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in magnitude. Behind the dwellers within that bottom of almost infernal sin, rose high the Circassian Mountains, offering shelter to the defeated fugitives. The Crimea, the Valleys of the Don, the Volga, the Dniester, the Bug, the Dnieper and the Danube, would have been unfolded to the explorer in that direction. Asia Minor would be in sight ready to be rich in corn, and wine, and oil; whose rivers carried diamonds and gold to the Euxine Sea. A little farther and the Bosphorus in its beauty glittered before the travellers, leading them on to the hills and isles of Greece. It is unnatural to believe that the human family were confined for nearly two thousand years within a huge valley, and never dreamed of climbing the mountains and stepping down on the gorgeous lands beyond them. This creed would be to suppose a miracle, of an amazing description, extending over many centuries, and including, by very reasonable statistics, hundreds of millions of

men.

Mr. Miller blames these who believe that the deluge was universal for clinging to suppositious miracles; but the presumed miracle on the antediluvian mind, essential to his views, like the miracle of the rain, is suppositious, and greater in its character than any of those which the credulous universalists in this particular are charged with maintaining. There is another. The district of country which was flooded by subsidence comprehended part of that which was described by Moses, when he wrote the first chapter of Genesis. His description is in the present tense. He names rivers and their characteristics as they existed when he wrote; known to those who read his records; for he invariably speaks of them as waters with which an intelligent resident in Egypt might be acquainted.

An anonymous but clever author some weeks since published a satirical volume under the title of "The Metaphysicians." He sketches out the halls which in a hundred years will cover all our land, when every labourer of good character will have his club, to the unhappiness, we suspect, of his wife and children. The author brings one of his metaphysicians who has got into life in London at that far future, to dine in one of these halls; where every man finishes his breakfast by giving orders respecting his dinner.

The

table, at the appointed dinner hour, subsides through the floor into the cooks' regions below; leaving the guests sitting with what we should call an inconvenient chasm between them, up which a blast of savoury meats would come to gratify one of the senses, before the commencement of eating in all its vulgarity. When the dishes have been placed above the respective numbers, the table is again upheaved into its proper place, and the hall looks as if no such subsidence had ever occurred there. The author supposed that he was promulgating a new idea, but he was in error.

The tract of land comprising a population of several millions of persons, including Ararat, the

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Armenian mountains, and all round the Caspian subsided, and was upheaved again, without any perceptible change, or crack, or revolution on its surface-with the same mountains raising their hoary peaks to the clear skies, and the same rivers issuing from the same springs, and wandering by the same ways to their amalgamation with the same waters. This happened once, if the inspired history of Moses, and the theory we have considered, be correct. We do not say that this is impossible-for all merely natural changes are possible; but it supposes a more stupendous miracle than anything connected with a universal deluge.

The employment of a miraculous rain militates against the subsidence theory; yet a curious confirmation of the opinion that rain was a grand agent in the catastrophe is found in the adoption of the bow in the cloud, as a token that the flood would return no more. Some parties have held that the deluge of rain arose from causes external to the globe; but no evidence exists for or against this opinion.

Mr. Miller, in supporting his views, quotes Sir Charles Lyell's calculations that no devastating flood could have passed over the forest zone of Etna, during the last twelve thousand years, and adds :

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For such is the antiquity which he assigns to its older lateral cones; that retain in integrity their original shape; and the volcanic cones of Auvergne, which inclose in their ashes the remains of extinct animals, and present an outline as perfect as those of Etna, are deemed older still.

