m&mmmm mm .;:.;■.: ..i.-.:^: Ssigp * VI 19 THE RBABES- eat* te the skater who frequents in winter the lakes in the neighborhood of Edinburgh, those parts of the ice on which he might be in danger of losing him- self. I would recommend, then, readers not particu- larly palssontological, to pass but lightly over the whole of my fourth and fifth chapters, with the latter half of the third, marking, however, as they skim the pages, the conclusions at which I arrive regarding tht bulk and organization of the extraordinary animal described, and the data on which these are founded Ify book, like an Irish landseape dotted with green bogs, has its portions on which it may be perilous for the unpractised surveyor to make any considerable stand, but across which he may safely take his sights and lay down his angles. It will, I trust, be found, that in dealing with errors which, in at least their primary bearing, affect ques- tions of science, I have not offended against the cour- tesies of scientific controversy. True, they are errors which also involve moral consequences. There is a species of superstition which mclmes rren to take on trust whatever assumes the name of science; and which seems to be a reaction on the old superstition, that had faith in witcnes, but none in Sir Isaac New re rxs UUXKL ten, and believed in ghosts, but failed to credit the Gregorian calendar. And, owing mainly to the wide diffusion of this credulous spirit of the modern type, as little disposed to examine what it receives as its ancient unreasoning predecessor, the development doctrines are doing much harm on both sides of the Atlantic, especially among intelligent mechanics, and a class of young men engaged in the subordinate de* partments of trade and the law. And the harm, thus considerable in amount, must be necessarily more than merely considerable in degree. For it invariably hap- pens, that when persons in these walks become ma- terialists, they become also turbulent subjects and bad men. That belief in the existence after death, which forms the distinguishing instinct of humanity, is too essential a part of man's moral constitution not to be missed when away ; and so, when once fairly eradi- cated, the life and conduct rarely fail to betray its absence. But I have not, from any consideration of the mischief thus effected, written as if arguments like cannon-balls, could be rendered more formidable than in the cool state by being made red-hot. I havs not even felt, in discussing the question, as if I had a man before me as an opponent; for though my B riil Te TBB BJUHBL work contains numerous references to the anther of the " Vestiges," I have invariably thought on these occasions, not of the anonymous writer of the vol- ume, of whom I know nothing, but simply of an in- genious, well-written book, unfortunate in its facts and not always very happy in its reasonings. Fur- ther, I do not think that palssontological fact, in its bearing on the points at issue, is of such a doubtful complexion as to leave the geologist, however much from moral considerations in earnest in the matter, any very serious excuse for losing his temper. In my reference to the three great divisions of the geologic scale, I designate as Palaoxoic all the fossil- iferous rocks, from the first appearance of organic ex istence down to the close of the Permian system ; all as Secondary, from the close of the Permian system down to the close of the Cretaceous deposits; and all as Tertiary, from the close of the Cretaceous deposits down to the introduction of man. The wood-cuts of the volume, of which at least nine tenths of the whole represent objects never figured before, were drawn and cut by Mr. John Adams of Edinburgh, (8, Heriot Place,) with a degree of care and skil] which has left ae no reason to regret my distance fO ?HB UABBS, is from the London ast&fts and engravers. So fat at .east as the object® X T* TMS aiABBX nous obligations to my friends, literary and seientife, the reader will find acknowledged in the body of the roluae, as the occasion occurs of availing myself of either the information communicated, or the organ* ism, f*e*»t er estiactj lemt m% ©r given HUGH MILLS!, AUTHOR 01 "OLD BSD SAJIBBTOJri" AM* " TGOTTtLlKW OF THS CREATOR. Taa geological works of Hugh Miller have excited the greatest interest, not only among scientific men, but also among general read- en. There ia in them a freshness of conception, a power of argu- mentation, a depth of thought, a purity of feelings, rarely met with in works of that character, which are well calculated to call forth sympathy, and to increase the popularity of a science which has al- ready done so much to expand our views of the Plan of Creation rhe scientific illustrations published by Mr. Miller are most happily combined with considerations of a higher order, rendering both equally acceptable to the thinking reader. But what is in a great degree peculiar to our author, is the successful combination of Chris- tian doctrines with pure scientific truths. On that account, hia works deserve peculiar attention. His generalisations have nothing of the vagueness which too often characterise the writings of those authors who have attempted to make the results of science eubservi- ent to the eause of religion. Struck with the beauty of Mr, Miller's works, it has for some time past been my wish to see them more exten- sively circulated in this country; and I have obtained leave from the author to publish an American edition of his «* Footprints of the Creator," for which he has most liberally furnished the publishers with the admirable wood-cuts of the original. While preparing some additional chapters, and various notes illus- trative of certain points alluded to incidentally in this 'work, it was deemed advisable to preface it with a short biographical notice at B* ttt BOSS MSLtSR. the gather, I had already sketched suck a paper* whan I became acquainted with a fall memoir of this remarkable man, containing most Interesting details of his earlier Ufa, written by that eminent historian of the " Martyrs of Science," the great natural philosopher of Scotland. It has occurred to me that, owing to the frequent ref •recess whieh I could not avoid to my own researches, I had better mbstitute this ample Biography for my short sketch, with such alter- ations and additions as the connection in whieh it is brought here would require. I therefore proceed to introduce our author with Sir David Brewster's own words: — Of all the studies which relate to the material universe, there Is none, perhaps, whieh appeals so powerfully to our senses, or which comes into such close and immediate contact with our wants and enjoyments, as that of Geology. In our hourly walks, whether on business or for pleasure, we tread with heedless step upon the ap- parently uninteresting objects which it embraces: but could we rightly interrogate the rounded pebble at our feet, it would read us an exciting chapter on the history of primeval times, and would tell as of the convulsions by which it was wrenched from its parent rock, and of the floods by which it was abraded and transported to its present humble locality. In our visit to the picturesque and the sublime in nature, we are brought into closer proximity to the more interesting phenomena of geology. In the precipices which protect our rook-girt shores, which flank our mountain glens, or which va- riegate our lowland valleys, and in the shapeless fragments at their base, which the lichen colors, and round which the ivy twines, we see the remnant* of uplifted and shattered beds, which once re- posed in peace at the bottom of the ocean. Nor does the rounded boulder, which would have defied the lapidary's wheel of the Giant Age, give forth a less oracular response from its grave of clay, or from its lair of sand. Floated by ice from some Alpine summit, or hurried along in torrents of mud, and floods of water, it may have traversed a quarter of the globe, amid the crash of falling for- ests, and the death shrieks of the noble animals which they sheltered The mountain range, too, with its catacombs below, along which the earthquake transmits its terrific sounds, reminds us of the mighty power by which it was upheaved; — while the lofty peak, with its eap of Ice, or its nostrils of ire, places in our view the tremendous agencies whieh have base at work beneath us. But it is net merely amid the powers of external nature tL,. «o* onoe hides* things of the Karta are presented to our view. Our ■ess suluul n. temples and oar palaees are 'armed from tea reeks ©f s primaval age bearing the vary rippla-marks of a Pre-Adamite ocean, — grooved b* the passage of the once moving boulder, and embosoming the relice of ancient life, and the plants by which it was sustained. Oui dwellings, too, are ornamented with the variegated limestones, — the indurated tou. >a of molluscous life, — and our apartments heated with the carbon of primeval forests, and lighted with the gaseous alement whioh it confines. The obelisk of granite, and the colossal oronxe which transmit to future ages the deeds of the hero and the sage, are equally the production of the Earth's prolific womb ; and from the green bed of the ocean has been raised the pure and spot- less marble, to mould the divine lineaments of beauty, and perpetu- ate the expressions of intellectual power. From a remoter age, and a still greater depth, the primary and secondary rocks have yielded a rich tribute to e ohaplet of rank, and to the processes of art. Exhibiting, as it peculiarly does, almost all those objects of inter- est and research, Scotland has been diligently studied both by na- tive and foreign observers; and she has sent into the geologioal field a distinguished group of inquirers, who have performed a noble feat la exploring the general structure of the Earth, in deciphering its ancient monuments, and in unlocking those storehouses of mineral wealth, from which civilised man derives the elements of that gigan tie power which his otherwise feeble arm wields over nature. The occurrence of shells on the highest mountains, and the re- mains of plants and animals, which the most superficial observer could not fail to notice, in the rocks around him, have for centuries commanded the attention and exercised the ingenuity of every stu- dent of nature. But though sparks of geological truth were from time to time elicited by speculative minds, it was not till the end of the last century that its great lights broke forth, and that it took the form and character of one of the noblest of the sciences. Without undervaluing the labors of Werner, and other illustrious foreigners, or those of our southern countrymen, Mitchell and Smith, at the close of the last century, we may characterise the commencement of the present as the brightest period of geological discovery, and place its most active locality in the northern metropolis of our island. It was doubtless from the Royal Society of Edinburgh, at a centre, thai a great geologioal impulse was propagated southward, and it was by the collision of the Wernerian and Huttonian views, the antagonist theories of water and of fire, that men of intellectual power were 3umHtf**ed from othet stasias j and that grand truths, wbJab faaa* fftW B8&B K12JLKS. ewm and intolerance had hitherto abjured, rose triumphant over the ignorance and bigotry of the age. The Geological Society of London, which doubtless sprung from the excitement in the Scottish metropo- ;is, entered on the new field of research with a faltering step. The prejudices of the English mind had been marshalled with illiberal i'lolence against the Huttonian doctrines. Infidelity and Atheism srere charged against their supporters; and had there been a Protec- tant Inquisition in England at that period of general political excite- ment, the geologists of the north would have been immured in its leepest dungeons. Truth, however, marched apace; and though her simple but ma- jestic procession be often solemn and slow, and her votaries few and Rejected, yet on this, as on every occasion, she triumphed over the nost inveterate prepossessions, and finally took up her abode in those r«ry halls and institutions where she had been persecuted and re- riled. When their science had been thus acquitted of the charge of impiety and irreUgios, the members of the Geological Society left their humble and timid position of being the collectors only of ihe •Kotmsfe offutwt gmwalitatiotu, and became at once the most so* ceasful observers of geological phenomena, and the boldest asaoitciis of geological troth. In this field of research, in whieh the physical, as well as the in tellectual, frame of the philosopher is made tributary to science, two of our countrymen — Sir Roderick Murohison and Sir Charles Lyell — have been among our most active laborers. From the study of their native glens, these distinguished travellers, like the Humboldts and the Von Buohs of the continent, have passed into foreign lands, exploring the north and the south of Europe, and extending their labors to the eastern ranges of the Ural and the Timan, and to the Apailachians and the Alleghanies in the far west. But while our two countrymen were interrogating the strata of other lands, many able and active laborers had been at work in their own. Among the eminent students of the structure of the earth, Mr. Hugh Miller holds a lofty place, not merely from the discovery of a*w and undesoribed organisms in the Old Red Sandstone, but from the accuracy and beauty of his descriptions, the purity and elegance of his composition, and the high tone of philosophy and religion which distinguish** all his writings. Mr. Miller is one of the few individuals in the history of Scottish science who have raised themselves above the labors