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Show THE AGE OF THE WORLD. The London Quarterly Review for July contains an article entitled "Modern Philosophers on tho Probable Proba-ble age ol me World." II eBtlliltllCB that the conflict between English geologists and mathematicians on this subject has reached the point of probable pro-bable compromise. "Geologists have declared that the centuries of the world's duration could only bo denoted denot-ed by an army of figure so laryo as to paralyse the rensoning faculties and convey no definite impression to the mind. Bel'oro tho end of the last century geology hardly existed exist-ed as a science; an inquiry an to the ago of the world would have been unhesitatingly unhesi-tatingly answered by tho osaortion, that the earth wats created in six dayn, 4004 years before the birth of Christ, and it was deemed a gravo impiety U doubt tho literal accuracy of tho chronology involved in the Mosaic' Account." This view of tho subject, sub-ject, howevor, has long since boen discarded, and tho religious reli-gious philosophers have succeeded in making it appear that tho Mrmriic account ig slrongLheried by tho scion tifio intorprdUition ol the torn of creation. While there are at prfl' iit cw defenders of the old theory, many scientific men have revolted ngairiflt th Lremo views of tho geologists, who bold that tho tirno required for tin cr-ti((n, or rather tho age of tho world amount to thi enormous sum Of three hundred million years. They contend thrt ai Ul0 KW,0K,W changes have been effected by the ordinary agencies of rain, Bnuw, frost, ice and chemical action, requiring immense periods of time to produce such gigantic results. On the other hand it is contended that the earth cannot have existed for very many millions of years, and they mention various theories to confirm this belief. be-lief. Sir Charles Lycll saw renson to believe that tho age of ice commenced about a million of years ago, and that eighty millions of years hud elapsed since the lower tertiary formation, and one hundred and s'xziy millions since the formation of the coal measures, meas-ures, aud two hundred and forty millions since the beginning ol the Cambrian period I Aud beyond that inconceivable antiquity lie the whole range of primary rocks which contain no fossils. Mr. Darwin assigns to the world even a greater ago, and other geologists have multiplied these figures to such an extent that they are altogether alto-gether beyond the compass of human imagination. Mr. James Croll, however, how-ever, has propounded a theory which it is thought upsets the whole scale of geological time. He diminishes the standard of Sir Charles Lyell by four I fifths, makiug the age of the fossil-iferous fossil-iferous rocks forty-eight millions ol years instead of two hundred and forty-eight millions. This qucatiuo bo&.haU approached from a great variety of ways, and is probably as far from a positive settlement, settle-ment, or even from an agreement umong naturalists, as ever. At best the attempts to fix the age of the world are but guesses; but science has at least taught us that the old theory which gave six literal days for the creation of the world and limited its age to six or seven thousand years is fallacious. It is now admitted by all theoloeians that these dava were periods of indefinite extent, which may each have embraced thousands of years. The subject is too vast for human comprehension ; but' man may gradually approach towards a truer approximation of these periods by observation and deduction. |