The Sun.
London, England, 1846-12-11 00:00:00

CAMBRIDGE, DEC. 9.

At a congregation held this day, the degree of M.A
was conferred upon—
Theodore Howard Galton, Trinity College.
Rev. John Ambrose, St. John's College.

Thomas Harvey, Christ's College.
At the same congregation the following graces passed
the Senate:—
To allow Mr. Sykes, of Downing College, to resume
his Regency.
To appoint Mr. Churchill Babington, of St. John's
College, an Examiner, at the previous examinations in
the Lent and Michaelmas Terms of the year 1847, in the
place of Mr. Thompson.
To return thanks to Captain Francis Blackwood,
RN., for the valuable ornithological collection which he
presented to the University in the last vacation.
On the recommendation of the Wood wardian Trustees,
to authorise the Vice-Chancellor to pay out of the Wood-
wardian funds the sum of 201. towards building a school
in the parish of Thurlton.
QUEEN'S COLLEGE.
John Hays, 8.A., scholar of this society, has been
elected a Fellow on the foundation of Sir John Finch
and Sir Thomas Baines.

PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY.
At a meeting of this society, held Dec. 7, Professor
Sedgwick, Vice-President in the chair, a paper was read
by Professor Young, on the Principle of Continuity in
reference to certain results of Analysis.
ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY,
At the last meeting of this society a paper was read
by the Rev. J. J. Smith, containing particulars drawn
from the archives of Caius College, as well as from some
of the Cambridge parish registers, concerning the pt-
rentage and life of Jeremy Taylor, of whose works
about
tis
stated that a new and carefully collated edition is
to appear.

The Portsmouth and Chichester Extension Branch
of the London and Brighton line, is proceeding as rapidly
towards completion as the weather will permit. The
double permanent lines are already. laid down between
Havant and Emsworth, and are being so from Lumley
to Nutbourne.
At the monthly meeting of the Central Society
for the Protection of Agriculture and British Industry
held on Tuesday, at 17, Old Bond-street, the question of
the repeal of the malt tax was brought under the notice
of the committee, when a resolution was adopted that a
meeting of that body should be summoned for the 12th
of January next, to take the subject into consideration.
RAILWAY AMALGAMATION.—We are informed, on
the best authority, that the Directors of the Glasgow
and Ayrshire Railway had a meeting, on Saturday last,
with the Directors of the Glasgow, Dumfries, and Car-
lisle Railway, when the terms for an immediate amalga-
mation were settled, the particulars of which, we under-
stand, will be submitted to the shareholders of the
respective companies, for their approval, on an early
day.—Ayr Observer.

