ys an active part in these
discussions on the anti-geological side, and boldly affirmed, as in a
number now before me, that geology had the devil for its author. A
learned correspondent of the paper, who was, however, somewhat more
charitable, thought that at least the _facts_ of the science might be
exempted from a condemnation so sweeping; nay, that, well interpreted,
they might be found decidedly opposed to at least the more mischievous
deductions of the geologists; and in illustrating the point, we find him
thus arguing, from certain appearances in the valley of the Nile, that
the globe which we inhabit cannot possibly be more than six thousand
years old.[42] "The valley of the Nile," says this writer, "is known to
be covered with a bed of slime which the river has deposited in its
periodical inundations, and which rests on a foundation of sand, like
that of the adjacent desert. The French savans who accompanied Bonaparte
in his Egyptian expedition made several experiments to ascertain the
thickness and depth of this superincumbent bed. They dug about two
hundred pits, and carefully measured the thickness in the transversal
section of the valley, where the deposit had been free from obstacles,
and had not been materially increased or lessened by local causes. They
found the mean of all these measurements to be six and a half metres, or
rather more than twenty feet. M. Gironde endeavored to determine the
quantity of slime deposited in a century; and he found that the
elevation of soil in that period was rather less than four inches and a
half! Dividing the total thickness of the bed by the centenary
elevation, he found the quotient 56.50; whence it followed that the
inundations had commenced 5650 years before the year 1800, when the
experiments were made,--a number which only differed 159 years from the
Mosaic date. The difference is not very important, when it is considered
that the most trifling error, whether in the measure of the entire
superincumbent bed, or in the valuation of the quantity of slime
deposited in a century, affects the final results. Notwithstanding this,
the coincidence between the sacred historian and the computations of
science is remarkable, and furnishes one proof more of the harmony
existing between nature and revelation. An honest experimentalist was
constrained to arrive at this conclusion at a period when the infidel
school of our continental neighbors was in high feather. I am sorry to
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