[73] T. Mellard Reade, "Limestone as an Index of Geological Time," _Proceedings_, Royal Society, London, vol. xxviii., p. 281. [74] _Scientific American_, Supplement, February 1881. [75] _Proceedings_, Royal Society, vol. xv. No. 82, 1866. [76] _Athenæum_, August 25, 1860, &c. [77] The mass of astronomers, however, deny that this is possible to any very great extent. [78] James Croll, F.R.S., &c., _Climate and Time in their Geological Relations_. [79] Figs. 19 and 21 are taken, by permission of Edmund Christy, Esq., from _Reliquiæ Aquitanicæ_, &c., London, 1875. [80] In some cases as much as 150 feet. [81] "Starting from the opinion generally accepted among geologists, that man was on the earth at the close of the Glacial epoch, Professor B. F. Mudge adduces evidence to prove that the antiquity of man cannot be less than 200,000 years. "His argument, as given in the Kansas City Review of Science, is about as follows:-- "After the Glacial epoch, geologists fix three distinct epochs, the Champlain, the Terrace, and the Delta, all supposed to be of nearly equal lengths. "Now we have in the delta of the Mississippi a means of measuring the duration of the third of these epochs. "For a distance of about two hundred miles of this delta are seen forest growths of large trees, one after the other, with interspaces of sand. There are ten of these distinct forest growths, which have begun and ended one after the other. The trees are the bald cypress (_Taxodium_) of the Southern States, and some of them were over twenty-five feet in diameter. One contained over five thousand seven hundred annual rings. In some instances these huge trees have grown over the stumps of others equally large, and such instances occur in all, or nearly all, of the ten forest beds. This gives to each forest a period of 10,000 years. "Ten such periods give 100,000 years, to say nothing of the time covered by the interval between the ending of one forest and the beginning of another, an interval which in most cases was considerable. "'Such evidence,' writes Professor Mudge, 'would be received in any court of law as sound and satisfactory. We do not see how such proof is to be discarded when applied to the antiquity of our race. "'There is satisfactory evidence that man lived in the Champlain epoch. But the Terrace epoch, or the greater part of it, intervenes between the Champlain and the Delta epochs, thus adding to my 100,000 years. "'If only as much time is given to both those epochs as to the Delta period, 200,000 years is the total result.'"--_Popular Science Monthly_, No. 91, vol. xvi. No. 1, p. 140, November 1878.