The cross examination of the geologists would be amusing. It does not follow because there was a deluge that it was a "devastating flood," on cones eight or ten thousand feet above the level of the sea; for the ascent of the waters was gradual and slow, while their descent at these points was slower still, and might not have affected violently the tops of the mountains. The subsidence of the waters even after the ark rested on the top of Ararat was so slow, that time from the seventeenth day of the seventh month to the first day of the tenth month passed before the tops of the mountains were seen. Forty days elapsed after the tops of the mountains were seen before Noah sent forth the raven, and fourteen days more before the ground was dry on the top of Ararat. Even then, and perhaps for a long period subsequently, the ground would not be dry on the great plains and in the deep valleys. The gradual subsidence of the flood supports the assertion that no evidence of its devastations exist on the tops of very high mountains, for they should not be expected. After the waters had declined to a great extent, and the raven had gone forth from the ark, a rapid current might be formed in many places, but the early subsidence was probably unaccompanied by any perceptible current. Painters and poets have accustomed us to regard the deluge as a boiling, rapid, stormy, surging rush of many waters. Men of science need not be thrown out

SHADOWS OF THE NEW REFORM BILL.

363

of sense by these imaginative representations. | essential to the perpetuation of at least many The ascending waters may have covered the tops insects. The cases in which it may be necessary of the high mountains with a gentle flood, rising were doubless met by the drift wood that had in a solemn and stately manuer; and even thus floated upon the surface of the waters. exhibiting more power than in the howling of the storm, while the descent would be slower still. Against the universality of the deluge, Mr. Miller adduces the opinion that it would have destroyed all vegetable life; but we are not acquainted with experimental evidence in his favour. The dove returned to the ark from its first voyage of discovery with an olive leaf "pluckt off;" or, as Boothroyd renders it, "newly plucked." This olive tree had been under water; for we cannot suppose that the dove flew far away from the ark for its leaf; and unless the tree had been still alive, Noah could not have known that the leaf was newly plucked.

We have examined two portions of this work more closely than the strictly geological lectures— namely, that which, if it does not assert, yet strongly suggests, the visionic character of the revelation of the creation to Moses, and that which asserts the partial nature of the deluge.

He also argued that the minor animals could not have crossed the seas to inhabit our own island for example, and many other islands; as they must have done if the flood had been universal, but perhaps the statement implies a momentary forgetfulness that not a sparrow falleth to the ground without our heavenly Father's knowledge; and who could have directed the wanderings even of minor animals. It is also probable that for a long period after the flood the debris of the land floated on the sea and may have been carried by currents from shore to shore, affording a means of involuntary migration to the minor animals, while it is evident that they would accompany the migration of mankind; as, within the "his toric period," a new and formidable species of some animals have reached our shores. The Baltic rat was naturalised in Britain by the Baltic trade. Other animals have been introduced into many quarters of the world in the present age.

The author has also a strong argument in the case of insects, but the injunctions to Noah include beasts, birds, and creeping animals; apparently excluding insect life; while many species would be perpetuated readily although the race had perished. An actual succession of living specimens is not

Both opinions were formed to reconcile strong geologic views with our reading of Scripture; and they testify against the folly of undue reliance upon an inexact branch of knowledge. That is their clear and striking testimony. Perhaps they were both formed in consequence of attacks upon geological science, not justified, although provoked, by its misapplication. Whatever, for instance, be the meaning of day in the first chapter of Genesis, it is not twenty-four hours, although this author dealt with that meaning of these days, as if any careful reader could have adopted it.

Again, he has devoted great care to the establishment of the partial deluge view, in order, he has said, to obviate "suppositious miracles;" but this notion, as we have seen, requires more stupendous miracles, greater, in one sense, for its realisation, than the commonly received opinion.

Geology has had no more industrious collector of data or fragments, and no disciple who more clearly and eloquently described them, than the author of " The Testimony of the Rocks ;" but, like many enthusiasts, he failed in reasoning out the legitimate results of these discoveries, and magnified them to more than their intrinsic worth. Then he fell into a maze of thought respecting their reconciliation with Scripture, and he is not the first whose mind has been shattered in a toil for which no cause ever existed.

Practically, the world will lose nothing, although some pre-Adamite facts be considered diluvian facts; and yet this work was composed to guard against this suppositious tendency, while the actual tendency runs in an opposite current.

year.

