Forlong - Rivers of Life

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Rivers of Life, or Faiths of Man in all Lands.
ago; works of Egyptian art have been dug from soils which must have been submerged
30,000 years ago; and bricks are found sixty feet deep under layers which it would
require 14,000 years to cover; yet, says Mr Lesley, in his Origins of Man, these are
“mere modern matters in comparison with the diluvism of Abberville, and this again
can bear no comparison in antiquity with the least of the true tertiary strata. My
own belief is but the reflection of the growing sentiment of the whole geological world,
a conviction strengthening every day, as you may with little trouble see for yourselves
by glancing through the magazines of current scientific literature, that our race has been
upon the earth for hundreds of thousands of years.” Sir Charles Lyell estimates the
accumulations of mud and sand at the foot of the celebrated statue of Rameses (the
middle of whose reign Lepsius moderately calculates was about 1361 B.C.) at 14,000
years, allowing 3½ inches for a century.
The pottery under the second cypress forest of New Orleans, Mississippi, is
estimated at 28,000 years, and the human bones under the fourth are calculated by Dr.
Bennet Dowler 1 to have been there for 37,000 years, or a little more than that given
by another writer. There are ten distinct cypress forests, overgrown by aquatic
plants, and now covered with live oaks, and for the replacement of them Dr. Dowler
says we must allow 158,400 years. My Chart gives similar calculations
Look now at the celebrated Kent cavern, and, to try and aid the eye and memory, I
give in their recurring order the various deposits with their remains. The very greatest
labour and thought of all the savants of Europe, representing every diversity of opinion
and theology, have been here brought to bear, and the results in years are still subversive
of all orthodox ideas, for if we exceed 4,000 B.C., and therefore Biblical genealogies,
we may put the Jewish story aside altogether.
SURFACE OF CAVE
I. BLACK-MOULD, from one inch to one foot
thick.
{ Roman and pre-Roman remains, pottery, bronzes, and
bones, but no extinct animals.
II. STALAGMITE FLOOR (depth 12 feet), with Flint tools, bones of extinct mammals split for marrow
the years 1615 and 1618 scratched on it. { and gnawed by hyenas—a human jawbone at base.
A black band here occurs, which, though three feet thick, cannot be considered a geological stratum; it
is only some 100 square feet; in it has been found some of above articles, with a needle, pin, and
harpoon.
III. CAVE EARTH (depth 4 feet). { As above, and bones of extinct animals.
IV. 2d STALAGMITE FLOOR (depth 16 feet) very
thin layers and highly crystalline { Cave bear bones, but none of the later animals, as
hyena, &c.
V. FLOOR OF BRECHIA, hard rock—like Con-
{
Cave bear bones, but of no later animals, 3 feet deep,
crete, very brown. flint flakes, near teeth of cave bear showing human
workmanship.
VI. 3d STALAGMITE FLOOR—Granular. { No foreign objects yet found here.
1 Types of Mankind.