers that the marks of the Deluge, as related by Moses, the very deluge which we read of in the days of Noah,-are visible, and plainly visible, in the configuration of the surface of the present earth. And then he argues, from certain data, that the present surface, or present constitution of its fabric, could not vary much in age from the scriptural account; and indeed might be brought unexpectedly close to it. The facts which are the two main pillars of Mr. Fairholme's argument are drawn from the detrition of the soil, by the force of cataracts or torrents, or from the detrition of cliffs as compared to their natural or original shape. In both cases he argues upon the data of the rate of their present destruction, and their shape; and then, by carrying that calculation to the whole channel worn by the torrent, or to the height of the cliff, he judges of the time necessary to have completed the detrition, from the present commencement of things to the present day. We hope we have expressed ourselves so as to make the line of argument easily intelligible to our readers, and we shall therefore now adopt the author's own illustraGENT. MAG. Vol. VIII. tions which he brings to the discovery of the fact of the General Deluge, and its recent occurrence, as well as to its having been the only event of the kind to which our globe has been subjected: to establish this, his new proofs are brought. Mr. Fairholme commences, or lays the foundation of his argument, by giving a general outline of the superficial forms or surface of the exist ing dry lands, continents, and islands, great and small. The result of which, to give it in plain familiar language, is, that they slope gradually from some interior or central point, with valleys descending to the exact water-level, the sea, and assume that rounded, softened shape of swell and curve, as if a body of waters had rested on them and then gradually drained away. If the author could shew that this was the general feature of the existing lands, it would prove the universal presence, at some former time, of a flood, and evince a generally submerged surface; and so the Noachic deluge is described as a deluge over the whole earth. If he could shew that the presence of this deluge was not marked by terrific convulsions of nature, or violent changes by earthquakes or volcanoes in the bosom of the earth, it would more agree with the scriptural account of the Deluge, and it would be sufficient to effect the moral purpose for which it was sent by Divine displeasure-the destruction of life. Mr. Fairholme commences by estathe flow of rivers must necessarily blishing, as he affirms, this point, that have commenced, on the very first day that the present dry lands became elevated above the waters, and the whole system of valleys must have arisen simultaneously, by the force of descending waters; hence arises that simple uniformity which the surface of dry lands now exhibits. This uniformity, however, of a descending level is interrupted by the abrupt fall of cataracts; and on this exception to the general law is our author's argument founded. We will give it as it first appears in his words (p. 146): "From a certain day, at a certain year, 3 C a power of friction was begun at every waterfall, which has of course been ceaseless, and which must continue as long as the present dry lands exist above the ocean. Now as this ceaseless friction of the rivers never could extend beyond the bounds of the highest winter floods, and would be much more constant in the lower channel of the summer streams, we should expect to find corresponding marks of these varied effects at every such rocky impediment in a river's course. But on this point of our inquiry, a sudden gleam of light bursts in upon the mind. For as we have here a perpetual motion, which acts on the resisting body of the rock with the regularity of a saw-mill or any other artificial mechanism, and as we know that this ceaseless action must have commenced on a certain day, it becomes clear that we may arrive at the knowledge of that interesting day, if like the mechanic we can ascertain the rate of work done during any given period of time. This may appear a difficult, but is by no means a hopeless task, and the great importance of the result, in a scientific point of view, is well calculated to repay us for any time or trouble we may spend in the elucidation of it." Mr. Fairholme then considers the Falls of Niagara, and the distinct evidences which they afford of a definite and recent commencement. The total distance between Lakes Erie and Ontario is but 36 miles; and as the first 17 and the last 12 are of the usual easy slope, and navigable, the inquiries as to the cause and working of the cataract are confined within the narrow limits of seven miles. The difference of level between the two lakes amounts to 290 feet. The water is computed at more than one hundred millions of tons per hour. The wearing away of the rock by the torrent amounts to an annual average of 3 feet 4 inches; and the falls are retrograding at the rate of 40 or 50 yards in 40 years. This, according to the calculations made, would amount to 11,088 years for the execution of the whole work of cutting through the seven miles. Thus making the fullest allow ances, we cannot trace the existing state of things on the American continent further back than 10 or 12,000 years; but by calculations on data furnished by the breadth of the channel of the river and the force of the water on it, our author reduces the time of 10,000 years to about half that time, which harmonizes with the scrip tural account of the time since the disappearance of the Noachic flood. The author then proceeds to his second arguments, to prove the limited period of the present constitution of things, by the abrading