of an humble profession, by the force •4 their genius and the excellence of their character, to a eompar* HVQB JCIU.EB. ** trvely high place in the social scale. Mr. Talferd, like Mr. MUtat followed the profession of a stone-mason, before his industry and self-tuition qualified him for the higher functions of an arehitaet and an engineer. And Mr. Watt and Mr. Rearaie rose to wealth and fame without the aid of a university education. But, distin- guished as these individuals were, none of tharn possessed those qualities of mind which Mr. Miller has exhibited in his writings; and, with the exception of Burns, the uneducated genius which has done honor to Sootiand during the last century, has never displayed that menta. refinement, and classical taste, and intellectual energy, which mark all the writings of our author. We wish that we could have gratified our readers with an authentic and even detailed narrative of the previous history of so remarkable a writer, and of the steps by which his knowledge was acquired, and the difficulties which he encountered in its pursuit; but though this is not, to any great extent, in our power, we shall at least be able, chiefly from Mr. Miller's own writings, to follow him throughout his geologioal career. Mr. Millar was born at Cromarty, of humble but respectable pa- rents, whose history would have possessed no inconsiderable interest, even if it had not derived one of a higher kind from the genius and fortunes of their child. By the paternal side he was descended from a race of sea-faring people, whose family burying-ground, if we judge from tho past, seems to be the sea. Under its green wave* his father sleeps: his grandfather, his two granduneles, one of whom sailed round the world with Anson, lie also there; and the same extensive cemetery contains the relics of several of his more distant relatives. His father was but an infant of scarcely a year old, ai the death of our author's grandfather, and had to commence life as t, poor ship-boy; but such was the energy of his mind, that, when little turned of thirty, he had become the master and owner of a fine large sloop, and had built himself a good house, which entitled his son to the franchise on the passing of the Reform Bill. Having unfortunately lost his sloop in a storm, he had to begin the world anew, and ha soon became master and ownm «rf another, and would have thriven, had he lived; but the hereditary fate was too strong for him, and when our author was a little boy of five summers, his father's fine new sloop foundered at sea in a terrible tempest, and he and his crew were never more heard of. Mr. Miller had two oxsterii younger than him self, both of whom died are they attained *)" HS8B MSLLK&, to wosasahaod. IDs mother experienced the usual difEcultia whkh a widow has to encounter in the decent education of he» family j but she struggled honestly and successfully, and ultimately found her reward in the character and fame of her son. It is from this excellent woman that Mr. Miller has inherited those sentiments and feelings which have given energy to his talents as the defender of revealed truth, and the champion of the Church of his fathers. She was the great granddaughter of a venerable man, still well known to tradition in the north of Scotland as Donald Roy of Nigg, — a sort of northern Peden, who is described in the history of our Church as the single individual who, at the age of eighty, when the presbytery of the district had assembled in the empty church for the purpose of inducting an obnoxious presentee, had the courage to protest against the intrusion, and to declare " that the blood of the people of Nigg would be required at their hands, if they settled a man to th* teallt of that church." Tradition has represented him as a seer of visions, and a prophesier of prophecies; but whatever credit may be given to stories of this kind, which have been told also of Knox, Welsh, and Rutherford, this ancient champion of Non-Intrusion was a man of genuine piety, and the savor of his ennobling beliefs and his strict morals has survived in his family for generations. If the child of such parents did not receive the best education which his native town could afford, it was not their fault, nor that of his teacher. The fetters of a gymnasium are not easily worn by the adventurous youth who has sought and found his pleas- ures among the hills and on the waters. They chafe the young and active limb that has grown vigorous under the bine sky, and never known repose but at midnight. The young philosopher of Cromarty was a member of this restless community ; and he had been the hero of adventures and accidents among rocks and woods, which are still remerxbered in his natire town. The parish school was therefore not the scene of his enjoyments; and while he was a truant, and, with reverence be it spoken, a dunce, while under its jurisdiction, he was busy in the fields and on the sea-shore in collecting those stores of knowledge which he was born to dispense among his fellow- men. He escaped, however, from school, with the knowledge of reading, writing, and a little arithmetic, and with the credit of unit- ing a great memory with a little scholarship. Unlike his illustrious predecessor, Cuvier, he had studied Natural History in the fields and among the mountains ere ha had sought for it in books; while the HWiS MXL&SlL svi: French philosopher aad become a learned naturalist before he had even looked upon the world of Nature. This singular oontrat*; it it not difficult to explain. With a sickly constitution and a delicate frame, the youthful Cuvier wanted that physical activity which the observation of Nature demands. Our Scottish geologist, en the con- trary, in vigorous health, and with an iron frame, rushed tc the rooks and the sea-shore in search of the instruction which was not provided for him at school, and which he could find no books tc supply. After receiving this measure of education, Mr. Miller set out in February, 1821, with a heavy heart, as he himself confesses, " to make his first aequalntanoo with a life of labor and restraint:" — " I was but a slim, loose-jointed boy at the time, fond of the pretty Intangibilities ef romance, and of dreaming when broad awake; and wo- fol change 1 I was now going to work at what Burns has instanced in his ' Twa Dogs' as one of the most disagreeable of all employments — to work in a quarry. Bating the passing uneasiness occasioned by a few gloomy anticipations, the portion of my life which had already gone by had been happy beyond the common lot. I had been a wanderer among rocks and woods, — a reader of curious books, when I could get them, — a gleaner of old traditionary stories, — and now I was going to exchange all my day-dreams and all my amusements for the kind of life in which men toil every day that they may be enabled to eat, and eat every day that they may be enabled to toil. The quarry In which I wrought lay on the southern shore of a noble inland bay, or frith, rather, (the Bay of Cromarty,) with a little, clear stream on the one side, and a thick fir wood en the other. It had been opened in the Old Red Sandstone of the dis- trict, aad was overtopped by a huge bank of diluvial clay, and which rose over it in some places to the height of nearly thirty feet." — Old Rea HavwMons, p. 4. After removing the loose fragments below, picks and wedges an£ levers were applied in vain by our author and his brother workmen to tear up and remove the huge strata beneath. Blasting by gun- powder became necessary. A mass of the diluvial clay came tumbling iewn, " bearing with it two dead birds, that in a recent stcrm hao. crept into one of the deeper fissures, to die in the shelter." While virnlring the pretty cock goldfinch, and the light-blue and grsyish- vallow woodpecker, and moralizing on their fate, the workmen were ordered to lay aside their tools, and thus ended the first day's labor of our young geologist. The sun was then sinking behind the thick lx wsod babiad aim, aad the long dark shadows of the trees stretch- avife hvsh KUJJB&. rag to the shore, Notwithstanding his blistered hands, and the fatigue whieh blistered them, he found himself next morning as light of heart as his fellow-laborers, and able to enjoy the magnificent scenery around him, which he thus so beautifully describes: — ' There had been a smart frost during the night, and the rime lay white en the grass as we passed onwards through the fields; but the sun rose ia a clear atmosphere, and the day mellowed as it advanced into one of those delightful days of early spring which give so pleasing an earnest of what- ever is mild and genial in the better half of the year. All the workmen rested at midday, and 1 went to enjoy my half hour alone on a mossy knoll in the neighboring wood, which commands through the trees a wide prospect of the bay and the opposite shore. There was not a wrinkle on the water, nor a cloud in the sky; and the branches were as moveless in the calm as if they had been traced on canras. From a wooded promon- tory that stretched half way across the frith, there ascended a thin col- umn of smoke. It rose straight on the line of a plummet for more than a thousand yards; and then, as reaching a thinner stratum of air, spread out equally on every side, like the foliage of a stately tree. Ben Weris rose to the west, white with the yet unwasted snows of winter, and as sharply defined in the clear atmosphere as if all its sunny slopes and blue retiring hollows had been chiselled in marble. A line o; snow ran along the oppo- site hills; all abore was white, and ail below was purple." — Old R*i Sandttone, pp. 6, 7. In raising from its bed the large mass of strata which the gunpow- der had loosened, on the surface of the solid stone, our young quar- rier descried the ridged and furrowed ripple marks which the tide leaves upon every sandy shore, and he wondered what had become of the waves that had thus fretted the solid rock, and of what ele- ment they had been composed. His admiration was equally excited by a circular depression in the sandstone, " broken and flawed in every direction, as if it had been the bottom of a pool recently dried up, which had shrunk and split in the hardening." And before the lay dosed, a series of large stones had rolled down from the clay '■' all rounded and water-worn, as if they had been tossed in the set or the bed of a river for hundreds of years." Was the clay which enclosed them created on the rock upon which it lay i No workman ever manufactures a half-worn article I — were the ejaculations of the geologist at his alphabet. Our author and his companions were soon removed to an easier wrought quarry, and one more pregnant with interest, which had been opened "in t lofty wall of cliffs that overhaac* the northers hvss anuj:a< XII shore of the Moray Frith." Here the geology of the district exhib- ited itself bisection. " We see in one place the primary rock, with Its veins of granite aad quarts, — its diuy precipices of gneiss, and its huge masses of hornblende; we find the secondary rock in another with its bed of sandstone and shale, — its span, its clays, and its noduhr limestones. We discover the still little known but highly interesting fossils of the Old Red Sandstont in one deposition; we find the beautifully preserved shells and lignites of the lias in another. There are the remains of two several creations at ence before us. The shore, too, is heaped with rolled fragments of almost every variety of rock, — basalts, ironstones, hypersthenes, porphyries, bituminous shales, and micaceous schists. In short, the young geologist, had he all Europe before him, could hardly choose for himself a better field. I had, however, no one to tell me so at the time, for geology had not yet travelled so far north; and so, without guide or vocabulary, I had to grope my way as I best might, and find out all its wonders for myself. dut so slow was the process, and so much was I a seeker in the dark, that the facts contained in these few sentences were the patient gatherings of years." — Old B*d Sandrtom, pp. 9,10. In this rich field of inquiry, our author encountered, almost daily, new objects of wonder and instruction. In one nodular mass of limestone he found the beautiful ammonite, like one of the finely sculptured volutes of an Ionic capital. Within others, fish-scales and bivalve shells; and in the centre of another he detected a piece of decayed wood. Upon quitting the quarry for the building upon which the workmen were to be employed, the workmen received half a holiday, and our young philosopher devoted this valuable interval to search for certain curiously shaped stones, which one of the quarriers told him resembled the heads of boarding-pikes, and which, under the name of thunder-bolts, were held to be a sovereign remedy for cattle that had been bewitched. On the shore two miles off, where he expected these remarkable bodies, he found deposits quite different either from the sandstone cliffs or the primary rocks further to the west. They consisted of " thin strata of limestone, alternating with thicker beds of a black slaty substance," which burned with a bright flame and a bituminous odor. Though only the eighth past of an inch thick, each layer contained thousands of fossils peculiar to the lias, — scallops and gryphites, ammonites, twigs and Leaves of plants, cones of pine, pieces of charcoal, and scales of fishes, — the impressions being of a chalky whiteness, contrasting strikingly with their black bituminous lair. Among these fragments of Muxaal and vegetable life, he at last detected his tktmdtr UU in the 0 as tress miujol form of s Belecaaita, the remains of a kind of evtOe-ish long absas extinct. In the exercise of his profession, which "was a wandering