SHADOWS OF THE NEW REFORM BILL.

Two events have occurred during the month, bear-
upon the promised reform in the suffrage next
The first was within, and the second with
out, the pale of Parliament. Mr. Locke King was
the chief orator in the first, and Mr. Disraeli in the
second of these proceedings. Mr. King brought
forward his bill to extend the county franchise
from fifty to ten pounds.
Leave was conceded to
bring in the bill, with notice that permission would
not be given to carry the measure in the present
session. Viscount Palmerston even intimated a

rather hostile feeling to the proposal, which, being a repetition of his opinion expressed in the last session of the last Parliament, looks very unlike progress. During the general election, different explanations were given of the Ministerial opposition to Mr. Locke King's proposals. To the constituencies generally it appeared to be founded on some formal or technical difficulty, which could have been easily removed. It was on a mere matter of etiquette, which could be so readily rectified that we expected the assistance of Mr

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Hayter on the next division upon the subject. Viscount Palmerston has created a dread of disappointment in this particular. He assented to the introduction of the bill, with an analysis of the reasons that had induced him to oppose the equalisation of the borough and the county qualification. From this statement it is difficult to extract a plausible pretence against the bill-a good reason could not be given. The Premier seemed to think that the burghers are more intelligent than country people. No other cause can be named for enacting a lower qualification in boroughs than in counties. A farmer who pays only twelve pounds yearly for the few acres of land which he cultivates, has surely a claim to be placed on the register, equal to the pawnbroker or spirit-dealer, or tradesman of any description, who pays a similar rent for his business premises and home in a borough. We cannot see the difference between a farmer taking land to cultivate and a shoemaker taking a shop in which he is to stitch boots.

The second-class of county residents excluded by the fifty pound franchise, are a most respectable body of men. They consist of persons dwelling out of parliamentary boroughs, and in counties necessarily, and living by professional exertions, or from the proceeds of property; and of all tradesmen who do not occupy their own premises, or pay fifty pounds of rent. A more respectable class of men could not be brought into any constituency; and they are a numerous body; for a number of considerable towns, and all the villages, come within the counties in a parliamentary sense.

Mr. Locke King's bill is therefore a measure of justice to a numerous body of our countrymen who discharge all the usual duties of citizens, pay taxes, serve on juries, we suppose; and against whom, the only objection made by those who exclude them from the rights of citizenship is, that they reside in one parish instead of another. The objection is entirely geographical. It has nothing to do with the merits or the minds, the property or the qualifications, of the persons who are kept out of the ordinary rights of citizenship. They are not suspected of being more unruly than their neighbours who dwell in boroughs; and no better reason can be given for the present system than that it has been the habit.

Mr. Locke King's measure cannot be carried in the present year. The Government will draw upon good intentions. The promised bill of 1858 will crush the proposed bill of 1857. The discussion on the subject will, however, open out the merits of the plan. It will indicate the extent of the ministerial benefits that we are to expect next year; and it may finally take the shape and value of a great social reform. For many years a feeling against the management of land has prevailed in many quarters. Many landowners wage war against small farms. They believe in the manufacture of corn and solitude; and a large portion of the public feel that this policy cuts down the strength of the country. The landed interest

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Everywhere in Scotland some sort of farming is carrying land back a stage in what may be termed its civilisation. Corn land has been cast into grass, and grazing land into forests. These processes alone explain the large emigration from, and yet the want of labour in, many of our agricultural districts; or even the great importation of food that has become necessary for the existence of our population. We scarcely believe that our cultivation has become more successful under the existing farming, high or low, during the last ten or fifteen years; and we ascribe the deficiency, in some part, to the changes going on, especially in the northern counties, in the mode of farming. Mr. Locke King's measure will undoubtedly affect the position of small farmers in the country. They will become politically valuable. Landowners will hold them in greater respect when they learn that even a twenty five pound farmer may affect an election. We do not expect great political independence from this class, but we look to the measure for their preservation, as a body to whom the country has been indebted for the preservation of its freedom and independence.

