ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 1582, 25 March 1887, Page 2

ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE.

FACTS AND THEORIES

(TO the editor of the lake wakatip mail.)

Sir,—A paragraph in the Daily Times of the 17th instant deserves no'ice, oh account of its association in the minds of reflecting readtrs with a statement made by Sir Charles Lyeli in his "Principles of Geology" many years ago. That geologist calculated, from observations made by s ientitic men hefore he wrote, that the time required for the river St. Liwience to wear away the rock from its mouth back to the Fads of Niagara was tully 50,000 years—a statement «liich many afterwards eagerly flung in the teeth of those who still expressed their faith in the truth of the Mosaic record of the cnation, though in reality it affected that divine truth not one whit.

! Now the paragraph I refer to tells us that, on the I 13th of January last, an enormous mass of rock, I lf>oft. long. 60ft. wide and 170 ft. deep, fell at once with a crash into the river. This, according to I Lyell's theory, would have taken many thousands I of years to wear away, showing us how false aud ! unreliable are scientific calculations of the past j btsed on any observations of the momentary present. Nor is this all; for, some yeais ago a somewhat similar fall of rock took place at the Niagara Falls, I when a mass, which (according to Lyell's theory) > would have taken many thousands of years to wear | away, tumbled at oiich into the river with a crash I as this fall has doi:e—a second proof since I have 1 read the said work of the erroneous deductions of j geologists conceining the loug, long past from short ; observations of the parsing present. No wonder, then, that from such experience as | this, aud the late experience of the effects of earthi quakes and the riper knowledge of geological data general!v. the whole science of geology is being "revolutionised," as one of the professors if or university lately told dip. And the moral is this, that we should swallow with a considerate am lint of salt any scientific statements which may *-eem to contradict the word of Divine revihtior, as that word is once for all written, while sciei is always shifting its ground. Sir Charles Lyeil, like many other dead worthies, would not ha*e written what he has done had he had the knowledge of to-day. It is well to remember that while scientific and other teachers speak according to the lest of their knowledge and belief, they speak truly; but it doss not, therefore, by any menus follow that what they speak is the truth, for there is the widest difference in the world between speaking truly aud speaking the truth.—l am, etc., Cbserver. Queenstown, March 21, 1887.