one," our author advanced steadily, though slowly and surely, in his geo- logical acquirements. " I remember," says he, " passing direct on one oeeasion from the wild western oeast of Boss-shire, where the Old Red Sandstone leans at a high angle against the prevailing quarts rock of the district, to where, on ths southern skirts of Mid-Lothian, the mountain limestone rises amid the eoal. I have resided one season on a raised beaoh on the Moray Frith. I have spent the stason immediately following amid the ancient granites and contorted schists of the central Highlands. In the north, I hare laid open by thousands the shells and lignites of the Oolite; in the south, 1 have disinterred from their matrices ef stone or of shale the huge reeds and tree ferns of the carboniferous period * * * In the north, there occurs a vast gap in the scale. The Lias leans unoonformably against the Old Red Sandstone; there is no mountain limestone, no coal meas- ures, none of the New Red Marls or Sandstones. There are at least three entire systems omitted. But the upper portion of the scale is well nigh complete. In one locality we may pass from the Lower to the Upper Lias, in another from the Inferior to the Great Oolite, and onward to th» Oxford Clay and the Coral Rag. We may explore in a third locality beds Identical in their organisms with the Wealden of Sussex. In a fourth, we and the flints and fossils of the chalk. The lower part of the scale is also well-nigh complete. The Old Red Sandstone is amply developed in Moray, Caithness, and Ross, and the Grauwacke very extensively in Banffshire. But to acquaint one's self with the three missing formations, — to complete one's knowledge of the entire scale, by filling up the hiatus, — it is necessary to remove to the south. The geology of the Lo- thians is the geology of at least two thirds of the gap, and perhaps a little more ; — the geology of Arran wants only a few of the upper beds of the New Red 8andstone to fill it entirely." — Old Rtd Sandrtom, pp. 13-17. After having spent nearly fifteen years in the profession of a stone- mason. Mr. Miller was promoted to a position more suited to hit genius. When a bank was established in his native town of Crom arty, he received the appointment of accountant, and he was thus employed, for five years, in keeping ledgers and discounting bills. When the contest in the Church of Scotland had come to a close, by the decision of the House of Lords in the Auchterarder Case, Mr. Miller's celebrated letter to Lord Brougham attracted the particu- lar attention of the party which was about to leave the Establish- ment, aad he was aatsoted as the most competent person to eoaduef snren ktubb. SJB the Wttmm newspaper, the principal metrepehcaa organ of the Free Church, The great sueeeas which this journal has met with is owing, doubtless, to the fine articles, political, ecclesiastical and geological, which Mr. Miller has written for it. In the few leisure hours which so engrossing an occupation has allowed him to enjoy, he has devoted himself to the ardent prosecution of scientific inquiries; and we trust the time is not far distant when the liberality of his country, to which he has done so much honor, will allow him to give his whole **m» to the prosecution of science. Geologists of high character had believed that the Old Red Sand- stone was defective in organic remains ; and it was not till after ten years' acquaintance with it that Mr. Miller discovered it to be richly frssiUferous. The labors of other ten years were required to assign to its fossils their exact place in the scale. Among the fossils discovered by our author, the Ptsriehthys 01 winged fish is doubtless the most remarkable. He had disinterred £ so early as 1831, but it was only in 1838 that he " introduced it to the acquaintance of geologists " It was not till 1881 that Mr. Miller began to receive assistance in his studies from without. In the ap- pendix to Messrs. Anderson of Inverness's admirable Quid* to the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, which " he perused with intense interest,' he found the most important information respecting the geology of the North of Scotland; and during a correspondence with the accomplished authors of that work, many of his views were de- veloped, and his difficulties removed. In 1888, he communicated to Dr. Malcoimaon of Madras, then in Paris, a drawing and description of the Ptsriehthys. His letter was submitted to Agassis, and subse- quently a restored drawing was communicated to the Elgin Scientific Society. The great naturalist, as well as the members of the provincial society, were surprised at the new form of life which Mr. Miller had disclosed, and some of them, no doubt, regarded it with a sceptical eye. " Not many months after, however, a true bona fids Ptsriehthys was turned up in one of the newly-discovered beds of Nairnshire." In his Last visit to Scotland, Agassis found six species of the Ptsriehthys, three af which, and the wings of a fourth, were in Mr. Miller's collection. This remarkable animal has less resemblance than any other fossil of the Old Red Sandstone to anything that now exists. When first brought to view by the * ngle blow of a hammer, there appeared oa a ground of light-colored limestone the effigy of a creature, fash- ioned apparently out of jet, with a body covered with plates, two powerful looking anas articulated at the shovildeia, a head as en- zm sees ww,ea tirely lost ia the trunk as that of the ray, (or skate,) sad a long angular taU, equal in length to a third of the entire figure. Hi general resemblance is to the letter T, — the upper part of the ver tical line being swelled out, and the lower part ending in an angular point, the two horizontal portions being, in the opinion of Agassis, organs of locomotion. To this remarkable fossil M. Agassis has given the appropriate name of Ptsriehthys Mitteri. An account of it. accompanied with two fine specimens, was communicated to the Geological Section of the British Association at Glasgow, in Sep- tember, 1840; and the most ample details, with accurate drawings, were afterwards published, in 1841, in Mr. Miller's first work, The Old Bed Sandstone, which was dedicated to Sir Roderick Murohison, who was born on the Old Red Sandstone of the North, in the same district as Mr. Miller, and whose great acquirements and distin- guished labors are known all over the world among scientific men. This admirable work has already passed through three editions. From the originality and accuracy of its descriptions, and the im- portance of the researehes which it contains, it has obtained for its author a high reputation among geologists; while from the elegance and purity of its style, and the force and liveliness of its illustrations, it has received the highest praise from its more general readers.* Although we have been obliged, from the information which it contains of our author's early studies, to mention the '< Old Red Sandstone" as if it had been his first work; yet so early as 1830 after he had made his first fossil discoveries at Cromarty, he com- posed a paper on the subject, (his first published production.) whieh appeared as one of the chapters of a small legendary and descriptive work, entitled The Traditional History of Cromarty, which did not appear till 1835. This chapter, entitled "The Antiquary of the World," possesses a high degree of interest. After describing the scene around him in its pictorial aspect, and under the warm associ- ations, which link it with existing life, he surveys it with the c oo. eye of an " antiquary of the world," studying its once buried monu- ments, and decyphering the alphabet of plants and animals, the hieroglyphics which embosom the history of past times and of suc- * Mr. Miller is the author also of Scenes and Legends of ike JVMt of ScotUnd, on« poi 8vo. ; A Letter from on* of the Scotch people to the Right Honorable lard Brougham and Fmux, on the opinions expressed fry his Lordship in the Auehtermrder Osm ; and 7% WMggtsm of the Old School, as exemplified tm the Past History end Present Position oj the Church tf Sootimd. The second of these works ii well charastorlsed by Mi Qladstem a* '< an »bie elegant, and maseulim psMhtetiek." tree* arr&us. tsia »esrve ereations. The gigantic Ben Wevis, with its attendant hUla, rose abruptly to the west. The distant peaks of Ban Vaichard ap- peared in the south, and far to the north were descried the lofty hills of Sutherland, and even the Ord-hill of Caithness. Descending from the towers of nature's lofty edifice he surveys its ruins, its broken sculptures, and its half-defaced inscriptions, as exhibited in certain Ichthyie remains of the Lower Old Red Sandstone which had toon no name, and which were unknown to the most accomplished geologists. Among these he specially notices M a confused bitumi- nous-looking mass that had much the appearance of a toad or frog," Shu* shadowing forth in the morning twilight the curious Pteriehthyt, which ha was able afterwards, in better specimens, to exhibit in open lay. As wa have already referred, with some minuteness, to the fossils whieh our author had at this time discovered in the great eharnel-house of the old world, we shall indulge our readers with a specimen of the noble sentiments which they inspired, and of the beautiful language in whieh these sentiments are clothed. " Bat let as quit this wonderful dty of the dead, with all its reclining obelisks, and all its sculptured tumuli, the memorials ef a rase that exist only in their tombs. And yet, ere we go, it were well, perhaps, to in- dulge is some of those serious thoughts whieh we so naturally associate with the solitary burying-ground and the mutilated remains of the departed. Let us once more look around as, and say, whether, of all aats, the Geologist does not stand most in need of the Bible, howevei stash he may contemn it in the pride of speculation. We tread on the remains ef organised and sentient creatures, which, though more numer- ous at one period than the whole family of man, have long since oeased to exist; the individuals perished one after one —their remains served only to elevate the floor on which their descendants pursued the various instincts of their nature, and then sunk, like the others, to form a still higher layer of soil; and now that the whole race has passed from the earth, aad we see the animals of a different tribe occupying their places, what survives of them but a mass of inert and senseless matter, never again to be animated by the mysterious spirit of vitality — that spirit whieh, dissipated in the air, or diffused in the ocean, can, like the sweet sounds aad pleasant odors of the past, be neither gathered up nor re- called . And O, how dark the analogy which would lead as to antici- pate a similar fate for ourselves ! As individuals, w* are but as yesterday; to-morrow w* shall be laid in our graves, and the tread of the coming generation shall be over our heads. Nay, have w* not seen a terrible ilgsaas sweep away, in a few years, more than eighty millions ef the raoc la whieh we aelsng; aad can we think of this and say that a time ma; oat easaa whan, Ska the fossils of these beds ear whale sfssJss shall be 0* sari? sTVeK KILLS*. ■singled with the soil, sad when, though the sua may look down la strength on oar pleasant dwellings and our green fields, then shall silence in all oar borders, and desolation in all our gates, and we skal have no thought of that past which it is now our delight to recall, and ae portion in that future which it is now our very nature to anticipate Surely it is well to believe that a widely different destiny awaits us — that the God who endowed us with those wonderful powers, which enable us to live In every departed era, every coming period, has given us to possess these powers forever; that not only does he number the hairs of our heads, but that his cares are extended to even our very remains; that our very bones, instead of being left, like the exuviae around us, to form the rocks and clays of a future world, shall, like those in the valley of vision, be again clothed with muscle and sinew, and that our bodies, animated by the warmth and vigor of life, shall again connect our souls to the matter existing around us, and be obedient to every impulse of the rill. It is surely no time, when we walk amid the dark cemeteries of a ieparted world, and see the cold blank shadows of the tombs falling drearily athwart the way —it is surely no time to extinguish the light given us to shine so fully and so cheerfully on our own proper path, merely because its beams do not enlighten the recesses that yawn around us. And 0, what more unworthy of reasonable men than to reject so eonsoling a revelation on no juster quarrel, than when it unveils to us muck of what could not otherwise be known, and without the knowledge of which we could not be other than unhappy, it leaves to the invigorat- ing exercises of our own powers whatever, in the wide circle of creation, lies fully within their grasp ! " — The Antiquary of the World, pp, 68-68. The next work published by Mr. Miller was entitled " First Im- pressions of England and its People,"* * popular and interesting volume, which has already gone through two editions, and whieh may be read with equal interest by the geologist, the philanthropist, and the general reader. It is full of knowledge and of anecdote, and is written in that attractive style which commands the attention even of the most incurious readers. This delightful work, though only in one volume, is equal to three of the ordinary type, and cannot fail to be perused with high gratifi- cation by all classes of readers. It treats of every subject which is presented to the notice of an accomplished traveller while he visits