The second movement on the suffrage was made by Mr. Disraeli, at Newport Pagnell, where a number of Buckinghamshire farmers had assembled to dine, and hear their member's opinions on the new Reform Bill; but his first opinion was, that it is not wanted. The public are quiet, and do not wish for change, according to the member for Bucks, who had read the addresses and speeches of members of Parliament before their electionand, except among the individuals who form his own minority, he never found greater unanimity on any political subject than the necessity of an extended reform bill. The public, of course, are quiet, because they have been promised a measure by the majority of the Commons, and from recent experiences they do not expect any strong resistance from the Peers,

Mr. Disraeli will not himself introduce a measure. He will not assume the place of a troubler of the country. He is satisfied with the settlement of 1832. His hearers would naturally suppose that it was a perfectly fair and just settlement, when he decided to support it. Immediately afterwards, however, he assured them that the settlement was absolutely unjust to themselves and their friends in counties, and produced elaborately prepared tables to prove that the boroughs had, upon an average, one member to twenty-five thousand inhabitants, while the counties had one only for

MR. DISRAELI AT NEWPORT PAGNELL.

Therefore, says Mr.
change, let us have

sixty-three thousand persons.
Disraeli, if we are to have a
more equal representation of the boroughs' and
counties' population.

The

His argument is ingenious, as an apple of Sodom -fair and ruddy on the outside, but full of dust in the interior-and not even healthy dust. large representation of boroughs may be admitted and denounced, as it is denounced by all reformers, who say that it exists for the benefit of the landed interest. The fact was concealed by Mr. Disraeli, although no person knows it better, that a large number of borough members represent the proprietors of the land on which the boroughs stand. We need not attempt to prove the acknowledged fact, that many small boroughs return members to order. Their electors are only nominally electors, qualified to register the wish of their superiors. Nominally, they are charged as boroughs; really, they are corners of counties. The superiors are invariably landowners in the neighbourhood-and that class of boroughs should have been carried to the credit of the Newport Pagnellians. They belong, not to the borough, but to the county interest. They should clearly be subtracted from the former, and given to the latter. The results would greatly change Mr. Disraeli's tables; and, although it would be invidious to name particular boroughs, yet it cannot be individually objectionable to reckon all boroughs under five thousand as, in reality, corners of counties. The leader of the opposition confined his calculations and remarks to England; and therefore the following list is entirely taken from the English representation, and consists of boroughs under five and under ten thousand in population:

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365

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The first table contains 26 boroughs, returning 40 memberrs, who represent upon an average 3,164 persons each. The second table contains 47 boroughs, returning 73 members, who represent 4,825 persons each. The two tables contain 113 members, who represent some 73 boroughs, and upon an average 4,287 each of our population. The members for Harwich have a smaller charge than any of their colleagues-being burthened with the care of only 2,246 persons each, according to the census of 1851. The tables yield 67 Liberals, 14 Liberal Conservatives, and 32 Conservatives, or 67 Liberals against 46 Conservatives. might be expected, therefore, not to quarrel with the existence of these small boroughs and their privileges, but we keep by our motto-Fiat Justitia. Some of these constitutions contain an independent and sturdy class of politicians. Others, are said, to absorb a fortune at each election. Another

We

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set are the property of certain parties, and the I am satisfied. The Radicals seek equal repre

Whig manufacturers of the Reform Bill were only specimens of human nature, and helped themselves.

