Nay, more, we cannot restrict ourselves to the solar system; we must embrace in our discussions the starry worlds.

And, since we have become familiarized with their almost immeasurable distances from one another, we are prepared to accept for their origin an immeasurably remote time.

There are stars so far off that their light, fast as it travels, has taken thousands of years to reach us, and hence they must have been in existence many thousands of years ago.
Geologists having unanimously agreed--for perhaps there is not a single dissenting voice--that the chronology of the earth must be greatly extended, attempts have been made to give precision to it.

Some of these have been based on astronomical, some on physical principles.

Thus calculations founded on the known changes of the eccentricity of the earth's orbit, with a view of determining the lapse of time since the beginning of the last glacial period, have given two hundred and forty thousand years.