the great cities and romantic localities of merry England. We know of no tour in England written by a native in which so muoh pleasant reading and substantial instruction ar combined; and though we are occasionally stopped in a very delightful locality by a precipice • LeadM, 1847, pr- m arvex milwul sz? si the Old Red Sandstone, or frightened by a disintarrad skeleton, or sobered by the burial-service over Palaeoioic graves, we soon recover our equanimity, and again enter upon the sunny path to which our author never fails to restore us. Mr. Miller's new work, the " Footprints of the Creator," of which ws publish now another edition, authorised by the writer, is very appropriately dedicated to Sir Philip Grey Egerton, Bart., M. P. for Cheshire — a gentleman who possesses a magnificent collection of fossLs, and whose skill and acquirements in this department of geol- ogy is known and appreciated both in Europe and America. The work itself is divided into fifteen chapters, in which the author treats of the fossil geology of the Orkneys, as exhibited in the vicinity of Stromness; of the development hypothesis, and its consequences; of the history and structure of that remarkable fish, the Asterolepis; of the fishes of the Upper and Lower Silurian rocks; of the progress of degradation, and its history; of the Lamarckian hypothesis of the origin of plants, and its consequences; of the Marine and Terrestrial floras; and of final causes, and their bearing on geological history. In the course of these chapters Mr. Miller discusses the development hypothesis, or the hypothesis of natural law, as maintained by Lam- arck and by the author of the Vestiges of Creation, and has sub- jected it, in its geological aspect, to the most rigorous examination. Driven by the discoveries of Lord Rosse from the domains of astron- omy where it once seemed to hold a plausible position, it might have lingered with the appearance of life among the ambiguities of the Paleozoic formations; but Mr. Miller has, with an ingenuity and patience worthy of a better subject, stripped it even of its semblance of truth, and restored to the Creator, as Governor of the universe, that power and those functions which he was supposed to have re- signed at its birth. Having imposed upon himself the task of examining in detail the various fossiliferous formations of Scotland, our author extended his inquiries into the mainland of Orkney, and resided for some time in the vicinity of the busy seaport town of Stromness, as a central point from whi'h the structure of the Orkney group of islands could be most advantageously studied. Like that of Caithness, the geology of these islands owes its principal interest to the immense develop- ment of the Lower Old Red Sandstone formation, and to the singular abundance of its vertebrate fossils. Ihough the Orkneys contain only the third part of the Old Red Sandstone, whioh, but a few years *go, was supposed to be the least productive in fossils of any of th. £Pfi awes auLLBi, geological formations, yet it furnishes, aooording to Mr. Miller, mow fossil fish than every other geological system in England, Scstland, and Wales, from the Coal Measures to the Chalk, inclusive. It is, in short, " the land offish," and " could supply with ichthyolites, by the ton and by the ship-load, the museums of the world." Its vari- ous deposits, with the curious organisms which they inclose, have been upheaved from their original position against a granitic axis, about six miles long and one broad, " forming the great back-bone ef the western district of the Island Pomona; and on this granitic axis, fast jambed in between a steep hill and the sea, stands the town of Stromness." The mass or pile of strata thus uplifted is described by Mr. Miller as a three-barred pyramid resting on its granite base, exhibiting three broad tiers — red, black, and gray — sculptured with the hier- oglyphics in which its history is recorded. The great conglomerate base on which it rests, covering from 10,000 to 16,000 square miles, from the depth of from 100 to 400 feet, consists of rough sand and water-worn pebbles; and above this have been deposited successive strata of mud, equal in height to the highest of our mountains, now containing the remains of millions and tens of millions of fish which. had perished in some sudden and mysterious catastrophe. In the examination of the different beds of the three-barred for- mation, our author discovered a well-marked bone, like a petrified large roofing nail, in a grayish-colored layer of hard flag, about 10G yards over the granite, and about 160 feet over the upper stratum of the conglomerate. This singular bone, which Mr. Miller has rep- resented in a figure, was probably the oldest vertebrate organism yet discovered in Orkney. It was 6} inches long, 2£ inches across the head, and 3-10ths of an inch thick in the stem, and formed a characteristic feature of the Asterolepis, as yet the most gigantic of the ganoid fishes, and probably one of the first of the Old Red Sand- stone. In his former researches, our author had found that all of the many hundred ichthyolites which he had disinterred from the Lower Old Red Sandstone were comparatively of a small size, while those in the Upper Old Red were of great bulk; and hence he had naturally inferred, that vertebrate life had increased towards the close of the system — that, in short, it began with an age of dwarfs, and ended with an age of giants; but he had thus greatly erred, like the sup- porters of the development system, in founding positive conclusions en merely negative evidence; for here, at the very base of the sys- tem, where no dwarfs were to be found* ha had iisssmsd ana of th* most ealasaal ef its giants. mm& BKUjnu sxtn After this most hnportant disoovery, Mr. Millar extended his fas- quiries easterly for several miles along the bare and unwooded Laks of Stennis, about fourteen miles in circumference, and divided into an upper and lower sheet of water by two long promontories jutting rat from each side and nearly meeting in the middle. The sea enters this lake through the openings of a long rustic bridge, and hence the iower division of the lake " is salt in its nether reaches; and braok- ' sh in its upper ones; while the higher division is merely brackish in its nether reaches, and fresh enough in its upper ones to be pota- ble." The fauna and flora of the lake are therefore of a mixed char- acter, the marine and fresh water »™m>U having each their own reaches, though each kind makes certain encroachments on the prov- ince of the other. In the marine and lacustrine floras of the lake, Mr. Miller observed changes still more palpable. At the entrance of the sea, the Fuous nodosus and Fucus tesieulosus flourish in their proper form and mag- nitude. A little farther on in the lake, the F. nodosus disappears, and the F. vesiculosus, though continuing to exist for mile after mile, grows dwarfish and stunted, and finally disappears, giving place to rushes and other aquatic grasses, till the lacustrine has en- tirely displaced the marine flora. From these two important facta, the existence of the fragment of Asterolepis in the lower flagstones of the Orkneys, and of the " curiously mixed semi-marine semi- lacustrine vegetation in the Loch of Stennis," which our author regards as bearing directly on the development hypothesis, he takes occasion to submit that hypothesis to a severe examination, and to point out its consequences — its incompatibility with the great truths of morality and revealed religion. According to Professor Oken, one of the ablest supporters of the development theory, " There are two kinds of generation in the world, the creation proper, and the propagation that is sequent thereon, or the original and secondary generation. Consequently, no organism has been created of larger size than an infusorial point. No organism is, or ever has been areated, which is not microscopic. Whatever is large has not been created, out developed. Man has not been created, but developed." Hence it follows that during the great geological period, when race after race was destroyed, and new forms of life called into being, " nature had been pregnant with the human race," and that immor- tal and intellectual Man is but the development of the Brute- itself the development of some monad or mollusc, which has been smitten into lifo by the action of electricity upon a portion of gala* ino«* saatser. kaVili ■VSR sTTtllli If the development theory be true, "the early fossils ought to be vary small in sise," and " very low in organization." In the earliest strata we ought to find only *• mere embryos and foetuses; and if we find instead the full-grown and mature, then must we hold that the testimony of geology is not only not in accordance with the theory, but in positive opposition to it." Having laid this down as the principle by which the question is to be decided, our author proceeds to consider "what are the/ac*#." The Asterolepis of Stromness seems to be the oldest organism yet discovered in the most ancient geologi- cal system of Scotland, in which vertebrate remains occur. It is probably the oldest Ccelacanth that the world has yet produced, for there is no certain trace of this family in the great Silurian system, which lies underneath, and on which, according to our existing knowledge, organic existence first began. " How, then," asks Mr. Miller, << on the two relevant points — bulk and organization — does it answer to the demands of the development hypothesis r Was it s mere foetus of the finny tribe, of minute size and imperfect embry- onic faculty r Or was it of, at least, the ordinary bulk, and, for its class, of the average organization r" In order to answer these questions, Mr. Miller proceeds in his third chapter to give the recent history of the Asterolepis; in his fourth^ to ascertain the cerebral development of the earlier vertebrata; and in his fifth chapter to describe the structure, bulk, and aspect of the Asterolepis. In the rocks of Russia certain fossil remains had been long ago discovered, of such a singular nature as to have perplexed Lamarck and other naturalists. Their true place among fishes was subsequently ascertained by M. Eichwald, a living naturalist; and Sir Roderick Murchison found that they were Ichthyolites of the Old Red Sandstone. Agassis gave them the name of Chelonichthys; but in consequence of very fine specimens having been found in the Old Red Sandstone of Russia, which Professor Asmus of Dorpat sent to the British Museum, and which exhibited btar-like markings, he abandoned his name of Chelonichthys, and adopted that of Aster- olepis, or star-scale, which Eichwald had proposed. Many points, however, respecting this curious fossil remained to be determined, and it was fortunate for science that Mr. Miller was enabled to ac- complish this object by means of a variety of excellent specimens which he received from Mr. Robert Dick, " an intelligent tradesman of Thurso, one of those working men of Scotland, of active curiosity and well developed intellect, that give character and standing to the test," Agassis had inferred, from very imperfect fragments, that the Astetvlefis was a strongly-helmed fish of th* OesUtesmths, or hollow SVeS MTLMTl. xxn •phi* family— that it was probably a flat-headed animal, and that the discovery of a head or of a jaw might prove that the genus Dendrodus did not differ from it. All these coniectures were com- pletely confirmed by Mr. Miller, after a careful examination of the specimens of Mr. Dick. Before proceeding to describe the structure of the gigantic Aster- olepis, Mr. Miller devotes a long and elaborate chapter to the subject -5f the cerebral development of the earlier vertebrate, in order to ascertain in what manner their true brains were lodged, and to dis- cover the modification which the cranium, as their protecting box, received in subsequent periods. This inquiry, which he has con- ducted with great skill and ability, is not only highly interesting in itself, but will be found to have a direct bearing on the great ques- tion which it is his object to discuss and decide. The facts and reasonings contained in this chapter will, we doubt not, shake to its very base the bold theory of Professor Oken, which has been so generally received abroad, and which is beginning to find supporters even among the solid thinkers of our own country. In the Isis of 1818, Professor Lorenz Oken has given the following account of the hypothesis to whioh we allude. " In August, 1806," says he, " I made a journey over the Harts. I slid down through the wood on the south side, and straight before me, at my very feet, lay a most beautiful blanched skull of a hind. I picked it up, turnec it round, regarded it intensely; — the thing was done. ' It is a ver- tebral column,' struck me like a flood of lightning,' to the marrow and bone;' and since that time the skull has been regarded as i vertebral column." This remarkable hypothesis was at first received with enthusiasm by the naturalists of Germany, and, among others, by Agassiz, who, from grounds not of a geological kind, has more recently rejected it. It has been adopted by our distinguished countryman, Professor 0 wen, and forms the central idea in his lately published and inge- ni sas work " On the Nature of Limbs." The conclusion at which he arrives, that the fore-limbs of the vertebrate are the ribs of the oc- cipital bone or vertebra set free, and (in all the vertebrate higher in the scale than the ordinary fishes) carried down along the vertebral column by a sort of natural dislocation, is a deduction from the idea that startled Professor Oken in the forest of the Harts. Whatever support this hypothesis might have expected from Geology, has bees struck from