These tables take the teeth out of Mr. Disraeli's complaint, that the country suffers injustice from the borough representation, to the advantage of large towns; for that was the inference which he sought to infuse into the unsophisticated minds of Newport Pagnell. Several of the towns named in this table are independent of aristocratic influence. The class of towns, with from seven to thirty thousand inhabitants, contain many not less independent and intelligent electors than the larger boroughs. Still, in all of them, built upon the leasehold system common to England, a disposition exists to aid the superior, if he requires the aid of voting. Some persons, for example, alleged that Mr. Cobden was defeated at Huddersfield in the last election, by the influence of Sir John Ramsden. That gentleman had evidently given no reason for the statement, and Mr. Cobden's immediate supporters were the first to meet it by denial. It is apparent, however, that in a closely contested election, Sir John Ramsden could influence the issue at Huddersfield; and that if he were a candidate, his election would be almost secure. He is in Parliament, and sets a good example by looking for another seat; but he might have been re.. turned for his own borough, especially as his opinions harmonise with those of a large body in the constituency. Sir Robert Peel, like his late father, takes a different course, and is returned by his tenantry; yet Tamworth is included by Mr. Disraeli among the borough constituencies.

The Newport Pagnellians must have reduced their estimate of the member for their county by ten per cent. when he confessed his intention of defending injustice to the rural districts. He might as well have said to the dinner party"Gentlemen,-You and all your friends were cheated miserably by the settlement of 1832. You may be a majority in the country, but you are a minority only in the House of Representatives. You are my good friends and neighbours, supporters of my interests, it is true; but it takes two of you to be equal with your shoemaker, your barber, or your grocer, who keeps a shop in Aylesbury or Buckingham. You were very badly used by the settlement of 1832, and will continue to be constitutionally an inferior race, until after the reformation of that settlement. I am your member, employed by you to represent your grievances, as Hampden was. I am Hampden's successor. But I am contented with the settlement of 1832, and all the terrible usage inflicted upon you by its machinery. You are deemed an inferior race,-I am contented. You are only half represented,-I am pleased. Your interests suffer in consequence,

sentation for you, and for all; but oh! Newport Pagnellians, beware of these adders in the grass! They have to deal with a subtle Premier-an old, tough politician, and practical man of business, who swears incontinently, as I myself experienced a few days ago, when he besought me to give him the honour of a conference at this hour; but I preferred the Pagnellians to Palmerston—this ordinary to Cambridge-house-this mysterious liquid which I see before me-t -this mythical wine-to the sparkling champagne of that hospitable mansion. I came here to describe your sufferings, to enlarge on your distresses, to forget the existence of boroughmongers still-and to say that the landed interest is cruelly under represented, but that I will do nothing to amend the evil-yet if the Premier does not succeed in staving off the assaults on this venerable injustice to you, around which the memories of twenty-five years and of many defeats cluster-I will look after better terms for you in the general rush." It is not expected that Mr. Disraeli would turn into a con fessional that farmers' ordinary at Newport Pagnell, or that he would plainly tell his own blunders to his own constituents; but if he had become suddenly conscientious he must have addressed the assembly in the meaning we have expressed.

The larger towns remonstrate against the undue preponderance of small country places. The men bers for the metropolis represent 125,000 persons each, or thereby. The members for Glasgow and Liverpool, have nearly 250,000 each in charge. The members for Manchester and Salford, take 165,000 each. The same weighty responsibilities are laid upon all members for large towns; and the same injustice is done to their inhabitants. They gain nothing by the fact that the members for South Lancashire, and the West Riding of Yorkshire stand in the House of Commons, for nearly 500,000 persons each, deducting the otherwise represented town population.

Mr. Disraeli's speech is described as a bid for the premiership. It must be a very distant offer. The pear, as yet, is not formed that he will pluck; but if he has determined to carry equal represen tation into the next reform bill, we rejoice at the amendment of opinion which he has experienced during the last month or two; for at the hustings he asserted that the friends of equal representation wanted to blot Buckinghamshire and all its grand old reminiscences, out of the representation map. The shadows thicken.

Other leaders of opinion will declare themselves soon. We have more than one Newport Pag nell in the kingdom, where convenient dinners can be prepared. Buckinghamshire cannot be allowed to absorb all political revelations; but our business is to watch-and not to prediot.

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