PROFESSOR DENTON’S LECTURES.

Marlborough Daily Times, Volume IV, Issue 535, 22 May 1882, Page 2

PROFESSOR DENTON’S LECTURES.

The fifth lecture of the series, on the “Age of Beasts and the Advent of Man,” was delivered in Ewart’s Hall on Saturday evening. Mr Denton began by impressing upon his audienee that there was nothing geology taught with so much certainty as the progressive formation of the earth. It had completely disproved the old idea that the land, water, birds, beasts and fishes came into existence in a moment. It had taken millions and millions of years to form the mountains and the great backbones of the continents, and it had taken millions and millions of years to develope the organic forms which peopled the earth until they arrived at their present condition. This was abundantly proved by a study of the rocks of the great tertiary period which were divided into three classes, cosene, mioccne, and pliocene. From the early part of the tertiary period to the present time, could not be less than throe millions of years, and it had taken that time to produce the forms of life with which we were now familiar. Nature had done nothing by leaps, but all had been accomplished by a slow and gradual change. In the Island of Sheppey at the mouth of the Thames the tertiary bed was exposed and fossils were even now found there in abundance. Most of these were fossil woods and fruits, most of species unknown to us now, hut resembling the fruits of plants now found only in tropical countries. England at that time had a climate at least as warm as that of Bengal in India is now. Along with these fossils were found the remains of gigantic crabs, corals, nautilus, turtles, crocodiles, ami an animal like the South American tapir. In France, a great basin was filled with gypsum, on the centre of which now stood the City of Paris. Immense numbers of bones were discovered in this gypsum, and Cuvier, the great comparative anatomist was the first who was able to say that these bones belonged to animals which were unknown at the present time —the first to throw open the door and gaze into the mysteries of the past. A wonderful harmony existed between every part of an animal, and the comparative anatomist could with clearness and absolute certainty determine what the animals wee like to which the bones belonged. The first monkeys—t'le lowest type, the lemurs —were found in the eocene beds of Wyoming. As we got higher up wc found higher forms with la ’gcr and more corrugated brains, for the brains increased in s : ze and in the number of convolutions as more thinking had to bo done. The lecturer described the cohippos, which was little bigger than a fox and walked on four toes corresponding to the fingers on the human hand, but without the thumb, though tliis was represent;d by a splint bone. This was the ancestor of the horse of to-day. As we advanced we found the pFohippos, which had only three toes, the little toe and the splint bone having disappeared and the central too being considerably the largest and doing most of the work. Then we came to the protohippos, the two outer toes in which were only represented by splint bones, the central one doing all the work, and the whole animal being as large as a small horse. This was the more immediate ancestor of the horse, for the horse of to-day had only one toe, though the other two were repi eseuted by splint bones, and strange to say, horses had been horn—and lie had liimsqf seen specimens—in which the splint bone 3 were formed into toes almost as found in the fossils. It had taken millions of years to form the mountains, millions of years to form a horse, and it had taken millions of years to form a man. Man made his first appearance in the pliocene period, at a time when gigantic mammals were roaming the world, when beasts were its masters. This fact could not have been stated with certainty ten years ago, but it had been demonstrated beyond a doubt by the finding of a skull that man existed in California before the glacial period. This skull wasdiscovercd at Sonora, about 180 ft below a bed of lava 500 ft thick, and at Table Mountain near it there were abundant evidences of the existence of man in the tertiary period. He then had a head like the digger Indian, was merely a barbarous savage who knew not the use of fire or the metals. Discoveries made in other countries were in harmony with these facts, and the six thousand years limit placed on the existence of man on this planet was demonstrated to he an error. Just like everything else man had taken time to make. The lecturer recognised through all the growth which had taken place the working of the Infinite Spirit. The conclusion of the lecture was the signal for a hearty round of applause. A number of interesting views were then exhibited.