The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1877-11-28
RECENT PUBLICATIONS.

/ THE PATRIARCHAL DYNASTIEs FROM ADAM To
ABRAHAM. SHOWN TO COVER 10 500 YEARS, AND
THE HIGHEST HUMAN LIFE ONLY 1877. By Rev
I. p Crawford, OF Tung Chow, China Rich
mOUd, Va: Josiah Ryland 4 90. 1877.
While not asserting to the conclusions reached,
we have read this book with pleasure. The author
is nan of ability and culture, and writes with
great cearness and force.
The position of the book is that the Biblical
chronology does not give time enough for the de-
veopmeut of the human race. and human languages
and institutions which we know to have taken place
as early as the time of Abraham, and that it is con-
trsdioted by the long chronOlogies of China, Egypt
aad BabylOnia.
The author contends with much learning and in
genuity that the genealogical tables of Genesis from
A lam to Noah. and from Noah to Abraham, are
dlnastic; that is that Adam, Seth, Enos, Noah,
Shem, etc., are not the names Of individuals only,
but of dguasties that Adam did not live as an
individual $50 years, but that his dynasty regned
$50 years, and so of the rest By way Of illustra-
ton, he remarks that in China the various dynas-
ties or reiguing families are simply called Hia,
Sbaug. Chen. Tsin Han, etc., without any kind Of
qualifying epithet
In order to maintain bis proposition, be modifes
slightly the translation or rather the English pune
tuation, of the sentence Aud Adam lived hun
dred and thirty years, aud begot a son iu his own
likeness, after his image and called his name
Seth and the similar statements as to the rest.
We cannot 90 into his distu sion here, and must
refer our readers to the work itself for that discus
sion. which is instructive and interesting. Mr..
Crawford fixes the antiquity of the human race at
about TO- 600 years and attempts to ortify bis view
By an appeal to Arc eology and Eyyptology and
AssyriolOgY o. these points we speak with con-
6deuce. Neither Arct @)logy nor the chronology
Of Egypt and Cbaldal call for such figures. Six
thousand years abundantly meets all the require
ments of these sciences The chronology of Egypt
aud ChalGe l does not appear to go farther back
than coo gears as extreme limit, and the facts
| brought forward by Lubbock and Lyell and such
men to prove that the Stone Age in western
Europe has an antiquity cf one or two hundred
thousand years, are rapidly breaking down under
more thorough research. 10 a report on the geol-
ogy of Minnesota by Prof. n. H. Winchell, just
published, calculation is given Of the date of the
UlScal age, ueEV6U lIOm I16 TtC5solOu VI Tue ais
Of St. Anthony on the Mississippi River These
falls have receded 900 feet from Spirit island to
their position in 1886, since the time of Father
Haunepin, aud by applying this scale to the whole
recession from Fort Smelling since the Glacial age,
Prof Wiucbell reaches the conclusion based on
strict soent 6c investigation, that that event what
he calls the Second Glacial sge) occurred about 6,
600 years ago.
A similar conclusion has been reached from q
very careful calculation of the deposit of silt at the
mouth Of the Loire lat St. Nazaire) in France, by
NJ Kerviler, an engineer engaged in constructing
floating dock at this place. This calculation
(which fixes the close of the Glacial age at 900
years ago) is given in three papers on the subject
published in the Revue ArcheOlOgque of Paris and
the Revie,0 approves and endorses the method by
which NJ Kervier has reached bis conclusion, and
apparently acquiesCes in that conclusion. DR.. An
drews reached about the same figures from his OBJ.
servatious on the beaches of Lakes Huron and
Michigan and MN. De Ferry and Arcelin reached
about the same figures from their studies of the
ALLEVIATE deposits of the river Sa6oe
An appeal to Prehistoric ArCt zoology is, there,
fore, 10 longer of any great weight.