ALLEGED CO-EXISTENCE pri.m,
MAN AND THE MEGATHERIUr -%;.----4----12a. Itt
A, ---,..4, ,
6. i..,.4'.
,_.L..,_`:
The following letter has been addressed to to ?ixditor 1,;?V:•:
. \,,..\,,,,1 p. 4
of the Times:— C'.-4. ' Mf'....' 4'i'."Ns.
Sir —A considerable sensation appears to Flirt ~....,-.447,, ,
rta ati!l
caused in the minds of the scientific, and part Ot iin::: a ‘.. ~io' .-1
scientific public, by the announcement in masa of iii.si.; ;a. ''
.1
newspapers, of the discovery in America of / foster,:
14,14
human bone, associated with the remains of ii-6 egaa-- -,,-r-
-thorium and other extinct quadrupeds. I have only nit -*
read in the last number of the Athenceum (Dec. 5, 1846),
a brief notice of the reported discovery, copied from au
American paper, and which the editor has inserted with
a judicious caution to his readers, that no competent
authority has yet vouched for all the facts. I feel sure
that the story relates to part of a human pelvis (a frag-
ment of the os inominatum), which was shown to me at
Natchez last spring, together with several very remark-
able remains of rnegatfieriod animals. I visited Notchez
in March last, on which occasion I was informed of the
antiquity assigned to the human relic, and having exa-
mined carefully into the evidence, came to the conclioian
that the proofs of the co- cxistence of the hums, indivi -
dual with the megathorold and other extinct quadrup..d.v
trend in the vicinity was altogether unsatisfactory. Wo
are indebted to the skill and indefatigable industry of
Dr. Dickerson, of N ocher, for having formed a splindid
collection of organic r,ina.iii::, derived from the slierfi-
me:
One
ielei le
tk'olui:
intp,htienleip:ssfsrs
i: o,dtcofi i
spttsaa;hininnao:
Itttipvineiglibt,urhood. All these he Lid
discovered
the
itbnssf.Acl:(iu‘.):,:th,
reasaeiinnreleddotuttatihhlii(lt:er;rasrelaud:niS)fdei,a,T(ic,
:1::
~,:::.a. straiht,:, cez't.i'zisur)
kie11.,,:./:d,..,:.
-
let on
of stainedthe inbayi
thoi
also that the fragment of the human pelvis supposed to
have been contemporaneous with the megatherium was
picked up.
In order to explain its position, a few words on the
geology of the region will be indispensable. The broad,
flat, alluvial plain of the Mississippi is bounded on its
eastern side by a table land, about 200 feet higher than
the river, and having a very gentle upward slope to the
eastward, or towards the interior. This elevated plat-
form ends abruptly at Natchez, in a line of perpendicu-
lar cliffs, or bluffs, the base of which is continually un-
dermined by the Mississippi. The vertical section here
exposed to view affords the geologist a fine opportunity
of studying the composition and succession of the strata
for a vertical thickness of rather more than 200 feet.
The whole deposit is of comparatively modern date, the
upper 60 feet consisting of clayey loam containing
shells of recent species, and the lower of sand and gravel
without organic remains, except some wood and silcified
corals washed out of older rocks. The yellow loam at
the top bears a singularly close resemblance to the
fluviatile silt, or "loes3,' as it is termed, of die
valley of the Rhine, between Cologne and Basle.
and, like it contains abundance of fresh water
and land shells, of which I myself obtained more
than: twenty species, now in my cabinet in London.
They belong to the genera helix, helicina, pupa, suc-
cinea, accompanied, or rather replaced in a few places
where the loam passes into shell-marl, by lyrrnea,
planorbis, physa, and cycles. All the species are iden-
tical with testacea now inhabiting the same part of the
United States. With these shells are found, at different
depths, some in the loam, and some in the clay at the
bottom of the loam, the scattered bones, and occasionally
entire skeletons of the mastodon, megatherinm, mylodon,
casteroides, equus, bos, and other quadrupeds. If in any
part of this formation, whether at the depth of 10 feet
or 100 feet, any remains of man lie buried by natural
causes in undisturbed loam or clay, the antiquity of
the human race is thereby established to an extent
far greater than has ever yet been made out in any
instance which I have had an opportunity of investi-
gating. It would follow that the human race had sur-
vived the extinction of one group of terrestrial mam-
malia, and seen another succeed and replace it; and also
that man had lived in North America when the geogra-
phical configuration of the country was very different;
in other words, before the valley of the Mississippi, or
even some of the strata forming its boundary rocks, were
in existence. Every deposit entering into the composi-
tion of the bluffs of the Mississippi valley must be older
than the alluvial plain and delta of that river; and we
thus obtain, independently of any evidence attesting
great changes in the animate world, a measure for esti-
mating the minimum of time which has elapsed since the
bluffs originated. For we must allow a sufficient series
of years for the deposition of all the sedimentary matter
forming the plain and delta of the great river. I have
endeavoured to calculate the period (one of enormous
duration, relatively to the historical epoch), and ex-
plained my views on the subject in a lecture delivered
to the British Association at their meeting at South-
ampton, and a correct, though incomplete abstract of

that communication appeared—in the Aihenaum for SGp-
tem ber 26, 1846.
To come then to the point—what proof is there that
the geological position of the human pelvis bone was such
as to demonstrate its anteriority in date to the entire
hydrographical basin of the Mississippi, and the forma-

tion of its alluvial deposits and. delta ? The yellow
shelly loam, or loess, before mentioned, extends for
twelve miles inland, or eastward from the river ; and,
in consequence of its incoherent and destructible nature,
every streamlet flowin:x over it cuts out for itself, in its
way to the Mississippi, a deep gully or ravine. This
denudation has of late years proceeded with accelerated
speed, especially in the course of the last thirty or th:rty-
five years. Some attribute the increased erosive action
to partial clearings of the native forests ; others to the
effects of the great earthquake of new Madrid, in 1811-12,
by which this region was much fissured, ponds being dried
up, and some land-slips caused. Colonel Wiley, a pro-
prietor in this part of the state of Mississippi, and who
well remembers the district before the year 1812, assured
me that the Dlammoth ravine, although now seven miles
long, and in some parts 60 feet deep, with its numerous
ramifications, has been entirely formed since that year,
when the earthquake occurred. He has himself ploughed
some of the land, exactly over the spot where the ravine
is now situated.

