Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 39.djvu/69

Rh the traditions of a deluge, is an "hypothesis which involves only the trifle of a physical revolution of which geology knows nothing." Now here we have a positive assertion; and it is one which can only be met by a contradiction as direct and flat as truth demands, and as the courtesies of literature will allow. Once upon a time in discussion with an illustrious and venerable man, Prof. Huxley felt called upon to say that his opponents' assertions were "demonstrably contrary to fact." I may safely assume, therefore, that this is a form recognized by the highest authority as occasionally required even in the calm and lofty debates of science. This, accordingly, is the form of contradiction which I now venture to adopt in meeting the confident assertion of Prof. Huxley. I do so, however, declaring emphatically that I have no suspicion whatever that Prof. Huxley intended to deceive anybody, whether himself or others. All that I am sure of is that if others believe what he says on this matter they will be deceived, and deceived grossly. The explanation lies in the fact that, in the hot pursuit of his theological antipathies, he has made the very simple and natural mistake of confounding "geology" with himself. But these two are not identical or convertible terms. He may not have seen—because prejudice has shut his eyes—some things which geology has seen, and seen very clearly too. He may not know of, or recognize the full import of, facts which geology does know of, and has established. But whether he knows of them or not—whether he has ever "put two and two together" in respect to them—it does so happen that among the difficult problems of Quaternary geology, three great salient conclusions have been established. The first is, that among the very last and latest changes in the history of the globe there was a great extension to the south of the conditions of climate which are known as glacial. The second is, that during part of that time—and almost certainly during the very last part of it—or even since it ended—there was, over some great part at least of the northern hemisphere, a great submergence of the land under the waters of the sea. The third is that man had already appeared upon the earth, and had more or less spread upon it, before that late submergence took place, and must, therefore, have been a witness, and may possibly have been a victim, to it. Now, the first two of these conclusions are not only "known to geology," but are among its most widely accepted doctrines, while the third has made great progress and is rapidly—taking if, indeed, it has not already taken—the same place and rank in the category of discovered and admitted truths.

If, then, these three great facts have acquired this position and even if they be disputed by a few writers, or by Prof. Huxley