beneath it by this remarkable chapter of Mr. Miller's work; and though anatomists may for a while maintain it under the JSa SVtSH MXUIB. tnfluane* of ac nigh an authority aa Professor Owaa, wa sea sanea mistaken if it ever forms a part of the creed of the geologist. Mr Miller indeed has, by a most skilful examination of the heads of the earliest vertebrate known to geologists, proved that the hypothesis derives no support from the structure which they exhibit, and Agassis has even upon general principles rejected it as untenable. Mr. Miller's next chapter on the structure, bulk, and aspect of the Asterolepis, is, like that which precedes it, the work of a master, evincing the highest powers of observation and analysis. Its size in the larger specimens must have been very great; and from a com- parison of the proportion of the head in the Ganoids to the length of the body, which is sometimes as one to five, or one to six, or one to six and a half, or even one to seven, our author concludes that tht total length of the specimens in his possession must have been at least eight feet three inches, or from nine feet nine to nine feet ten inohes. The remains of an Asterolepis found by Mr. Dick at Thurso, indicate a length of from twelve feet five to thirteen feet eight inohes; and one of the Russian specimens of Professor Asmus must have been from eighteen to twenty-three feet long. "Hence,"' says Mr. Miller, " in the not unimportant circumstance of size — the most ancient Coelacanths yet known, instead of taking their places agree- bly to the demands of the development hypothesis among the sprats, sticklebacks, and minnows of their class, took their place among its huge basking sharks, gigantic sturgeons, and bulky swordfishes. They were giants, not dwarfs." Again, judging by the analogies which its structure exhibits to that of fishes of the existing period, the Asterolepis must have been a fish high in the scale of organi- zation. A specimen of Asterolepis, discovered by Mr. Dick, among the Thurso rocks, and sent to Mr Miller, exhibited the singular phe- nomenon of a quantity of thick tar lying beneath it, which stuck to the fingers when lifting the pieces of rock. " What had been once the nerves, muscles, and blood of this ancient Ganoid, still lay undei its bones," a phenomenon which our author had previously seen be neath the body of a poor suicide, whose grave in a sandy bank had been laid open by the encroachments of a river, the sand beneath i\ having been " consolidated into a dark colored pitchy mass," extend- ing a full yard beneath the body. In like manner, the animal juicer of the Asterolepis had preserved its remains, by " the pervading bit- umen, greatly more conservative in its effects than the oil and gum af an obi Egyptian undertaker " The bones, though black aa pitch snrew miller. in «*ain*d to a considerable degree th* peculiar qualities of the original substance, in the same manner as the adipocire of wet burying- grounds preserves fresh and green the bones which It encloses. In support of his anti-development views, Mr. Miller devotes his next and sixth chapter to the recent history, order, and size of ike fishes of the Upper and Lower Silurian rocks. Of these ancient formations, the bone bed of the Upper Ludlow rocks is the only one which, besides defensive spines of fish, contains teeth, fragments of jaws, and shagreen points, whereas, in the inferior deposits, defensive •pines alone are found. The species discovered by Professor Phillips, in the Wenlock shale, were microscopic; and the author of the Ves- tiges took advantage of this insulated fact to support his views, by pronouncing the little creatures to which the species belonged as the foetal embryos of their class. Mr. Miller has, however, even on this ground, defeated his opponent. By comparing the defensive spines of the Onchus Murchisoni of the Upper Ludlow bad with those of a recent Spinax Aeanthias, or dog-fish, and of the Cestraeion Phillippi, or Port Jackson shark, he arrives at the conclusion, that the fishes to which the species belonged must be all of considerable size; and in the following chapter on the high standing of the Placoids he shews that the same early fishes were high in intelligence and >rganization. In his ninth chapter on the History and Progress of Degradation, our author enters upon a new and interesting subject. The object of it is to determine the proper ground on which the standing of the earlier vertebrate should be decided, namely, the test of what he terms homological symmetry of organization. In nature there are monster families, just as there are in families monster individuals — men without feet, hands, or eyes, or with them in a wrong place— sheep with legs growing from their necks, ducklings with wings on their haunches, and dogs and cats with more legs than they require. We have thus, according to our author — 1, monstrosity through defeat ?/ parts; 2, monstrosity through redundancy of parte ; and 8, monstros- ity through displacement of parts. This last species, united in some cases with the other two, our author finds curiously exemplified in the geological history of the fish, which he considers better known than that of any other division of the vertebrate; and he is con- vinced that it is from a survey of the progress of degradation in the great Ichthyie division that the standing of the kingly fishes of the earlier periods is to be determined. In th* earliest vertebrate period, namely, th* Silurian, ear author tssft bmw nun. shews taas «n* fishes war* homeloglcally symmetrical in their orgaa iaation, as •xhibited in the Plaooids. In the second great ichthyie period, that of the Old Red Sandstone, he finds the first example in the class of fishes of monstrosity, by displacement of parts. In all the Ganoids of the period, there is the same departure from symmetry as would take place in man if his neck was annihilated, and the arms stuck to the back of the head. In the Coccosteus and Pier- ichthys of the same period, he finds the first example of degradation through defect, the former resembling a human monster without hand*, and the latter one without feet. After ages and centuries have passed away, and then after the termination of the Palssozoio period, a change takes place in the formation of the fish tail. " Other ages and centuries pass away, during which the reptile class attains to its fullest development in point of size, organization, and number; and then, after the times of the cretaceous deposits have begun, we find yet another remarkable monstrosity of displacement introduced among all the fishes of one very numerous order, and among no in- considerable proportion of the fishes of another. In the newly- introduced Ctenoids (Aeanthopterygii,) and in those families of the Cycloids which Cuvier erected into the order Malacopterygii sub- trachiati, the hinder limbs are brought forward and stuck on to the base of the previously misplaced fore limbs. All the four limbs, by a strange monstrosity of displacement, are crowded into the place of the extinguished neck. And such, in the present day, is the prevalent type among fishes. Monstrosity through defect is also found to increase; so that the snake-like apoda, or feet-wanting fishes, form a numerous order, some of whose genera are devoid, as In the common eels and the congers, of only the hinder limbs, while in others, as in the genera Murema and Synbranchus, both hinder and fore-limbs are wanting." From these and other facts, our author concludes that as in existing fishes we find many more proofs of the monstrosity, both from displacement and defect of parts, than in al' the other three classes of the vertebrate, and as these monstrosities did not appear early, but late, " the progress of the race as a whole, though it still retains not a few of the higher forms, has been a progress not of development from the low to the high, but of degra- dation from the high to the low." An extreme example of the degradation of distortion, superadded to that of displacement, may be seen in the flounder, plaice, halibut, or turbot, — fishes of a family of which there is no trace in the earlier periods. The creature ii [ wistod half twand and laid on its side. Th* tail, too, is horizontal ■ves XHXEB, xxxut Half the features **d ar* twisted to on* aid*, and the other half to the other, while its wry mouth is in keeping with its squint eye*. One jaw is straight, and the other like a bow; and while one contains from four to su- teeth, the other oontsins from thirty to thirty-five. Aided by facts like these, an ingenious theorist might, as our au- thor remarks, '«get up as unexceptionable a theory of degradation as of development." But however this may be, the principle of degradation actuaLy exists, and »• the history of its progress in crea- tion bears directly against the assumption that the earlier vertebrate were of a lower type than the vertebrate of the same Ichthyie class which exist now." In his next and tenth chapter, our author controverts with his usual power the argument in favor of the development hypothesis, drawn from the predominance of the Brachiopods among th* Silurian Molluscs. The existence of the highly organized Cephalopods, in the same formation, not only neutralizes this argument, but author- izes the conclusion that on animal of a very high order of organiza- tion existed in the earliest formation. It is of no consequence whether the Cephalopods, or the Brachiopods were most numerous. Had there been only one cuttle fish in the Siluriax. seas, and a mil- lion of Brachiopods, the fact would equally have overturned th* de- velopment system. In the same chapter, Mr. Miller treats of the geological history ef the Fossil flora, which has been pressed into the service of the de- velopment hypothesis. On the authority of Adolphe Brongniart, it was maintained that, previous to the age of the Lias, " Nature had failed to aehieve a tree — and that the rich vegetation at the Coal Measures had been exclusively composed of magnificent immaturities of the vegetable kingdom, of gigantic ferns and club mosses, that attained to the size of forest trees, and of thickets of the swamp- loving horse-tail family of plants." True exogenous trees, however, do exist of vast size, and in great numbers, in afl the coal-fields of our own country, as has been proved by Mr. Miller. Nay, he him self discovered in the Old Red Sandstone, Ltgnite, which is proved to have formed part of a true gymnospermous tree, represented by the pines of Europe and America, or more probably, as Mr. Miller believes, by the Araucarians of Chili and New Zealand. This im- portant discovery is pregnant with instruction. The ancient Conifer must have waved its green foliage over dry land, and it is not prob- able that it was the only tree in th* primeval forest. "The ship sscsit ■see sow. earaanfoa,"* as aw anther *bserres. "might have twaafaUy tsasaa an* in hand to explore th* woods fox sesne such stately sine ss th* en* d«s*rlb*d by Milton, - • SUwa oa Norwegian hills, to be the ssast Of some great admiral.' *' viewing this olive leaf of the Old Red Sandstone as not at all devoid of poetry, our author Invites us to a voyage from the latest forma- tion np to th* first zone of the Silurian formation, — thus passing from ancient to still more ancient scenes of being, and finding, as at the commencement of our voyage, a graceful intermixture of land and water, continent, river, and sea But though the existence of a true Placoid, a real vertebrated fish, in the Cambrian limestone of Bala, and of true wood at the base of the Old Red Sandstone, are utterly incompatible with the develop- ment hypothesis, its supporters, thus driven to the walL may take shelter under the vague and unquestioned truth that the lower plants and «ia1« preceded the higher, and that the order of crea- tion was fish, reptiles, birds, mammalia, quadrumana, and man. From this resource, too, our author has cut off his opponents, and proceeds to show that such an order of creation, " at onoe wonderful and beautiful," does not afford even the slightest presumption in favor of the hypothesis which it is adduced to support. This argument is carried on in a popular and amusing dialogue in the eleventh chapter. Mr. Miller shows, in the dearest manner, that " superposition is not parental relation," or that an organism lying above another gives us no ground for believing that the lower or- ganism was the parent of the higher. The theorist, however, looks only at those phases of truth which are in unison with his own views; and, when truth presents no such favorable aspect, he finjjij wraps himself up in the folds of ignorance and ambiguity — the winding-sheet of error refuted and exposed. We have not yet pen- etrated, says he, in feeble accents, to the formations which represent the dawn of being, and the simplest organism may yet be detected beneath the lowest fossiliferous rocks. This undoubtedly may be, and Sir Charles Lyell and Mr. Leonard Horner are of opinion that such rocks may yet be discovered; while Sir Roderick Murehison and Professor Sedgwick and Mr. Miller are of an opposite opinion But even war* such rooks discovered to-morrow, it would not follow that their orgaxdssss gav* th* least support to th* development hy- sees kills*. XaSA pothasis. In the yaar 1817, when fish** war* n«* dfooaiwd in the Upper Silurian rocks, th* theorist would hav* rightly predicted the existeno* of lower fcaailiferou* beds; but when they are discovered, and their fossils examined, they furnish the strongest argument that could be desired against the theory they were expected to sustain. This fact, no doubt, is so far in favor of the supposition that there may be still lower fossil-bearing strata; but, as Mr. Miller observes, " The