Roseburg review. [volume] (Roseburg, Or.) 1885-1920, 1886-07-02
RECENT PLORITI0N IND SCIEN-
TIFTC Investigations.

The Director of the Geological Sur
vey of Ireland, Professor Hull, T. Il.
S, delivered the Annual Address of
the Victoria {PbllosophicaD Institute
in London, on the 2Sth of May, on
which occasion the Inststitute's new
President, Professor Stokes, President
of the Royal Society, took the chair.
The report was read by Captain +. Pc
trie, the honorary secretary, and showed
that the Institutes home, colonial, and
American members were upwards of
eleven hundred, including many who
joined from desire to avail them
selves Of the Institutes privileges
rather than bear part in its work
An increasing number Of leading sci
entific men now contributed papers
and aided in the work of bringing
about truer appreciation of the result
of scientific inquiry, especially in cases
where scientific discovery was alleged
by the opponents Of religious beliefs
to be subversiye thereof. The author
of the Address then gave an account
Of the work, discoveries, and general
results of the recent Geological and
Geographical Expedition t gypt,
Arabia, and Western Palestine, of
which he had charge Sketching the
course taken by him (which to a con
siderable extent took the route as
crlbed to the Israelites, he gave an
account of the physical features of the
country, evidences of old sea margins
200 feet above the present sea mar
gins, and showed that one time an arm
OF the Mediterranean had occupied
the valley of the Nile as far as the First
Cataract, at which time Africa was an
island (an opinion also arrived at by
another of the Institutes members
Sir w. Dawson,) and that, at the
time of the Exodus, the Red Sea ran
up.into the Bitter Lakes, and must have
formed barrier to the travellers prog
ress at that period. He then alluded
to the great changes of elevation in the
land eastward of these lakes, mention
ing that the waters of the Jordan val
ley once stood 1902 feet above their
present height, and that the waters of
the Dead Sea, which he found l,050
feet deep, were once ON a level with
the present Mediterranean sea margin
or ,292 feet above their present height
The great physical changes which had
taken place 10 geological time were
evidenced by the fact that whilst the
rocks in Western Palestine were gen.
orally limestone those of the mountains
of Sinai were amongst the most an
cient in the world The various. geo
logical and geographical features of the
country were SO described as to make
the address condensed report of all
that is now known of them in Egypt,
Palestine and Arabia Petraa.
Sir Henry Barkiy, G. G. NJ. G., F.
R. S. moved a vote of thanks to Prof.
Hull, and to those who had contribu-
ted to the work of the Institute during
the year, which included Assyrlolog-
icai investigations by Prof. Sayce,
Mr.. Boscawen, and others; NJ. Mas
pero's and Capt. Conder's Egyptian
papers; Prof Porter's Eastern re-
searches; also a review of the question
of Evolution by Prof Virchow, and
the results of investigations in regard
to the subject of the origin of man, as
to which it had been shown by Sir
William Dawson, that geology divided
the chronology of animal life into four
'Egreat periods" in the first, -. Eozoic
in the Geological as in the Bible
records, were found she great reptiles;
and the last, or Tertiary, was again
subdivided into five s'periods," !" and it
was only in the last of these, the
"modern" period, that the evidences Of
mans presence had been found. Again
as regards his ape descent, the forma-
tion and proportions of the skull and
bones of the ape considered most like
man were found to be SO different
from those of man as to place insuper-
able difficulties in the way of the
theory. In the gorilla, the high crest
on the skull, which was also found In
the hyena, was absent in man. Also
among other points, if the capacity Of
the brain of the anthropoid ape were
taken at ten, that of man even in his
savage state was twenty-six, or nearly
thrice as much, very important fact
when, as it was known, any appreciable
diminution in the brain of man was at
once accompanied By idiocy. As re-
CARDS the transmutability of species,
Barrande's argument against the theory
founded on the results of life of mod
ern research clearly pointed to the fact
that one great bar to the transmuta-
bility of species lay in the refined and
minute differences in the molecular
arrangements in their organs.
The proceedings were concluded by
a vote of thanks to Prof Stokes, under
whose presidency it was remarked that
the work of the Institute would be