which men of science are the most competent to give an opinion. Some assume that there is an absolute contradiction, which no ingenuity can reconcile. There is no objection to the first chapter of Genesis which is more often urged, or with greater assurance, than that from geology. Some are so confident that this argument cannot be answered, that they are willing to stake their own unbelief upon it. Says Ingersoll: "If it shall turn out that Moses knew more about geology than Humboldt, then I will admit that infidelity must become speechless forever." Humboldt is certainly a great name to quote in controversy, though perhaps his greatness was more in his general survey of the vast realm of science, than in his complete mastery of any one department. If, instead of sweeping round the whole horizon of the Kosmos, we limit ourselves to the one point in hand, we may perhaps assume, without trespassing on the strict line of modesty, that we have in America a man who, in this special department of geology, is the equal of Humboldt, Germans themselves being judges — Professor James D. Dana of Yale College. "When I was in Germany," said one of the Faculty of Columbia College, who is himself well known abroad, "all the men of science whom I met asked me about 'that wonderful Dan-na' (pronouncing his name as if spelled with two ns), whom they regarded as the first scientific man in America, and as, in certain departments, second to no man living." This American professor, who is as modest as he is truly great, has devoted a large portion of his life, and he is more than seventy years old, to the special study of geology, and in this department he is the highest living authority, a place that would be conceded to him nowhere more fully than in the land of Humboldt. Yet it is he who writes: "To me the first chapter of Genesis is greatly
