Types of mankind, or, Ethnological researches, based upon the ancient monuments, paintings, sculptures, and crania of races, and upon their natural, geographical, philological and Biblical history / illustrated by selections from the inedited papers of Samuel George Morton and by additional contributions from L. Agassiz, W. Usher, and H.S. Patterson ; by J.C. Nott and Geo. R. Gliddon.

  • Nott, Josiah C. (Josiah Clark), 1804-1873.
Date:
1860
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Types of mankind, or, Ethnological researches, based upon the ancient monuments, paintings, sculptures, and crania of races, and upon their natural, geographical, philological and Biblical history / illustrated by selections from the inedited papers of Samuel George Morton and by additional contributions from L. Agassiz, W. Usher, and H.S. Patterson ; by J.C. Nott and Geo. R. Gliddon. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    719/800 (page 663)
    6G3 archs,” from A-DaM to NoaK/i, were no more human beings, in the idea of their original writers, than are the ethno-geographical names catalogued in Xth Genesis. Abler hands, in another chapter [XI.] of this volume, have set forth what of geology and palaeontology throws more or less light upon Types of Mankind. Leaving the Deluge, its universality or its fabled reality, to professional reconcilers ;(350) the chronological bearings of this hypothetical event compel us not to dodge, at the same time that it is far from our intention to dwell upon, its passing consideration. No Hebraist disputes that, according to the literal language of the Text, the flood was universal. To make the Hebrew Text read as if it spoke of a partial or local catastrophe may be very harmonizing, but it is false philology, and consequently looks very like an imposture. “ The waters swelled up (prevailed) infinitely over the earth; all the high mountains, be- neath all the skies, were covered: fifteen cubits upward did the waters rise; the mountains were covered.” (351) The level of the flood was, therefore, 22J feet above the Dhawalaghiri (28,074 feet) and over the Sorata (25,200 feet); according to Humboldt. (352) Equivalent to some two miles above the line of perpetual snow must, therefore, have been the level whereupon the Ark would have been frozen solid but for an universal thaw. This is what the Hebrew chronicler meant by KuL HaHeHIM, HaGiBuIIIM — all the high mountains; even if Hiudostan and America were as alien to his geography, as such an aqueous elevation is to the physicist. . “If there is any circumstance,” declares Cuvier, “thoroughly established in geology, it is, that the crust of our globe has been subjected to a great and sudden revolution, the epoch of which cannot be dated much further back than five or six thousand years ago; that this revolution had buried all the countries which were before inhabited by men and by the other animals that are now best known.” (353) Science has found nothing to justify Cuvier’s hypothesis, conceived in the infancy of geo- logical studies ; whether in Egypt, (354) in Assyria, (355) or on the Mississippi: (SbG) whilst, without delving into the wilderness of geological works for flat contradictions of this oft-quoted passage of the great Naturalist, here are three extracts by way Of arrest of judgment: — “ Of the Mosaic Deluge I have no hesitation in saying, that it has never been proved to have produced a single existing appearance of any kind, and that it ought to be struck out of the list of geological causes.” (357) “There is, I think (says the President of the London Geological Society, 1831), one great negative fact now incontestably established; that the vast masses of Diluvial Gravel, scattered almost over the surface of the earth, do not belong to one violent and transitory period. . . . Our errors were, however, natural, and of the same kind which led many ex- cellent observers of a former century to refer all secondary formations to the Noachian Deluge. Having been myself a believer, and, to the best of my power, a propagator of what I now regard as philosophic heresy, ... I think it right, as one of my last acts before I quit this chair, thus publicly to read my recantation.” A later President of the same illustrious corps, 1834, uses similar language: — “ Some fourteen years ago I advanced an opinion . . . that the entire earth had . . . been covered by one general but temporary deluge ... I also now read my recantation.” (358) Were it not for such denials of Cuvier’s six-chiliad doctrine (to which hundreds might be added of the whole school of true geologists at the present day), then, it would be evident to archaeologists that “geology” must be of necessity a false science: and for the following reason:—It has been shown [supra, p. 562], that the first chapter of the “ book of Genesis” is an ancient cosmogenical ode, with a -“chorus” like the plays of Grecian dramatists; — that its authorship, if entirely unknown, is not Mosaic; — that its age, the style being (350) Such as, the Rev. Dr. Pte Smith, the Rev. Dr. Hitchcock, or “ The Friend of Moses.” (351) Genesis; vii. 18, 19; — Cahen’s Text; i. p. 21. (352) Cosmos; Otte’s trans., 1850, i. p. 28, 31, 330-332. (353) Essay on the Theory of the Earth; 1817 ; p. 171. (354) Gliddon; Otia JEgyytiaca; pp. 61-09. (355) Ainsworth: Assyria, Babylonia, and Chaldaa; London, 1838; pp. 101, 104-107. (356) Dowlkr : Tableaux of New Orleans; 1832; pp. 7-17. (357) McCulloch : System, of Geology; i. p. 445. (358) Rev. Dr. J. PrE Smith: Fetation, Ac.; 1841; pp. 138, 139, 141.