It is, however, enough for our present purpose to
affirm that whatever be the date of the origin of
this watercourse, it has of late years been consider-
ably enlarged and lengthened, its banks presenting
every where precipices, in which the loam, unsolidified
as it is, retains its verticality, as is the case with
its counterpart, the loess of the Rhine. Land shells are
seen in great numbers at the depth of about 30 feet from
the top, and the fossil bores of the mastodon, and other
extinct quadrupeds, are usually picked up in the bed
of the stream after they have been washed out of the
undermined cliffs, where, however, some few have also
been observed in situ. Under these circumstances, as
I was given to understand, the human pelvis was pro-
cured at the base of the cliff. Even if it had been dug
out in the presence of a practical geologist, it would
have been necessary for him to be more than usually
on his guard against deception, for land-slides have
detached large masses from the cliffs, and these
may easily cover human bones previously washed down
by the stream, or dislodged from the soil near the
top of the cliff, where some old Indian graves, so com-
mon throughout the country, may have been undermined.
It is not raro to find on shoal and on the shores of the
islands in the Mississippi at low water, numerous bones
of man, mingled with those of extinct animals, washed
out of the bluffs. In these cases the human bones are as
black as the quadrupedal fossils, having been apparently
stained with peaty matter, in the soil where they were
buried ; but no geologist has ever ventured, on this evi-
dence, to infer the contemporaneousness of man and the
fossil species thus accidentally associated
After I had made up my mind that the remote anti-
quity of the human bone of Natchez was questionable,
and that its occurrence in the ravine might be explained
in the manner above suggested, I found that Colonel
Wailes, a friend of Dr. Dickerson's, who accompanied us
in part of our excursion, and who has also made a fine
collection of the fossils of this neighbourhood, not only
shared my doubts, but had made the same conjecture
respecting the probable manner in which the fossil may
have been conveyed to the spot where it was found.

I have the honour to be, Sir, yours, &C.,
CHARLES LYELL.

11, Harley-street, December 7.

A SHAMEFUL CASE.—On the evening of Monday
week, a young man, named Robert M‘Gill, a native
of Ireland, was brought from the terminus of the Edin-
burgh and Glasgow Railway, Queen-street, where he
had arrived by one of the trains, to the Central Police-
office. He was there promptly attended by Dr. Easton,
who, perceiving at a glance that he was labouring under
fever of a most malignant kind, ordered him to be sent to
the Royal Infirmary, where he died on the Friday follow-
ing.lssisees,
season,
ataoetisfirotTi
:onsfha,rhmiroasiemnsondtlftheralttei
length
eernna:rgtaetshgrpaaelortaa
fdce notwithstanding
reached
Newry,da t d
informingt h the 2 t
Deceased, we have since learned, became unwell at
St2cfhel3t
eiesdr atml
ei
November,deniongtfac
,y; his i
strength
oshnfwieril
tnlahnas
eAe
eod too seldom
themo
suerindeo
ymto,tinme
exhi-
bited, thenini
by proceeding at once to the house of a lodging-
house keeper in Stirling, named M‘Minime, where her
son had resided since March last, expecting, as she said,
"to find her darling boy." To her grief and disappoint-
ment, however, sbe learned, on her arrival there, that ho
had been sent to Glasgow per railway ; but by whom,
and at whose expense, she is not aware. Retracing her
steps with a sad and sorrowful heart, she reached
Glasgow in time to see her loved but lost child buried in
the ground allotted to strangers. We are informed that
which makes the case worse than it otherwise would
the deceased was visited in Stirling by a physician,
have been.—Glasgow Citizen.
SINGULARITY IN THE FRENCH DYNASTY'—It is
a remarkable fact in the history of France, that since
the time of Louis XIV., who succeeded his father Louis
XIII., there has not been a single instance of the crown
descending directly from father to son. Louis XV. was
the grandson of Lous XIV. ; Louis XVI. was one of
the grandsons of Louis XV. ; the son of Louis XVL
died (query, if not murdered in the Temple). Napoleon
did not succeed in transmitting the crown to his only son,
who died at Schoenbrunn. Louis XVIII., brother to
Louis XVI., had his brother, Charles X., for his suc-
cessor. The Duke of Orleans, Prince Royal, was carried
off by an accident as unexpected as it was deplorable,
and interrupted, it may be said, before even it com-
menced, the order of succession under the new dynasty.
Louis Philippe I. will not have, as his royal heir, a son ;
it is his grandson, the Count de Paris, son of the late
Duke of Orleans, who is to be his heir presumptive to
crown. _

-.-.....
LLYNVI VALLEY RAILWAY.—In pursuance of the
usual notice, the first general half-yearly meeting of this
company, was held to-day at the Londoeravern—W.
Matthews, Esq., in the chair—to receive the report of the
directors, and to decide upon the adoption of an ex-
tension of their line by a short branch to tough Taine.
The meeting was but thinly attended, but the report was
adopted; and it was decided that an application should
be made to Parliament for the branch. Thanks were
voted to the chairman and directors, and the meeting
separated.