pyramid of organized existence, as it ascends into the by-past eternity, inolines sensibly towards its apex, —that apex of 'begin- ning ' on which, on far other than geological grounds, it is our privilege to believe. The broad base of the superstructure planted on the existing scene stretches across the entire scale of life, animal and vegetable; but it contracts as it rises into the past; —• man, — the quadrumana, — the quadrupedal man, — the bird and the rep- tile are each in succession struck from off its breadth, till we at length see it with the vertebrate, represented by only the fish, nar- rowing as it were to a point; and though the clouds of the upper region may hide its apex, we infer, from the declination of its sides, that it cannot penetrate much farther into the profound." In our author's next chapter, the twelfth of the series, he proceeds to examine the " Lamarckian hypothesis of the origin of plants, and its consequences." In his thirteenth chapter, on " The two Floras, marine and terres- trial," he has shown that all our^experience is opposed to the opin- ion, that the one has been transmuted into the other. If the marine had been converted into terrestrial vegetation, we ought to have, in the Lake of Stennis, for example, plants of an intermediate charac- ter between the algas of the sea, and the monocotyledons of the lake. But no such transition-plants are found. The algss, as our author observes, become dwarfish and ill-developed. They cease to exist as the water becomes fresher, " until at length we find, instead of the brown, rootless, flowerless fucoids and conferva? of the ocean, the green, rooted, flowering flags, rushes, and aquatic grasses of the fresh water. Many thousands of years have failed to originate a single intermediate plant." The same conclusion may be drawn from the character of the vegetation along the extensive shores of Britain and Ireland. No botanist has ever found a single plant in the transition state. The fourteenth chapter of the " Footprints" will be perused with great interest by the general reader. It is a powerful and argumen- tative exposure of the development hypothesis, and of the mannei n* SJU.VJ sees MILLBB, in which the subject has been treated In the ••Vestiges." Whether we consider it in its nature, in its history, or in the character of the Intellects with whom it originated, or by whom it has been received and supported, Mr. Miller has shown that it has nothing to recom- mend it. It existed as a wild dream before Geology had any being as a science. It was broached more than a century ago by De Maillet, who knew nothing of the geology even of his day. In a translation of his Telliamed, published in 1760, Mr. Miller finds very nearly the same account given of the origin of plants and animals, as that in the " Vestiges," and in which the sea is described as that " great and fruitful womb of nature, in which organisation and life first begin." Lamarck, though a skilful botanist and conchologist, was unacquainted with geology; and as he first published his devel- opment hypothesis in 1802, (an hypothesis identical with that of the " Vestiges,") it is probable that he was not then a very skilful zoolo- gist. Nor has Professor Oken any higher claims to geological acquire- ments. He confesses that he wrote the first edition of his work in a kind of inspiration! and it is not difficult to estimate the intelli- gence of the inspiring idol that announced to the German sage that the globe was a vast crystal, a little flawed in the facets, and that quartz, feldspar, and mica, the three constituents of granite, were the hail-drops of heavy showers of stone that fell into the original ocean, and accumulated into rocks at the bottom! Such is the unscientific parentage of the theories promulgated in the " Vestiges." But the author of this work appeals in the first instance to science. Astronomy, Geology, Botany, and Zoology are called upon to give evidence in his favor; but the astronomer, geol- ogist, botanist, and the zoologist, all refuse hi™ their teetimony, deny his premises, and reject his results. " It is not," as Mr. Miller hap- pily observes, " the illiberal religionist that casts him off. It is the inductive philosopher." Science addresses htm in the language of the possessed: " The astronomer I know, and the geologist I know; out who are ye ?" Thus left alone in a cloud of star-dust, or in brackish water between the marine and terrestrial flora, he " appeals from science to the want of it," casts a stone at our Scientific Insti- tutions, and demands a jury of "ordinary readers," as the only - tribunal" by which " the new philosophy is to be truly and righte- ously 'udged." The last &nA fifteenth chapter of Mr. Miller's work," On the Bear- big of Final Causes on Geologic History," if read with care and thought, will prove at on** delightful and instructive. Th* prineirl* sasajl zttUBK. X of final eemsee, or th* conditions of existence, affords a wid* scop* to our reason in Natural History, but especially in Geology, it be- comes an interesting inquiry, if any reason can be assigned why at certain periods species began to exist, and became extinct after the lapse of lengthened periods of time, and why the higher classes of being succeeded the lower in the order of creation r The incom- pleteness of geological science, however, does not permit us to re> move, for the present, the veil which hangs over this mysterious chronology; but our author is of opinion that in about a quarter of a century, in a favored locality like the British Islands, geologi- cal history " will assume a very extraordinary form." It is a singular fact, which will yet lead to singular results, that Cuvier's arrangement of the four classes of vertebrate animals should exhibit the same order as that in which they are found in the strata of the earth. In the fish, the average proportion of the brain to the spinal cord is only as 2 to 1. In the reptile, the ratio is 24 to 1. In the bird, it is as 3 to 1. In the mammalia, it is as 4 to 1; and in man, it is as 23 to 1. No less remarkable is the foetal progress of the human brain. It first becomes a brain resembling that of a fish; then it grows into the form of that of a reptile; then into that of a Dird; then into that of a mammiferous quadruped, and finally it issumes the form of a human brain, " thus comprising in its foetal progress an epitome of geological history, as if man were in himself a compendium of all animated nature, and of kin to every creature that lives." With these considerations, Mr. Miller has brought his subject to the point at which Science in its onward progress now stands. It is to embryology we are in future to look for further information upon the most intimate relations which exist between all organized beings. We may fairly entertain the hope that the time is not far when we shk-1 not only fully understand the Plan of Creation, but even lift some corner of the veil which has hitherto prevented us from form. rig adequate ideas of the first introduction of animal and vegetable life upon earth, and of the changes which both kingdoms have un dargone in the succession of geological ages. L. AGASSIZ. Cuniuat, SqK—frw, ISM uO J* TENTS 4«a STBOXBBH iBTD ITS ASTX BOLE PIS. — THX LAXB OF 8TXSBIS 98 THS DBVXLOPXKBT HTPOTHXSIS, ABO ITS COH6ZQUXNCXS 37 THX BXOXBT BUSTOBT OF THS ASTZBOLXPIS. — ITS FAMILY . 48 CERESEAL DBVBLOPHXBX OF THX BABLIKB VXBTEBBATA. — ITS AP- PABXBT PBIBCIPLX 68 TUB ASTXKOLEPia. —ITS BTEECTTJEE, BULK, ABD ASPXOT . 91 FISHES OF THX 8ILUBIAB BOCKS, BPPEE ABD LOWBX. — THXIB *B- OBBT HISTOBT, OBDXB, ABD SIZB...... VK HISH STABDIBO OF THX PLACOIDS.— OBJECTIONS OOBSIDKBBD 147 THE PLACOID BBAIB. — XKBBTONIC CHABACTBEISTICB HOT BSCES- BABILT OF A LOW OBDBB W XHX PEOOBESS OF DEOBADATIOB.- -ITS HISTCB¥ 8J EVIDENCE Or TBI BILUBIAB HOLLUSCS. — OF THX FOWL FLOBA, — ABCIXBT TBXX ....... SOS -7PEBP08ITIOM BOT PABBBTAL BBLATIOB. — THS BZ*1BBIB*B OF LIFE . tIM LAHABCEIAB HVPOTHESM OF THX OBISIB OF PLABTS. — IN 009NB atrxncaa **j XI ooirreHvsn raw rna two fxobas, habirx abd teebbstbial. — bbabxb« *r the xxpzbibbob ABecxxaT.......... iw9 STHB DBVBLOPKBBT HTPOTHESIS IN ITS EHBETOWIC STATB. — OLDBB THAB ITS ALLESED VOCBDATIOBS . .97? FIBAL OAVSBS — THBIB BEABJB4 >.* «SOLO«IC KISTOZT — COBOL V nee sk LIST OF WOOD-CUTS l Internal ridge of hyoid plate of Asterolepis..... . « i. 8hagreen of Raja elavata :— of Spkagodus.......S| 8. Seales ef Aeanthodes sulcatus .- — shagreen of SeyUium stellare . 46 4. Seales of Cheiraoanthus mtcroleptdotus • —shagreen of Spina* Acanthias.................. 6g 6. Section of shagreen of ScyIlium stellare:—of seales of Cheirm- eanthus microlepidotus.............' . 68 6. Scales of Osteolepis microlepidotus . — of an undesoribed speeie* of Glyptolepie..................57 7. Osseous points of Placoid Cranium...........6* 3. Osseous centrum of Spina* Acanthia* . — of Rata elavata ... 67 9. Portions of caudal fin of Cheiracanthus. — of Cheirolepi* ... 69 K) Upper surface ef cranium of Cod............ 72 LI Cranial buckler of Coeeosteus.............74 12 Cranial buckler of Osteolepis.............78 13 Upper surface of head of Osteolepis...........77 14 Under surface of head of Osteolepis...........79 16 Head of Osteolepis, seen in profile...........80 16 Cranial buckler of Diplopierus.............g] 17. Ditto.....................gj 18. Palatal dart-head, and group of palatal teeth, of Dipterus 88 19 Cranial buckler of Dipterus..............88 20. Base of cranium of Dipterus .............88 21. Under jaw of Dipterus.............. 87 SB. Longitudinal section of head of Dipterus...... 88 28. Section of vertebral centrum ef Thornbaek.......93 14. Dermal tubercles of Asterolepis .......... 9i 8a. Baals* ef Asteroiepie........ ... 88 xlK LIST «F trooa-crirm 2*. Perttsa ef earved surfaes ef eeato ....... S8 27. Cranial huskier of Asterolepis........... 96 28. Inner surface of sranial backlar ef Aston Ispie.....88 29. Plates of cranial baokler of Atteroiepie ...... - £02 SO. Portion of under jaw of Asterolepis ....... .108 31. Inner side of portion of under jaw of Asterelepie ... 104 32. Portion of trans verse section of reptile tooth ef AMerolepis . 104 83. Section of jaw of Asterolepis ...,.,.......108 84 Maxillary bene ? ....... 101 36. Inner surfaet af epe?culum of Asteroie^ ....... 199 86. Hyoid plate.................... 118 87. Nail-like bone of hyoid - ,...♦. Ill 38. Shoulder plate of Asterolepis............ 112 89. Dermal bones of Astervlepie............. 11J 40. Internal bones ef Asterolepis ............. 114 41. Ditto.................... 116 42. Ischium ef Asterolepis....... ....... 116 48. Joint ef ray of Thornback: — ef Asterolepis........117 44. Coprolites ef Asterolepis...............118 46. Hyoid plate of Thurso Asterolepis ...........124 46. Hyoid plate of Russian Asterolepis.........127 47- Spine of Spinax Aeanthias:—fragment of Onoadago spine . . 148 48. Tail of Spinax Aoanthias.- — of Ichthyosaurus tenuirostris . . 172 49. Port Jaokson Shark (Cestracion PMllippt).........177 50. Tail of Osteolepis . .............195 51. Tail of Lepidosteus otseus . .....lot 62. Tail of Pereh...... ........197 68. AbHngia excels* (Norfblk-Islaad Pine) ........812 64 Fueoids ef the Lower Old Bed Sandstone........216 56. Two species of Old Bed Fueoids .... 217 56, Fern (?) of the Lower Old Bed Sandstone .... 218 67 Lignite ef the Lower Old Bed Sandstone . . . 221 68. Internal straetnre ef lignite of Lower Old Red Sasistexte §££ 8TR0MNB88 AND IT8 A8TBKOLBPI8. HI LAKB OF IITBNNIfi HEN engaged in prosecuting the self imposed task of examining in detail the various foasiliferous deposits of Scotland, in the hope of ultimately acquainting myself with them all, I ex- tended my exploratory ramble, about two years ago, into the Mainland of Orkney, and resided for some time in th* vicinity of Stromness. This busy seaport town forms that special centra), in thai ssorthera archipelago, from which the structure of the en- tire group can be moat advantageously studied. The geol- ogy of the Orkneys, like that of Caithness, owea its chief interest to the immense development which it exhibits of one formation, — the Lower Old Red Sandstone, — and to the extraordinary abundance of its vertebrate remains. It k not too much to affirm, that in the comparatively small portion which this eiuater of ial&nda contains of the third part of a system regarded only a few years ago aa the least thsaaliforoua in the geeiogie :ed th&jr meanings to the geologist, is the strange story recorded on the three-barred pyramid of Stromness. I traced the formation upwards this evening along the edges of the upturned strata, from where the Great Conglomerate leans against the granite, till where it merges into the ichthyolitic flagstones; and then pursued tb*%e from older and lower to newer and ki^her layers, -ieai.cua of appertaining at what distance ovf, lae base of Jva system its more ancient organ" isms first '/^t, and whs. ineir character and kind. And, embedded *r * graj ish-to'oied layer of hard flag, somewhat lass thas. 0 t jreiteji yaids over the granite, and about a 1 • SO sraosniBss hundred and sixty feet over the upper stratum of the con- glomerate,! found what! sought, — a well-marked bone,— in all probability the oldest vertebrate remain yet discovered in Orkney. What, asks the reader, was the character of this ancient organism of the Palaeozoic basin ? As shown by its cancellated texture, palpable to the naked eye, and still more unequivocally by the irregular complexity ©f fabric which it exhibits under the microscope, — by its speck-like life-points or canaliculi, that remind one of air- bubbles in ice, — its branching channels, like minute veins, through which the blood must once have flown,— and ha general groundwork of irregular lines of corpuscular fibre, that wind through the whole like currents in a river studded with islands,— it was as truly osseous in its composition as the solid bones of any of the reptiles of the Secondary, or the quadrupeds of the Tertiary periods. And in form it closely resembled a large roofing-nail. With this bone oui more practised palaeontologists are but little acquainted, for no remains of the animal to which it belonged have yet bee* discovered in Britain to the south of the Grampians,* nor, ex cept mthe Old Red Sandstone of Russia, has it been detected * Since the above sentence was written and set in type, I hn learned that my ingenious friend, Mr. Charles Peach of the Cos toms, Fowey, so well known for his palsBontologieal discoveries, has just found in the Devonian system of Cornwall, fragments of what seem to be dermal plates of Asterolepis. It is a somewhat curious circumstance, that the two farthest removed extremi- ties of Great Britain—Cornwall and Caithness — should be tipped by fossiliferous deposits of the same ancient system, and tha organisms which, when they lived, were oontemporary, should bi found embedded in the rooks which rise over the British Channe on th* one extremity, and overhang th* Pentland Frith on the tihax. AMD ITS ASTttOLZPXA. any wnere on the Continent. Nor am I aware tnat, aave in the accompanying wood-cut, (fig. 1,) it km aver been figured. The amateur ged ogists of Caithness and Orkney have, how- ever, learned to recognize it as the " poirified nail." The length of the entire specimen in thai Instance was five seven eighth inches, the transverse bro»J& of the head two Hches and a quarter, and the thickness «f the stem nearly three tenth parts of an inch. This nail like bone formed a characteristic portion of the Asterolepis). — so far as is yet known, the most gigantic ganoid of the Old Red Sandstone, and, judging from the place of this fragment, apparently our of the first Fig. I. orvnajiAi amen or htoid tultm or ASTnaoLBPia.