conclusions that other streams do, because they mix relics of all ages together. The ancient California men may possibly have been contemporary with the Paleolithic men of Belgium.

A fisherman's line-sinker, made of polished syenite, was found by workmen while sinking a well in San Joaquin. The work men alleged that it came from the same quaternary gravel thirty feet down. If so, it may be Palæolithic in spite of its beautiful polish and finish. The authenticity of its location is not proved, however. No scientific man saw it exhumed, and every experienced naturalist knows how prone workmen are to confound the relics, which tumble into an excavation from the edge of the earth at the top, with those properly belonging to the bottom. The positiveness of their false opinions in these cases is often very amusing, and not unfrequently imposes on scientific men themselves. It is said similar stone sinkers are still used by the western coast Indians.

As

The work of Mr. Southall is a timely one. The archæologists have been industrious, and accumulated a large array of facts, which different observers, with a singular blundering eagerness, assume to prove all sorts of contradictory antiquities for the human race, varying from five thousand up to eight millions of years. It is time to examine their work, to sift and compare their discoveries, to blow among the dust and smoke of enthusiastic assumptions, and see exactly what the facts prove. Mr. Southall has done this in a masterly manner. before stated, he has given the most thorough and honest statement of all the important discoveries on this subject which has ever appeared in the English language, and made it so complete that very few important facts have escaped him. At the same time he has brought to the work a keen, and often original, analysis, which greatly increases the value of the treatise. He has given a very great labor to it, and this is what is needed. Facts, and facts alone, settle such questions, and to them all appeals at last must come.

The final result of the whole discussion is clearly this. Up to the present hour there has not been found a fragment of any human bone, nor a single relic of human workmanship, which can be clearly shown to be over five thousand years of age.

ART. III.-THE SCIENTIFIC CONFERENCE AT CHAU

TAUQUA.

AT the late Sunday-school Assembly at Chautauqua, one of the highest functionaries of our Church declared its creative and controlling spirit, Dr. Vincent, to be the Napoleon of the Sunday-school cause. We are inclined to carry out the figure a step farther, and name him the Danton of the Sunday-school revolution-for in his work he seems to have adopted as his own the motto of the great French revolutionist, "l'audace! l'audace!! et encore l'audace!!!" for year after year he seems to increase in boldness and in boldness, and again in boldness, until we are at a loss to know what to expect from him next.

When this generalissimo of his revolution came to us for the first time to unfold his plans for a Scientific Conference at Chautauqua we listened with fear and trembling, and thought within us-this is a bold experiment. But the leader had determined on a forward movement, and only desired of us counsel as to the members of his staff for this aggressive warfare. We advised as best we knew, and could simply wish him Godspeed! And he sped to victory by a judicious choice of workers, and then commanded success to perch upon his banners by deserving it.

The Scientific Conference has ceased to be a doubtful experiment, and has passed into the field of history; and its decided success merits, we think, a chronicler, and as such we propose to enter into no philosophical disquisition as to the conflict between science and religion-with this we have been both saturated and satiated. We prefer to deal with the practical facts brought forward in this new enterprise, and to show how, in our humble judgment, the developments of the wonders revealed by science will lead the popular mind more surely to a firm belief in the existence of a great and good First Cause, and will leave an impression even stronger than the arguments of Bible defenders, and one that will be proof against the attacks of atheistic scientists.

This Scientific Conference fully proves that Christian men have no desire to refuse a hearing to the devotees of science; on the contrary, they are willing to do even more than "beard

the lion in his den;" they bid him come forth and take their platform with all that he has to reveal, that they may use it to demonstrate the goodness, power, and sublime glory of God. "Truth is mighty and will prevail," and no man ought to fear the development of any truth that can clearly be proved to be such; and so long as scientific men will bring us the actual and wonderful facts of science, and will spare us vague theories about matters in which they are as much in the dark as we, and especially will spare us many of their doubtful deductions, we shall willingly listen to them, and accept them as worthy and desirable coadjutors in the noble and praiseworthy effort to understand all that we may of the marvelous attributes of God.

The enigma to be solved was the feasibility and desirability of presenting scientific truths to Christian workers. Can it be done? Is it well to do it? Will they appreciate it and profit by it? We answer these questions in the affirmative, and are sustained, we believe, by the great majority of the persons who enjoyed the rare opportunity of studying scientific truth as it was presented at Chautauqua. And we shall endeavor to strengthen our position by a collateral approach in the first place.

