REGENT EXPLORATION AND SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1274, 30 July 1886, Page 4

REGENT EXPLORATION AND SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION.

The Director of tho Geological Stir vpy of Ireland, Professor If uli, F.R.S., -delivered tire Annual Address of the Victoria (Philosophical) Institute iu London, on tho 2Sth of May*, on which occasion the Institute’s now President, Professor Stokes, President of the Itoyijl Society, took tho chair. The report was read by Captain P. Petrie, the honorary secretary, and showed I hat the Institute’s home, colonial, and foreign members were upwards of eleven hundred, including many who joined from a desire to avail themselves of the Institute’s privileges. An increasing number of leading scientific men now contributed papers and aided iu the work of bringing about a truer appreciation of the result of scientific inquiry, especially in cases where scientific discovery was alleged by tho opponents of religious beliefs to bo subversive thereof. The author of the Address then gave an account of the work, discoveries, and general results of the recent Geological and Geographical Expedition to Egypt, Arabia, and Western Palestine, of which ho had charge. Sketching the course taken by him (which to a considerable extent took the route ascribed to the Israelites), he gave an account of the physical features of tho country, evis deuces of old sea margins 200 feet •above the present se >. margins, and allowed that at one time an arm of the Mediterranean had occupied the valley of the Nile as fat as the First Cataract, at which time Africa was an is l and (an opinion also arrived at by another of the Institute's members, Sir W. Dawson), and that, at the time of the Exodus, tho Had Sea ran up into the Bitter Lake*, and must have formed a barrier to the travellers progress at that period, Ho then alluded to the groat changes of elevation in the land

enshvo.nl it* those lakes, mentioning that tho waters of tbs Jordan valley once stood 1232 feet above their pres sent Leith:-, and that the waters of tho Dead hen, which ho found 1050 feet deep, were once ou a level with the present-Mediterranean sea margin, or 1292 feet above their present "height. The great physical changes which had taken place in geological time were evidenced hy tho fact that whilst the rocks in 'W'cstemTalestme were generally limestone, those of tho mountains of Sinai wore amongst tho most ancient iu the world The various geological and geographical features of the country were so described as to make the address a condensed report of all that is now known of them iu Egypt, Palestine, and .Arabia Potraea. Sir .Henry Burkly, G.0.j1.Ct., E.XI.S,, moved a vote of thanks to Professor lin'd, ami to those who had contri luited to tho work of the Institute dining tho year, wh eh included AsRyviolo 1 : tool invest igations l>y Professor Sryco, 31 v Bosc-awca, anil others; M. JJasporo’s and Copt. Conder’a Egyptian papers; Prolcssor Porter’s Eastern rescui chcs; also a review of the question of Evolution by Professor Virchow, and tho results of tho investigations in regard to tho subject of the eri .in of man, as to which it had been shov,m by Hr William Dawson, that geology divided the chronology of animal ; ifc into four “great periods”; in the first, —or Mr-zoic, —iu the Geological as iu the .Bible records, were found iho great reptiles; and tho last, or Tertiary, was again subdivided into five “ periods,” and it was only iu the hart of these, the “modern.” period, that tho evidences of man’s presence had been found. Again, as regards his ape descent, tho formation and proportions of the skull and bones of the ana coasid-'ved most like man were found to be so different from those of man as to place insuperable difficulties in the way of the theory. Iu the gorilla, tho high crest on the skull, which was also found iu the hyena, was absent in man. Also, among other points, if the capacity of tho brain of the anthropoid ape wore taken at ten, that of man even in his savage state was twenty-six, or nearly thrice as much, a very important fact when, as it was known, any appreciable diminution in the brain of man was at onro ace nvianic by; idiocy. As regards the transmit tab! lily of species, Bamndo’s arguments against tho theory, founded ou tho results of a life ot research among the fossil strata, had not yet been overthrown; and modern research clearly pointed to the fact that one great bar to the trans--mutability of species lay in the refined and mi onto differences in the molecular arrangements in their

organs. The proceedings were concluded by

a rote of thanks to Professor Stokes, under whose Presidency it was remarked that, the work of the Institute would bo carried out with the increased help and guidance of men of the highest, scientific attainments, and in a mannerito tend to advance Truth. A conversazione was then hold in the Museum.