Geology and Revelation: or the Ancient History of the Earth considered in the Light of Geological Facts and Revealed Religion. By the Rev. GERALD MOLLOY, D.D. London: Longmans & Co. 1870. 8vo. Pp. 418.

IT is no small credit to our Established Church that some of her best men have been also noted as our most able geologists.

Buckland, Conybeare, Henslow, Whewell, Sedgwick, and many others, have done credit alike to the Gown and to the Hammer.

Nor have the clergy of other denominations failed to furnish illustrations of geological workers and writers. The Rev. David Ure, the Rev. Dr. John Fleming of the Scotch Church, and the Rev. J. McEnery,* a Roman Catholic clergyman at Torquay, have largely aided in the promotion of geological science.

The author of the present work is also a Catholic clergyman and Professor of Theology in the Royal College of St. Patrick, Maynooth; where, being engaged in expounding the evidences of revealed religion, he met with difficulties in reconciling with them certain geological phenomena and speculations. He therefore resolved to make himself acquainted with the leading facts of the science, and for this purpose consulted the works of our great geological masters. He determined to consider the subject "in a candid and philosophical spirit," being, however, "impressed with the conviction that no fact can be really at variance with revealed truth."

The results of his inquiry he offers to those who, feeling like himself the necessity of it, have no time nor opportunity to pursue such an investigation.

His

In the present volume, Dr. Molloy treats of the bearing of the great antiquity of the earth, with the history that is given in Genesis. In a future volume he hopes to discuss the antiquity of man. work is divided into two parts. The first is devoted to an outline of geological facts and phenomena. Contrary to the majority of authors who have treated of geology and religion, Dr. Molloy displays a very good knowledge of geological science, and this summary, which is written in a similar style to Page's 'Geology for General Readers,' can be read with advantage by those for whom our manuals afford too much dry detail. It contains the essential facts of geology, and is very agreeably written.

The second part of the work, the conclusions of geologists, are compared with the "truths of revelation." Dr. Molloy endeavours to adapt the periods of geology to the six days of Genesis-a sub

* Mr. McEnery's name will always be associated with the earliest exploration of Kent's Cavern, and the finding of human remains (in 1824-5) associated with hyæna, &c., in undisturbed deposits beneath the stalagmitic floor of this now historic cave.

ject that has already led to the publication of so many speculative books.

The chronology of the Bible, he admits, does not go back to the beginning of the world. There may have been, he thinks, a long interval of time between the creation of the world, and the work of the six days. He regards the six days as probably of indefinite, though not necessarily of unequal length, and proceeds to arrange the geological formations into six divisions to indicate the different work done on each of the days. Apparently the seventh day is going on at the present time. Taking the history of organic life into consideration, he regards plants and trees as created on the third day (= Carboniferous Period); reptiles, fish, and birds on the fifth day (= Cretaceous, Jurassic, and Triassic Periods); and the beasts of the earth, including man, on the sixth day (= Tertiaries, &c.). The other three days were devoted to light, sun, moon, stars, &c., and we must not expect to find geological indications of them.

Respecting the fact that organic life, both plants and animals, prevailed upon the earth for many ages before the Carboniferous Period began, we need do no more than quote Dr. Molloy's ingenious answer: "The sacred writer tells us, no doubt, that on the third day God created plants and trees; but he does not say, either expressly or otherwise, that previous to the third day the earth was devoid of vegetation.

"Again, we read that reptiles, fish, and birds were created on the fifth day. But there is nothing in the language of the inspired narrative from which it can be inferred that these several classes of animal life may not have been represented, before that time, by many and various species: though, probably, it was only on the fifth day that they were developed in such vast numbers, and assumed such gigantic proportions, as to become the most conspicuous objects of

creation.'

We have, in the foregoing brief notice, given some idea of the scope of Dr. Molloy's volume. If we could see the feasibility of arriving at any close agreement between geological facts and the history given in Genesis, we should welcome such a volume as this one, coming as it evidently does from an able and candid writer. But when a strained interpretation has to be put upon the one history so as to make it accord with the other, and especially when it is found needful to adopt such explanations as that above quoted, we cannot but feel that this, as well as almost every other attempt at dividing geological time into the procrustean limit of six periods, representing the six days mentioned in Genesis, helps us in no way towards a satisfactory concordance between the testimony of Moses and the testimony of the rocks.

A perusal of the first part of Dr. Molloy's work-especially the very impartial manner in which he discusses the facts and deductions

arrived at by geologists-gave us a very favourable opinion of the book. We were disappointed, however, with the second part, and can only regret that the author has not done equal justice to the theological side of the question, if it can be said to have a theological side.

