"As Rama looks across the ocean of the universe, and sees its surface blend in the distant horizon with the dipping sky, and as he considers if indeed a path might be built far out into the almost immeasurable space, so we gaze over the ocean of the ages, but =no sign of a shore shows itself to our view=." (Id. p. 294.) As for climate, I never heard any one suggest that cosmic changes of climate are now known to be going on, much less that =sudden= changes of the kind indicated by the North Siberian "mummies" are in the habit of occurring. In fact, we must all own that the mountains, the relative position of land and water, as well as the climate of our globe, are each and all now in a state of stable equilibrium, and have been in this state since the dawn of history or of scientific observation. Accordingly I ask, =How much time is needed= to account for the facts before us on the basis of Uniformity? In common honesty will a short eternity itself satisfy the stern problem before us? I cannot see that it holds out the slightest promise of solving it; while, on the other hand, I am sure that, in dealing with the past of Man's existence (theories of evolution and all other theories of origins whatever cast aside), we are not at liberty to make unreasonable demands of time. The evidence of history and archaeology is all against it. From the latter sciences it can be shown that at their very dawn we have, over all the continents, a group of civilizations seldom equalled since save in very modern times, and all so undeniably related to one another and of such a character that they prove a previous state of civilization in some locality =together=, before these scattered fragments of our race were dispersed abroad. We can track these various peoples all back to some region in Southwestern Asia, though the exact locality for this source of inherited civilization has never yet been found, and it is now almost certain that it is somehow lost in the geological changes which have intervened. For when we cross the well marked boundary line between history and geology, we have still to deal with men who apparently =were not savages=, men who with tremendous disadvantages could carve and draw and paint as no savages have ever done, and who had evidently domesticated the horse and other animals. But as to time, history gives no countenance to long time, i.e., what geologists would call long. Good authentic history extends back a few score centuries, archaeology may promise us a few more. As for =millions= of years, of even a few =hundred thousands=, the thing seems too absurd for discussion, unless we forsake inductive methods, and assume some form of evolution _a priori_.