* (One third the natural size, linear.1 * Figured from a Thurso specimen, slightly differs in its propor- tion* from the Stromness specimen described. ■ STEGMJiKSS AMD ITS ASTBeXOUFTJ. There were various considerations which led me to regard the u petrified nailn in this ease as one of the most interest lag fossils I had ever seen; and, before quitting Orkney, to pursue my explorations farther to the south, I brought two in- telligent geologists of the district,* to mark its place and character, that they might be able to point it out to geologi sal visitors in the future, or, if they preferred removing it to their town museum, to indicate to them the stratum in whieh it had lain. It showed me, among other things, how ansafe it is for the geologist to base positive conclusions en merely negative data. Pounding on the fact that, of many hundred ichthyolites of the Lower Old Red Sand- stone which I had disinterred and examined, all were of com- paratively small size, while in the Upper Old Red many of the ichthyolites are of great mass and bulk, I had inferred that vertebrate life had been restricted to minuter forms al the commencement than at the close of the system. If had begun, I had ventured to state in the earlier editions of a little work on the *• Old Red Sandstone," with an age of dwarfs, and had ended with an age of giants. And now, here, at the very base of the system, unaccompanied by aught to establish the contemporary existence of its dwarfs, — which appear, however, in an overlying bed about a hun- dred feet higher up, — was there unequivocal proof of the ex- istence of one of the most colossal of its giants. But no! {infrequently, in the geologic field, has the practice of basing positive conclusions on merely negative grounds led to a mis- reading of the record. From evidence of a kind exactly similar to that on which I had built, it was inferred, some two * Dr. ttaorg* Oarson, Stromness, and Mr. William Watt, fan. HtudlL TH tAIE OF mKKiS* or three years ago, that there had lives! aa reptiles feting th* period of the Coal Measures, and no fish in the times ©f the Lower Silurian System. I extended my researches, a few days after, in uth,— "Oka eves kerand VsttHWt tmafe- THE LAKE OF gTKHWlS. The shores of both the upper and lower divisions of the lake were strewed, at the time I passed, by a line of wrack, consisting, for the first few miles from where the lower loch opens to the sea, of only marine plants, then of marine plants mixed with those of fresh-water growth, and then, in the upper shset of water, of lacustrine plants exclusively. And the fauna of the loch is, 1 was informed, of as mixed a char« acter as its flora, — the marine and fresh-water animals hav ing each their own reaches, with certain debatable tracts between, in which each kind expatiates with more or less freedom, according to its specific nature and constitution,—- some of the sea-fish advancing far on the fresh water, and others, among the proper denizens of the lake, encroaching far on the salt. The common fresh-water eel strikes out, I was told, farthest into the sea-water ; in which, indeed, revers- ing the habits of the salmon, it is known in various places to deposit its spawn. It seeks, too, impatient of a low tem- perature, to escape from the cold of winter, by taking refuge in water brackish enough, in a climate such as ours, to resist the influence of frost. Of the marine fish, on the other hand, I found that the flounder got greatly higher than any of the others, inhabiting reaches of the lake almost entirely fresh. I have had an opportunity elsewhere of observing a curious change which fresh water induces in this fish. In the brackish water of an estuary, the animal becomes, without diminishing in general size, thicker and more fleshy than when in its legitimate habitat, the sea : but the flesh loses in quality what it gains in quantity ; — it grows flabby and insipid, and the margin-fin lacks always its strip of transparent fat But the change induced in the two floras of the lake — marine and acustrine — is considerably more palpable and obvious than that induced in ua two fauna*. As I passed along the strait THE LAZE OF ITTJK.S. 36 through which it gives admission to the sea, I found the commoner fueoids of our sea-coasts streaming in great luxu- riance in the tideway, from the stones and rocks of the bot- tom. I marked, among the others, the two species cf kelp- weed, so well known to our Scotch kelp-burners, — Fucm nodosus and Fucus vesiculosus, — flourishing in their uncur- ailed proportions; and the not inelegant Halidrys siliquosa, or " tree in the sea," presenting its amplest spread of pod and frond. A little farther in, Halidrys and Fucus nodosus dis- appear, and Fucus vesiculosus becomes greatly stunted, and no longer exhibits its characteristic double rows of bladders. But for mile after mile it continues to exist, blent with some of the hardier confervas, until at length it becomes as dwarfish and nearly as *lim of frond as the conferva? themselves and it is only by tracing it through the intermediate forms that we succeed in convincing ourselves that, in the brown stunted tufts of from one to three inches in length, which continue to fringe the middle reaches of the lake, we have in reality the well-known Fucus before us. Rushes, flags, and aquatic grasses may now be seen standing in diminutive tufts out of the water; and a terrestrial vegetation at least continues to exist, though it can scarce be said to thrive, oa banks covered by the tide at full. The lacustrine flora increases, both in extent and luxuriance, as that of the sea diminishes; and in the upper reaches we fail to detect all trace of marine plants the alga) so luxuriant of growth along the straits of this " miniature Mediterranean," altogether eease; and a semi-aquatic vegetation attains, in turn, to the state of fullest development any where permitted by the tem- perature of tna northern locality. A memoir descriptive of the Loch of Stennis, and its productions, animal and vegetable such as old Gilbert White of Selborne could have produced If THS JUUSE of simmus.. w**M be at «aee a very valuable aad *umsa sWa^ssaWA, as pertaai to the naturalist, and not withe* its use to the geei***;- sal studeat I know not hew it may he with others; hut *» speeia phenomena connected with Orkney that most decidedly bore fruit in my mind, and to whieh my thoughts have moat fre- quently reverted, were those exhibited in the neighborhood of Stromness. I would more particularly refer to the char acteristie fragment of Asterolepis, which I detected in its lower flagstone*} and to the curiously mixed, semi-marine, semi- lacustrine vegetation of the Loch of Stennis. Both seem to bear very directly on that develonment hypothesis, — fast rereading among an active end ingenious order of minds, both in Britain and America, and wnich has been long known on the Continent, — that would fain transfer the work of crea- tion from the department of miracle to the province of natural law, and would strike down, in the process of removal, all tU eld landmarks, ethical and religious. THE OTVT&OTHEKT WrTATHERIS. 3? tm Dsmnx>iTaarr mTPoroaia, **» its CONSJauiKCTB Iteet iadividual, whatever its species er order, begins and increases until it attains to its state of fullest develop- ment, under certain fixed laws, and in eonseeptsnee ef their operation. The microscopic monad develops into a fmtus, the fetus into a child, the child into a man; and, however marvellous the process, in none of its stage* is there the slightest mixture of miracle; from beginning to end, all is progressive development, according to a detorminato order ef things. Has Nature, during the vast geologic periods, been pregnant, in like manner, with the human race ? and is the species, like the individual, an effect of progressive derelop- ment, induced and regulated by law ? The assertors of the revived hypothesis of Maillet and Lamarck reply in the af- firmative. Nor, be it remarked, is there positive atheism involved in the belief. God might aa certainly have origi- nated the species by a law of development, as he maintains it by a law of development; the existence of s First Great Cause is as perfectly compatible with the one scheme as with the other; and it may be necessary thug broadly to state the met, sot only in justice to the Lamarckiaa*. but ake fairly to nrara their non-geological opponents thai m this sen tost the okf afiti-atlwistic ars^uMoit* whether reaacfed ea J** 4 TIB BETBEOPMBaT MITIJUUB, evidence of design, or on the preliminary doctrine ef amsJ causes, cannot be brought to bear. There are, however, beliefs, in no degree less importan to the moralist or the Christian than even that in the being of a God, which seem wholly incompatible with the develop* ment hypothesis. If, dur jag a period so vast as to be scarce expressible by figures, the creatures now human have been rising, by almost infinitesimals, from compound microscopic cells, — minute vital globules within globules, begot by elec- tricity on dead gelatinous matter, — until they have at lengtr. become the men and women whom we see around us, we must hold either the monstrous belief, that all the vitalities, whether those of monads or of mites, of fishes or of reptiles, of birds or of beasts, are individually and inherently immortal and undying, or that human souls are not so. The difference be- tween the dying and the undying, — between the spirit of the brute that goeth downward, and the spirit of the man that goeth upward,— is not a difference infinitesimally, or even atomically small. It possesses all the breadth of the eternity to come, and is an infinitely great difference. It cannot, if 1 may so express myself, be shaded off by infinitesimals or atoms; for it is a difference which — as there can be no class ef beings intermediate in their nature between the dying and the undying —- admits not of gradation at all. What mind, regu- lated by the ordinary principles of human belief, can possibly hold that every one of the thousand vital points which swim in a drop of stagnant water are inherently fitted to "y»nte,in their individuality throughout eternity ? Or how can it be rationally held that a mere progressive step, in itself no greater or more important than that effected by the addition of a single brick to a house in the building state, or of a single atom to a body ii the screwing state, oould ever have aroduced isojszortolity i asm ITS OOMSBQIBlfQEa, 39 And yet, if the spirit of a monad or of a mollusc be not im mortal, then must there either have been a point in the his- tory of the species at which a dying brute — differing from its offspring merely by an inferiority of development, repre- sented by a few atoms, mayhap by a single atom — produced an undying man, or man in his present state must be a mere animal, possessed of no immortal soul, and as irresponsible for his actions to the God before whose bar he is, in conse- quence, never to appear, as his presumed relatives and pro- genitors the beasts that perish. Nor will it do to attempt escaping from the difficulty, by alleging that God at some certain link in the chain might have converted a mortal crea ture into an immortal existence, by breathing into it a " living soul; " seeing that a renunciation of any such direct inter- ference on the part of Deity in the work of creation forms the prominent and characteristic feature of the scheme, —- nay, that it constitutes the very nucleus round which the scheme has originated. And thus, though the development theory be not atheistic, it is at least practically tantamount to atheism. For, if man be a dying creature, restricted in his existence to the present scene of things, what does it really matter to him, for any one moral purpose, whether there