The question very naturally arises in our mind, Why should theology and geology be reconciled? has the one any ground in common with the other? The Bible was never intended to teach geology, nor the rocks ever intended to teach theology, save that they speak of unity of design, and uniformity of action in creation from the earliest times to the present day.

CHRONICLES OF SCIENCE,

Including the Proceedings of Learned Societies at Home and Abroad; and Notices of Recent Scientific Literature.

1. AGRICULTURE.

THE sewage question has had its full share of attention during the past quarter. Before the Institution of Surveyors, the Society of Arts, and the London Farmers' Club, town sewage has been discussed as a possible source of profit to agriculturists and to ratepayers: and in the Report of the Rivers Pollution Commission, just presented to Parliament, it is discussed as a nuisance to be abated. In this report the agricultural remedy for the nuisance, being the only one by which it may be made a source of profit, is held out as trustworthy and efficient-but other remedies are also pointed out. Filtration-not the mere action of a sieve upon suspended matters, but filtration of the kind which venous blood undergoes when passing through the lungs is a satisfactory remedy. If sewage be passed in an intermittent way downwards through a sufficiently capacious filter, displacing at each access the air with which the filter becomes filled in the intervals, it undergoes a thorough oxidation, and comes out with all its organic matter oxidized and rendered harmless. In this way, however, not only is a nuisance abated, but a valuable property is destroyed. All the agricultural analogies point to the fertilizing character of town sewage. Man ought to be as useful a species of farm stock as sheep. Everybody knows the fertilizing effect of the sheepfold. The 20 millions of sheep in England are the very safeguard of the permanent fertility of all our light soils. The 20 millions of "man"-for the two animals are singularly alike in number and weight-ought to be at least as valuable to the farmer. At present, man as farm stock is almost good for nothing. No doubt, the lesson which we are learning of his agricultural value at Edinburgh, Aldershot, Barking, Banbury, Warwick, Rugby, Bedford, Croydon, Norwood, Worthing, and elsewhere, will ultimately convince both town and country of the waste that is being now incurred. Perhaps the enthusiasm of those who believe in it, as well as the vis inertia of the incredulous, has had something to do with the dilatoriness of public opinion on the subject. It has been supposed that sewage will overrule the influence of climate, soil, and even the specific character of plant and animal. This however is a mistake. The proper conclusion is, that for most ordinary English agricultural crops of succulent growth, sewage, applied with discretion, is of unequalled fertilizing power; but for crops to which our climate is

of only occasional and doubtful fitness, sewage, like other manures, will produce only occasional or doubtful results. The life and character of a plant are, in fact, an unalterable "quantity" in all agricultural calculations. They may be improvable within very narrow limits; but no enthusiastic belief in the power of any new agency in agriculture should blind us to the fact that, however animals and, a fortiori, men, who are capable of influence by many other motives besides the merely material ones, may improve under education, plants have very limited capacities indeed. We may educate our animals to some extent to bear with and perhaps to profit by an unaccustomed set of circumstances, but plants must be simply selected for their ascertained natural aptitudes. Happily there are plants enough for which our climate is well adapted by which we can most perfectly utilize the agency of sewage. Italian ryegrass, mangold wurzel, cabbages, celery, asparagus, and strawberries all prosper wonderfully under its influence; and even grain crops, judiciously treated, will answer satisfactorily to the sewage whip. We may hope, therefore, soon to see a profitable and wholesome conversion of town drainage, now so great a plague, into useful agricultural produce-good milk and vegetables, or even strawberries and cream!

The question of manure adulteration has occupied the attention of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, whose chemist, Dr. Voelcker, is now authorized to publish every month all analyses of adulterated foods and manures which pass through his hands: and accordingly several very glaring instances have been gibbeted in this way of worthless guanoes and superphosphates, in which gypsum, earth, chalk, and sand figure in place of the genuine ingredients of imported guano and bone-ash. This exposure of the risks which the farmer incurs by incaution in the manure market is the more necessary, when his success now more than ever seems to depend on brains and bones-his own brains, as the 'Agricultural Gazette' says, and somebody else's bones!

The current number of the English Agricultural Society's Journal' contains an interesting report of Belgian agriculture, from which, however, we do not gather any justification of the opinion which has hitherto been prevalent, that the small farming of that country is the best agriculture in the world. Of other communications which the Journal lays before its readers, we may name Dr. Voelcker's elaborate investigation into the value of beet pulp, the refuse of the beet-sugar manufacture, and his report of experiments which appear to indicate the usefulness of potash salts in manure for mangold wurzel. There are also reports on the cheese farms of Cheshire and on the American cheese factory system. Mr. Bailey Denton also calls attention in its pages to the possibilities of village sanitary economy in respect of water supply, cottage