MOSES REFUTED.

Oamaru Mail, Volume I, Issue 320, 2 May 1877, Page 4

MOSES REFUTED.

The subjoined ludicrous production from J the New York Times is one of the best burlesques on the "scientific method" has come under notice. The " hit " aTgeologlstsi who construct elaborate theories on exceedingly frail suppositions mtghV well be extended learned professors in other of science, who have reared wonderful fabrics of apparent facta solely fr ool tne "scientific" (I) use of their imagination. *' A new and violent blow has just been •track at the Mosaic account of creation by the discovery of an extremely important fossil in a coffee sack at Baltimore. In the centre of this sack was found the akull of a monkey. There can be no doubt as to the facts. The coffee was of the variety called Rio, and the skull was perfectly preserved. Let us dwell for a little upon the meaning of this discovery as interpreted by the principles of geology. The coffee sack was 12 (say 12£) inches m diameter, and four feet in height. The akull, which lay in the middle of it, -was therefore two feet below the surface. To suppose that it was violently forced into the sack after the latter was full would be eminently unscientific. No one imagines that the fossil birds of the old red sandstone dug down into that locality through the superincumbent strata. Nothing is more universally conceded than that fossils are always found where they belong. The animals whose remains we find in the rocks of the paleoloic, the Metho-Gothic, and the SyroPhcenician strata belong, respectively, to those several systems. The fossil monkey akull was, therefore, deposited in the coffee sack when the latter was half full, and the two feet of coffee which rested upon it was a subsequent deposit. Now, it follows from this premise that monkeys existed daring the early part of the Rio coffee period. It is the opinion of most geologists that the Rio coffee period succeeded the tertiary period, and immediately preceded the present period. Now. no tertiary monkeys have yet been found; bnt the Baltimore discovery shows that monkeys existed as early as the middle of the Rio coffee period, a date far earlier than any which has hitherto been assigned to them. "We are now in a position to inquire what is the least period of time which must have elapsed since the skull of the Baltimore monkey was the property of a live and active simian. The answer to this question must be sought by ascertaining the rate at which coffee is deposited. It is the opinion of Mr. Huxley, "based upon a long and careful examination of over 300 garbage boxes, that coffee is deposited in a ground condition at the rate of an inch in a thousand centuries ; but the deposition of ungroucd coffee is almost infinitely slower. He has placed bags, coffee-mills, and other receptacles in secluded places, and left them for months at a time, without finding the slightest traces of coffee in them. Although Huxley does not hazard a guess at the rate of deposition of unground Rio coffee, Professor Tyndal does not hesitate to say that it is at least as ■low as the rate of deposition of tomato cans. Let us suppose, as we are abundantly justified in doing, that 30,000,000 of years would be required to bring about the deposition of a stratum of tomato cans one foot thick all over the surface of the globe, and an equally long period must certainly have elapsed while a foot of unground coffee was accumulating over the akull of the Ba'tiniore monkey. We thus ascertain that the monkey in question yielded up his particular variety of ghost and became a fossil fully 30,000,000 of years ago. Probably even this enormous period of time is much less than the actual period which has elapsed since that monkey's decease; and we may consider ourselves safe in assigning to his skull the age of 50,000,000 years, besides a few odd months. " In the light of this amazing revelation what becomes of Moses and his 6,000 Sears T It will hardly escape notice that e nowhere mentions Rio coffee. Obviously, this omission is due to the fact that he knew nothing of it. But if he was unacquainted with one of the most recent formations, how can we suppose that he knew anything about the elder rocks—the meaomorphic and stereoscopic strata ? And yet it is this man, ignorant of the plainest facts of geology, and of its very simplest strata, who boldly assumes to tell us all about the creation !"