Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1886-07-24
BIBLE LANDS.
Important Facts Disclosed by Recent Z,
liberation and Investigation.

btorsIOn ana khSSsttsaNtun
The director of the geological survey of
Ireland, Professor Hull. +. r. g., delivered
the annual address of the Victoria (Philo-
sophicaD Institute in London on the 2Sth of
MAY, on which occasion the Institute new
President, Professor Stokes, President of
the ROYAL Society, took the chair The re-
port was read by Captain T. Petrie, the
honorary Secretary and showed that the
Institutes home, colonial and American
members were upwards of ], 100, including
many who joined from a desire to avail
themselves of the Institutes privileges
rather than bear partin its work. An in
creasing number of leading scientific 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 be-
liels to be subversive thereof. The
author Of tho address then gave an account
of the work, discoveries and general
results of the recent geological and geo
graphical expedition to Egypt, Arabia and
Western Palestine of which he had charge
Sketching the course taken by him (Which
10 considerable extent took the route as
cribed to the Israeiites) he gave an account
of the physical features of the country, evi-
dences of old sea margins, 200 feet above
the present sea margins, and showed that
at one time an arm of the Mediterranean
had occupied the valley of the Nile as far
rs The First Cataract at which time Africa
was an island Ian opinion also arrived at by
another of the Institutes members, Sir w.
Dawson), and that, at the time Of the exc
dus, the Red Sea ran uD into the Bitter
lakes, and must have formed barrier to
the travellers progress ct that period. He
l. - faolo
ton the land eastward Of these lakes, men
tioning that the waters of the Jordan valley
once stood 1,Z02 feet above their present
hight and that the waters of the Dead
Sea, which he found 1850 feet deep,
were once on o level with the present
Mediterranean sea margin, or 1892
feet above their present hight The great
physical changes which had taken place in
geological time were evidenced by the fact
that whilst the rocks in Western Palestine
were generally limestone, those of the
mountains of Sinai were amongst the most
ancient in the world. The various geo.
logical and geographical features OF the
country were SO described as 10 make the
address q condensed report of all that is
known of them in Egypt, Palestine, and
Arabia PetrRa. There was also review
Of The question of evolution by Professor
Yirchow, 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
great periods :" in the first-or Eozoic-
as in tho geological records, in the Bible,
we're found the great reptiles; and the last,
or Tertiary, Was again subdiyided into five
"peri DDS" and it IVES only in the last of
these. the modern period, that the evil
dences OF mans presence had been found.
Again, as regards his ape descent, the form
alton and proportions of the skull and
bones of the ape considered most like man
were found to be so different from those Of
man rs to place insuperable difficulties in
the way of tho theory. In the gorilla, the
high crest on the skull, which was also
fonnd in the byepa; 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 say
age state was twenty-siX, or nearly thrice
as rnuch-a very important fact when, as it
was known. any appreciable diminution
IN the brain Of man was at once sccompa
MED by idiocy. IS regards the tzausmuta-
bihty of Species Barraade's arguments
against the theory founded on the results
OF life Of research among the fossil strata,
had not ct been eyerthrcwn; and modern
research clearly pointed to the fact that one
great bar to the transmutabiiity of species
lay in the refined and minute differences
in the molecular arrangements in their
organs.