Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1859-09-20 00:00:00

between Vaneouver's Island and the main land, claimed

am states

by -our government as part of Wasui— .crriton
had been occupied by sixty United States' troops by
order of General" Harney: Govetnor Douglas had issued
a protest; claiming the island for the British Crown, and
also despatched some armed vessels-and 200 sap jicrs and
here. The United States' vessels Massachusetts,
s, Shubrick, and Aetive. and "Rritich

Tribune, Satellite, and Plumper, were either anchored
off the island or in its immediate vicinity. It was
unofficially stated at 'Victoria that the matter would be
compromised by the joint occupancy of the island until
the British and United States- Governments could be
advised of the existing state of affairs. General Harney
was expected at San Juan on the sth of August."
A New Orleans despatch says :—" General Harney,
on the 9th; ordered four companie's of artillery from
Fort Washinolnn to rpinfnrop flnnh;yl

still occupies San Juan unmole3ted. General Harney
had forwarded despatches to Washington in regard
to the matter. Governor Douglas had sent a message
to the Vancouver's Island Assembly, declaring that Brit-
fish forces should be landed in. San Juan. There was a
doubtful rumour that the British steamer Satellite had
attacked the island, and killed 30 Americans. A Brit-
ish man-of-war had arrived at San Francisco from Van-

couver

s Island, supposed to have despatches for England
concerninq• the San Juan dispute."
From Washington wehave the following intelligence :
" General Harney has acquainted Lieutenant-General
Scott with all the circumstances attending his occupation
of the Island of San Juan. It appears he had not been
previously specifically intrusted to take possession, but
sent, troops to protect the twenty-five or thirty Americans
residing thereon, who had been included in the taxation
limits by the authorities of Washington territory. Our
boundary commissioner, Mr. Campbell, has no doubt
about the island belonging Lc) .the United States ; but
the Briti§h Commissioner made issue, and hence the
protest of Governor Douglas. This subject excites
much interest in official and diplomatic circles.
The Washington correspondent of the Neu, York

Herald says, under date of the 4th instant :—" The
Government hag been advised by General Harney of his
proceedingsin taking possession of the_ Island of San

SEPTEMBER 20, 1859.

BRITISH 'ASSOCIATION.

GEOLOGICAL

-SATURDAY

The Rev. Dr. Anderson, of Newburgh, read a paper
" On the Remains of Man in the Superficial Drifts?'
He said his main ob.ject in bringing the subject before'
the meeting, was to site a condensed view of the allezecr.

cases in connection with the discovery of hump,
remains in the superficial drifts, alluvial detritus, and
such diluvial accumulations as are of an • ancient or pre-
historic origin. Undoubted cases existed of human rg-.
mains enclosed in hard compact conerctionary rocks,.
burned deep in the silts of rivers, and big ,
associated with the bones of elephants-, lions,
nas, and other extinct carnivora, now only existing inc
southern latitudes.. One is startled at the idea of Nortb.
Britainer inhabiting the same cave with an African lion,
or Indian mammoth, or a huge Polar bear, and all appa.-
rently contemporaneous occupants, according to their
_

species, of the British Isles
ring in beds of lakes, river

bee-erne mineralised, he contended th

tip in caverns?

tigers, hye—

Instances occur-

and which have

t a few years. or

even months, often Rut.
compact durable mass of calL„
in which human bones, skeletons,
and implements were embedded. He referred to a
case betwixt Aberdour and : Bumtisland, in Fife,
which he examixed a few weeks
crustation was now .forming -
which are embedded land shells, branches of tree.
on the face of the encrusted cliff, twigs of the living
trees are becoming entangled in the calcareous breccia..
The reverend doctor cpioted the ease of a cannon ball—
a 32-pounder—Lately presented 'to- him by a fellow-
townsmanL--leeply encrusted with ferruginous mud, and
completely indurated, which was raised on his anchor
in the harbour of Copenhagen ; and, he doubted not,.
an identical bullet of our naval attack of fifty years ago:.
The skulls of Amiens and Abbeville, the remains in the
caverns of Torquay, and those in Sicily, the flint weapons,
in veined limestone in Cantyre, and the arrowheads with.
elephant remains in Suffolk, were then successively brought
under review in the paper—the solution of all these given
by Dr. Anderson being, that from the action of petrifying
springs, the subsidence of tracts of country, the falling-in
of the roofs of caverns, the undermining of cliffs and head-
lands, the superficial soil is encrusted or buried beneath the
strata on which it was originally superimposed. He
saw no evidence deducible from the superficial drifts to
warrant a departure from the usually accepted data
man's very recent introduction upon the earth. We
have more positive evidence that his first appearance was
characterised by many proofs of high intellectual con-
dition which our sacred beliefs attach to his origin, and
that he was not primarily the ignoble creature that
arrow-heads and flint-knives, and ossiverous caverns,
would so lamentably indicate.

formation of a

Lreous and silicious rock,

pottery, coins,

go, ,where an in-

N, and