action of the sea upon its coasts. The author sets out on his calculations with the following position :-" all dry lands, of whatever extent, bear the same stamp. They are all more or less of a smooth and rounded form, more elevated in their central points than towards their edges, and their slopes universally point to the exact level of the surrounding ocean." The author's plan of calculation is simply this. He takes the line of this sloping cliff, and carries it down to the point where it meets the level of the sea, at its full and unbroken declension. He calculates the extent of the annual loss of the cliff by abrasion of the waters now going on; he carries that calculation back to the whole extent of cliff, from its point of breakage to its water level, and thus ascertains the number of years which it has taken to effect the whole disintegration from the first day that the cliff was formed, and the waters of the ocean rolled around it. He takes the cliffs of the isle of Thanet, of Sheppy, of the isle of Wight as examples. Calculations made in the isle of Thanet have given an average loss of 900 yards, or nearly half a mile. When the cliffs are high, the loss was about 200 or 300 yards; in lower cliffs it extended nearly a mile. We will give the result of the investigation in the author's words: "We find conclusive evidence of these rounded slopes (of cliffs) being broken in this new force must have had its com. upon by the force of the waves, and that mencement, as the previous aqueous injury had its termination, on a certain day. This day cannot be more remote than 4 or 5000 years; therefore, between these two dates, the termination of one force and the commencement of another must be found, and both must necessarily have been simultaneous; as the nature of the last, the waves, admits no pause, no cessation." After many other proofs of a similar kind, our author sums up his evidences in the following manner, but which is much abridged by us. 1. Valleys form combinations of inland drainage, falling in all directions to the exact level of the sea. The dry valleys accord in their levels with the rest of the system, proving that the agent by which these grooves were made (i. e. water), is no longer to be seen on the surface of our continents. 2. We find the side valleys falling into inland lakes, being hollowed out to the exact level of such lakes. 3. We find in these falls the clearest testimony in proof of the whole system having been simultaneously formed. 4. In all well-defined waterfalls, the amount of loss can be shewn to be but small, and they consequently oppose the theory of immense periods of time. Niagara forms a peculiarly strong instance of power in the agent and of weakness in the resisting body, so that we point to the time of its commencement. Niagara is working at a certain rate in a hundred years. The distance from the present fall to the point where it first began, is only seven miles; we arrive at a definite period for that event, and that period is of about 4 or 5000 years. 5. Presuming that the other rivers in America are similar to that of Niagara, we are led to the origin of the American continent, as a dry land, at a period of not more than 4 or 5000 years. and fitted it for the habitation of man, as in the existence of mineral coal. Now, against this our author observes (p. 412), that the deposition of sedimentary matter has taken place with such rapidity, that the ripple and other water-marks of one bed, had not time to be destroyed by the action of the air on the waters, before they were covered up and for ever preserved by subsequent depositions in superincumbent beds; and we have other proofs of such rapidity in the occasional stems of tall plants intersecting many different strata, and placed at various angles, vertical and horizontal. These strata being frequently of 2 or 3 feet thickness, and bearing ripple and other water-marks between the strata, thus indicating a periodical deposition and repose, somewhat resembling the ebb and flow of the tide. There is one other point in Mr. Fairholme's treatise to which it would be impossible not to refer, and that is the discovery of fossil human bones, a discovery which would most materially interfere with many important conclusions of the Geologists, and indeed require a most severe revisal of their theories. "A few years ago (he says) some French Geologists were so powerfully struck with the mixture of human and other bones, in some of the caves of the south of France, that a more strict scru. tiny was instituted, and the results were published in a paper by M. Tournal, jun., of Narbonne, in No. 52 of Annales de Chimie et de Physique,' from which the following is a short extract. In speak 6. The superficial forms of all lands have an inclination towards the sea; and this sloping line of land touches the sea at a small distance from the present cliffs. The present lands, then, rose into existence, at a certain definite period. The average loss of the cliffs is half a mile, or 880 yards. ing of human remains, M. Tournal says, This, at an average loss of six inches, would give a period of about 5000 years. 