Boston, October 30, 1860.
I have already seen your article in “Blackwood.” . . . It strikes me, however, as an entirely
fair and rational view of the question, as presented by you. The fact of the present
association of human relics with the fossils in a bed of gravel is no proof
of synchronous deposit. Nor have we a right, even granting the synchronism, to
exclude positively the very great geological antiquity of man, since we have no
certain knowledge of the time of extinction of these accompanying fossil
forms.
It will be important to weigh the evidence, such as
this is, gathered from neighbouring and remote regions, on the question of the
degree of antiquity to be assigned to these extinct fossils, wholly independent
of any association with traces of man. Next, it will be necessary to accumulate
all the facts bearing on the question of the physical relations and those under
which the two have been brought together, whether by a tranquil process or by
turbulent intermingling of different sediments. This, it seems to me, would
demand an examination of the whole region, topographically, connected with the
Somme valley. As our knowledge in all these particulars now stands, I think a suspension
of judgment is the truly philosophical course. You have shown this, I
think, most clearly and impressively, and I am sure that all the readers of the
article will be struck with its cogency and ability.
I send you in a box some copies of my Report on an Institute
of Technology, which you may distribute as you think best. I am, however,
mailing a copy to you by to-morrow's steamer. The pamphlet will not be
distributed for some time. After the elections are over, and the public ready
for other thoughts, we shall try to interest parties here and in the other
larger towns, so as to effect a preliminary organization. Then this Institute
will join the Natural History Society, Horticultural Society, etc., in a
renewed application to the Legislature for a grant of land on the Back Bay. I
think you will find the plan of the Institute to include all the features which
we used to talk of, and to be at least broad enough for any practical result.
. . . We have no doubt of the election of Lincoln and
Hamlin. But there will, of course, be a Democratic Senate, and a very
large opposition in the House. The threats of disunion are already less loud.
Robert is well, and about to make an analysis of the water-gas, as it is
called, which is now used in lighting the new hotel at the corner of Ninth and
Chestnut streets. He likes Dr. Pepper, the successor of Wood, very much, and
writes in good spirits.
SOURCE: Emma
Savage Rogers & William T. Sedgwick, Life and Letters of William
Barton Rogers, Volume 2, p. 43-5
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