Some years ago the scientific men of England, under the lead of Faraday, undertook to teach popular science to the poor, with the view of elevating and encouraging them to look to nobler things than the many allurements and vices around them. His Christmas lectures to juvenile audiences years ago may be considered as the inauguration of a system which finally grew into a regular preaching of the gospel of science to the poor. Since his death his successor, Professor Tyndall, has regularly continued these Christmas lectures. And the famous Manchester lectures to the workingmen have now grown into a fixed institution. The object was simply to teach the elements of science in plain and popular language, and to prove the truth of the many curious assertions by actual experiments. The system has become a decided success, and the working poor of England now enjoy great advantages in the study of applied science, though it may be imparted by some men who in a higher sphere have acquired no great credit for their frivolous and disrespectful treatment of the influence of a higher

Being in the affairs of man and the control of the world. These men have doubtless unwittingly taught many sublime and holy truths, that have been better appreciated by their lowly hearers than by themselves.

The success of these lectures has led scientific men to renounce the erroneous notion that has too long prevailed among them as to the value of such efforts. What the French call the vulgarization of knowledge is now becoming popular among them, and they are beginning to enjoy the pleasure of addressing unlettered and unwashed audiences, many of which seem to vie in intelligence with their better dressed and housed competitors, and to absorb, to their great profit, the sublime truths imparted to them. And we are pleased to say that the same experiment has been tried now for a few winters with very marked success in our own country by one of the Chautauqua workers in the Scientific Conference, Professor S. A. Lattimore, of the University of Rochester.

This gentleman conceived some years ago the idea of establishing in that city a course of free lectures for the workingmen with their wives and children, to present to them the wonders of science in plain and intelligible language, demonstrated by many of the beautiful experiments at his command with the apparatus used in his class lectures. This idea of giving the workingmen college lectures, so to say, was received at first with much distrust. Will these people come? And will it do them any good? Suffice it to say that they have been continued for several years in Rochester, have been extended by urgent request to Buffalo, and just now Detroit is endeavoring to secure the assistance of the same distinguished and philanthropic Christian gentleman for a course of his lectures in that city under the auspices of the Young Men's Christian Association. And he writes to us in a private letter, in reply to a request for his impressions regarding the work, as

follows:-

"All I know is the little I have learned during the last few years in my humble efforts to do something for the working people of this city and Buffalo in the way of lectures on popular science. I began with no encouragement, but only discouragement, from my friends. The unexpected success at first might fairly have been attributed to the novelty of the

enterprise, and the fact that tickets were given away to any workingman free of cost, and no tickets were sold. But as the novelty wore off the interest seemed to increase, and I have always been surprised at the intelligent appearance and the wrapt attention of these great audiences. I have never seen any thing so inspiring and helpful to an extempore speaker. I have always insisted on a few conditions, such as these: All the workingmen (with wives and children, say over fourteen) to be admitted without distinction. Tickets to be free of cost, and other classes not admitted. Many workingmen object to receiving a free ticket, fearing they are accepting a charity. Sunday clothes are not necessary.'

Now we know that these lectures have been a grand success, and that many of the manufacturers and merchants of the cities named have found it a great pleasure to contribute to the necessary labor and expense attending them-not in paying the lecturer, for he would accept nothing but the pleasure afforded him in doing a good deed to the poor and lowly, but in defraying bills for lecture halls, tickets, announcements, etc. Year after year these lectures have become more and more popular, and the workingmen now look for their annual pleasure with as great eagerness as the most inveterate popular lecture-goers.

Now it seems but one step to transfer such work from the platforms of great cities to the tabernacle of the tented grove. But who other than the "audacious doctor" would have thought of so doing, and would have boldly ventured to introduce scientific lectures as a part of the proceedings of a Sunday-school assembly? We reply, no other than Dr. Vincent, and to him belongs the credit of whatever success may have been reaped in this peculiar endeavor. It seems to have been his opinion that people need to know something about science before they can intelligently consider whether it conflicts with religion or not. The plan, therefore, as finally developed in his mind, was to give Christians at large, and Sunday-school workers in particular, an opportunity which but few of them could otherwise enjoy, of listening to a group of very distinguished men discuss a series of scientific questions, and present a set of lectures demonstrated by the finest and most interesting apparatus in the country. Dr. Doremus, of New York