7. Thus these indexes, taken from the abrasion of cliffs, indicate the birth of European lands at the very same period with that which Niagara points out as the origin of the other hemisphere; proving to demonstration, not only the long-denied fact of a commencement to the present system of things, but also the very recent period of that commencement. Thus it is that our author opposes the theories of the present Geologists, as to the immense periods of time during which the earth was undergoing the processes which at length brought it to its present state The heads of the Geological world would have it they were in all cases recent and accidental, and their opinions had the effect of deciding the point as a subject unworthy of further discussion. However, the discovery of the Caves of Aude, of Herault, and of Gard, in the south of France, offers to the observer a crowd of human bones and of ancient pottery, mixed up in the very same mud with those of hyænas, lions, tigers, stags, and a number of other animals of lost kinds. Attention was therefore again called to the subject, and MM. Marcel de Serres, Jules de Christal, and myself, after an attentive and conscientious examination, have come to the conclusion, that all these objects were of the same date, and consequently that man was contemporaneous with the animals now lost from the surface of the globe. Our conclusions were principally based on the equal alteration of the bones and of the manner of their deposit in the caves. We have not hesitated, therefore, notwithstanding the repugnance which our observations may occasion, to proclaim our belief that man exists in a fossil state.'"' The author then proceeds to show, first, that these gentlemen were not biased in their opinion by any reverence to the authority of Scripture, or belief in it. He then adds, "The most conclusive instance that has as yet occurred, is the idea that any one admitted instance of man as fossil, is as good as a thousand, for the purpose of establishing this long-contested fact. The instance in question occurred at Köstritz, a small town in the beautiful vale of Elster, in Upper Saxony. A very clear account was given of this deposit in 1820, by the Baron Von Schlotheim, published at Gotha, and translated from the German by Mr. Weaver, in the Annals of Philosophy for 1823. Dissatisfied, however, with the objections which had been urged against the expressed opinion of the Baron * - that man was unquestionably found in a fossil state in this deposit,'-I myself visited Köstritz, and spent several days there in the summer of 1834, for the express purpose of a careful examination of the locality and the circumstances. Without entering into a full detail of the Geological facts exhibited in this interesting spot, it may be sufficient to state, that the whole of this undulating country is of the most smooth and rounded forms on the surface, but the quarries are of gypsum, used as lime; that they occur on the rising ground, on the left bank of the valley, and so far above the level of the river, as altogether to preclude the idea of the human bones having been subsequently mingled with those more ancient fossil bones by any land-flood, or other local cause, which situation has been suggested as probable by Dr. Buckland, in alluding to the Baron's account of the fossils of Köstritz. * After removing 6 or 8 feet of this diluvium, the workmen reached the calcareous rock of which they were in search. This is described by M. Von Schlotheim as follows:- At Politz the upper quarry is extremely instructive, exhibiting wide fissures and caverns entirely filled with the alluvial loam (diluvium) which covers the whole country to a great extent. Considerable masses of stalactite appear in several places, and here principally were found those bones of land quadrupeds found in my collection. They were met with at the depth of 20 feet, embedded in the loam of one of the widest cavities. All the bones are more or less charged and penetrated with calcareous matter. The condition of the greater part is nearly the same as the bones found at Gaylen Reuth, Scharzfeled, and the other German bone caves; and hence it seems probable that they were of an equal age, and referable to the same epoch of the ancient world. At Köstritz the entire gypseous mass is intersected and perforated by fissures and cavities which follow every direction, and are connected with each other by serpentine channels of larger or smaller dimensions. They are filled throughout with the alluvial deposits, even to the greatest depth. And this loamy sediment appears to be deposited horizontally for short distances, yielding in clusters as it were, and in precisely the same circumstances, a number of land animals, amongst which are disclosed to view also human bones.' Such are the words of Baron Von Schlotheim, who thus sums up the evidence : It is also evident that the human bones could never have been buried here, nor have fallen into fissures in the gypsum during battles in ancient times, nor have been thus mutilated and lodged by any other accidental cause in more modern times; inasmuch as they are always found with the other animal remains under the same relations, not constituting connected skeletons, but collected in various groupes in the deposits of loam that occupy the fissures and cavities of the gypsum. They appear, therefore, to have been strictly fossil, and to have been swept thither by floods, with other animal remains, at the period of the formation of the alluvial tract itself. It has already been remarked by Cuvier, that the epoch of a great deluge, by which many animals were destroyed, whose remains are now found in alluvial (diluvial) tracts alone, and containing strata of an earlier æra, nearly coincides with our chronology. And the traditions of such a deluge preserved among all nations now appear confirmed by the instructive documents at present lying before us.' The author then mentions that in these places are found the bones of the rhinoceros, lion, tiger, hyena, horse, ox, deer, hare, rabbit, the owl and other birds. Subsequently the bones of the elephant, elk, and reindeer. obvious an anomaly as a mixture of the remains of the latter with those of the elephant and rhinoceros never could have occurred but for the confusion arising from some such event as a general deluge; since the structure of the feet and bones of a reindeer obviously bespeaks the stormy So |