A Few Words About the Devil, and Other Biographical Sketches and EssaysBradlaugh, Charles
Religion
A Few Words About the Devil, and Other Biographical Sketches and Essays
Bradlaugh, Charles
Free thought
If this be the result of the researches into Egyptian archæology, the
reader will scarcely be surprised to find me endeavoring from other
sources to get corroborative evidence of a still more astonishing
character.
There are few who now pretend that the whole _creation (?)_ took place
6,000 years ago, although if it be true that God made all in six days,
and man on the sixth, then the universe would only be more ancient than
Adam by some five days. To state the age of the earth at 6,000 years
is simply preposterous, when we ascertain that it would require about
4,000,000 of years for the formation of the fossiliferous rocks alone,
and that 15,000,000 of years have been stated as a moderate estimate
for the antiquity of our globe. The deltas of the great rivers afford
corroboration to our position as to man's duration. The delta of the
Nile, formed by immense quantities of sedimentary matter, which in
like manner is still carried down and deposited, has not perceptibly
increased during the last 3,000 years. "In the days of the earliest
Pharaohs, the delta, as it now exists, was covered with ancient cities
and filled with a dense population, whose civilization must have
required a period going back far beyond any date that has yet been
assigned to the deluge of Noah, or even to the creation of the world."*
From borings which have been made at New Orleans to the depth of 600
feet, from excavations for public works, and from examinations in parts
of Louisiana, where the range between high and low water is much greater
than it is at New Orleans, no less than ten distinct cypress forests
divided from each other by eras of aquatic plants, etc., have been
traced, arranged vertically above each other; and from these and other
data it is estimated by Dr. Benet Dowler that the age of the delta is
at least 158,000 years; and in the excavations above referred to human
remains have been found below the further forest level, making it appear
that the human race existed in the delta of the Mississippi more than
57,000 years ago.**
It is further urged, by the same competent writer, that human bones
discovered on the coast of Brazil near Santas, and on the borders of
a lake called Lagoa Santa, by Captain Elliott and Dr. Lund, thoroughly
incorporated with a very hard breccia, every one in a fossil state,
demonstrate that aboriginal man in America antedates the Mississippi
alluvia, and that he can even boast a geological antiquity, because
numerous species of animals have become extinct since American
humanity's first appearance.***
* Gliddon's "Types of Mankind," page 335.
** "Types," pages 336 to 369.
*** "Types," pages 350 and 357.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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