be • God or no ? If in reality on the same religious level with the dog, wolf, and fox, that are by nature atheists, — a nature most properly coupled with irresponsibility,— to what one practical purpose should he know or believe in a God whom he, as certainly as they, is never to meet as his Judge ? or why should he square his conduct by the requirements of the moral code farther than a low and convenient expediency may chance to demand ? * • Th* Continental assertors of the development hypothesis are greatly mora frank than those * oar own country regarding the 40 TETB WBVKLOrMElTT aTtTO1 sTssalS, Nor does the purely Christian objection to the deveiopmeni hypothesis seem less, but even more insuperable than that derived from the province of natural theology. The belief which is perhaps of all others most fundamentally essential to the revealed scheme of salvation, is the beJef that " God created man upright," and that man, instead of proceeding onward and upward from this high and fair beginning, to a yet higher and fairer standing in the scale of creation, sank and became morally lost and degraded. And hence the ne- cessity for that second dispensation of recovery and restora- tion which forma the entire burden of God's revealed mes- sage to man. If, according to the development theory, the " life after death," and what man has to expect from it Th* in- dividual, they tell us, perishes forever; but then, out of his remains there spring up other vitalities. The immortality of th* soul is, it would seem, an idle figment for there really exists no such things aa souls; but is there no comfort in being taught instead, that we are to resolve into monads and maggots ? Job solaced himself with the assurance that even after worms had destroyed his body, he was in the flesh to see God. Had Professor Oken been on* of his com- forters, he would have sought to restrict his hopes to the prospect of living in the worms. " If the organic fundamental substance consist of infusoria," says the Professor, " so must the whole organic world originate from infusoria. Plants and animals can only bo metamor- phoses of infusoria. This being granted, so also most all organisa- tions consist of infusoria, and, during their destruction, dissolve ink the same. Every plant every animal, is converted by maceration into a mucous mass; this putrefies, and th* moisture is stocked with infusoria. Putrefaction is nothing els* than a division of organisms into infusoria, — a reduction of the higher to the primary life. • • * • Death is no annihilation, but only a change. One individual emerges out of another Death is only a transition to another life, — not into death. This transition from on* Ufa to another takes place through th* nrfsaary condition of the or gsssa, or the muoua." — Physio-Pkikeyty pp. Itf.tat. *jm 1TB «OWa«*eErans> 41 prespees ef the " first Adam " was an upward progress, the existence of the "second Adam" — that "happier man,' according to Milton, whose special work it is to " restorer" and ** regain the blissful seat" of the lapsed race — is simply a meaningless anomaly. Christianity, if the development theory be true, is exactly what some of thse more extreme Moderate divines of the last age used to make it — an idle and unsightly excrescence on a code of morals that would be perfect were it away. I may be in error in taking this serious view of the matter, and, if so, would feel grateful to the man who could point out to me that special link in the chain of inference at which, with respect to the bearing of the theory on the two theolo gies — natural and revealed — the mistake has taken place But if I be in error at all, it is an error into which I find not a few of the first men of the age, — represented, as a elass, by our Professor Sedgwieks and Sir David Brewstors, — have also fallen; and until it be shown to be an error, and that the development theory is in no degree incompatible with a belief in the immortality of the soul — in the responsi- bility of man to God as the final Judge — or in the Christian scheme of salvation — it is every honest man's duty to protest against any em parte statement of the question, that would insidiously represent it as ethically an indifferent one, or as unimportant in its theologic bearing, save to " little religious sects and scientific coteries." In an address on the fossil flora, made in September last by a gentleman of Edinburgh, to the St. Andrew's Horticultural Society, there occurs the following passage on this subject: " Life is governed by external conditions, and new conditions imply new races; but then as to their creation, that is the ' mystery of mysteries.' Are they created by an immediate fiat and direct act of the 4J THE BETlXOrMSWT ETTOTEESIS, Almighty ? or has He originally impressed life with an elas- ticity and adaptability, so that it shall take upon itself n*w forms and characters, according to the conditions tc which it shall oe subjected ? Each opinion has had, and still has, its advocates and opponents ; but the truth is, that science, so far as it knows, or rather so far as it has had the honesty and courage to avow has yet been unable to pronounce a satisfac- tory decision. Either way, it matters little, physically or mor- ally , either mode implies the same omnipotence, and wisdom, and foresight, and protection; and it is only your little religious sects and scientific coteries which make a pother about the matter, — sects and coteries of which it may be justly said, that they would almost exclude God from the management of his own world, if not managed and directed in the way that they would have it." Now, this is surely a most unfair representation of the consequences, ethical and religious involved in the development hypothesis. It is not its com- patibility with belief in the existence of a First Great Cause that has to be established, in order to prove it harmless ; but its compatibility with certain other all-important beliefs, with out which simple Theism is of no moral value whatever—a belief in the immortality and responsibility of man, ard in the scheme of salvation by a Mediator and Redeemer. Dis- sociated from these beliefs, a belief in the existence of a God is of as little ethical value as a belief in the existence of the great sea-serpent. Let us see whether we cannot determine what the testi mony of Geology, on this question of creation by development, really is. It is always perilous to under-estimate the strength of an enemy ; and the danger from the development hypoth- esis to an ingenious order of minds, smitten with the novel fascinations of physical science, has been under-estimated very AXE ITS OOHSXO.&SMCES. 48 eonsiderably indeed. Save by a few studious men, who to the cultivation of Geology and the cognate branches add some acquaintance with metaphysical science, the general corre- ■pondonce of the line of assault taken up by this new school of infidelity, with that occupied by the old, and the conse- quent ability of the assailants to bring, not only the recently forged, but also the previously employed artillery into full play along its front, has not only not been marked, but even not so much as suspected. And yet, in order to show tha there actually is such a correspondence, it can be but neces- sary to state, that the great antagonist points in the array of the opposite lines, are simply the law of development versus the miracle of creation. The evangelistic Churches cannot, n consistency with their character, or with a due regard to the interests of their people, slight or overlook a form of error at once exceedingly plausible and consummately cbngerous, and which is telling so widely on society, that one can scarce travel by railway or in a steamboat, or encounter a group of intelligent mechanics, without finding decided trace of its ravages. But ere the Churches can be prepared competently to deal with it, or with the other objections of a similar class which the infidelity of an age so largely engaged as the pre* ent in physical pursuits will be from time to time originating they must greatly extend their educational walks into the field of physical science. The mighty change which has taken place during the present century, in the direction in which the minds of the first order are operating, though indicated on the face of the country in characters whicb eannot be mistaken, seems to have too much escaped the no- ice of our theologians. Speculative theology and the mete hvsics are cognate branches of the same science ; and when, *4 THE EEVBWFME1IT KrwTUBsTE, at in the last and the preceding ages, the higher philosophy el the world was metaphysical, the Churches took ready cogni sauce of the fact, and, in due accordance with the requirements of the time, the battle of the Evidences was fought on meta- physics, ground. But, judging from the preparations made in their colleges and halls, they do not now seem sufficiently aware — though the low thunder of every railway, and the snort ©f every steam engine, an i the whistle of the wind amid the wires of every electric telegraph, serve to publish the fact — that it is in the departments of physics, not of metaphys- ics, that the greater minds of the age are engaged, — that the Lockes, Humes, Kants, Berkeleys, Dugald Stewarts, and Thomas Browns, belong to the past, — and that the philoso- phers of the present time, tall enough to be seen all the world over, are the Humboldts, the Aragos, the Agassizes, the Lie- bigs, the Owens, the Herschels, the Bucklands, and the Brew sters. In that educational course through which, in this coun- try, candidates for the ministry pass, in preparation for their office, I find every group of great minds which has in turn influenced and directed the mind of Europe for the last three centuries, represented, more or less adequately, save the last It is an epitome of all kinds of learning, with the exception of the kind most imperatively required, because most in accordance Viu the genius of the time. The restorers of clas- sic literature — the Buchanans and Erasmuses — we see rep resented in our Universities by the Greek and what are termed the Humanity courses; the Galileos, Boyles, and Newtons, by the Mathematical and Natural Philosophy courses; and the Lockes, Kants, Humes, and Berkeleys, by the Metaphysical course. But the Cuviera, the Huttons,the Cavendishes, and the Watts, with thaur successors, the practical philosophers of the present age, — men whose achievements in physical science ahe its 0e*sBqws*sxa, 4ft we find marked on the surface? of the country in sJaaraetew which might be read from the moon,—-are not adequately represented. It would be perhaps more correct to say,, tha? they are not represented at all: * and the clergy, 'as a cbwe, suffer themselves to linger far in the rear of an intelligent and accomplished laity — a full age behind the requirements of the time. Let them not shut their eyes to the danger which is obviously coming. The battle of the Evidences will have u certainly to be fought on the field of physical science, as it wss contested in the last age on that of the metaphysics. And on this new arena the combatants will have to employ new weapons, which it will be the privilege of the challenger to choose. The old, opposed to these, would prove but of little avail. La an age of muskets and artillery, the bows and arrows of an obsolete school of warfare would be found greatly less than sufficient, in the field of battle, for purposes either of assault or defence. " There are two kinda of generation in the world," eaya Professor Lorenx Oken, in his " Elements of Physio-philoso- phy ;" " the creation proper, and the propagation that ii sequent thereupon—or the generatio originaria and secun daria. Consequently, no organism has been created of larger size than an infusorial point. No organism is, nor ever has • I trust that at least by and by there may be an exesption alaimed, from the general, but I am sure, well-meant censure of this passage, in favor of the Free Church of Sootiand. It has got ss its Professor of Physical Science — thanks to the sagacity of Chalmers — Dr. John Fleming, a man of European reputation; and all that seems further necessary, in order to secure th* benefits eentemplated in the appointment is, that attendance on his course should be rendatad bnparativ* on eJt Fr*e Church candidate* for the Httaiatry • IB EEVBLOPSDHVT hYPOT ene heea created, which is not microscopic. Whatever arger has not been created, but developed. Man has n been created, hut developed." Such, in a few brief dogmata sentences, is the development theory What, in order to establish its truth, or even to render it in some degree proba- ble, ought to be the geological evidence regarding it ? The reply seems obvious. In the first place, the earlier fossils ought to be very small in size; in the second, very low in organization. In cutting into the stony womb of nature, in order to determine what it contained mayhap millions of ages ago, we must expect, if the development theory be true, to look upon mere embryos and fetuses. And if we find, in- stead, the full grown and the mature, then must we hold that the testimony of Geology is not only not in accordance with the theory, but in positive opposition to it. Such, palpably, is the principle on which, in this matter, we ought to decide. What are the facts f The oldest organism yet discovered in the most ancient geological system of Scotland in which vertebrate remains occur, seems to be the Asterolepis of Stromness. After the explorations of many years over a wide area, I have detected none other equally low in the system; nor have I ascertained that any brother-explorer in the same field has been more fortunate. It is, up to the present time, the most ancient Scotch witness of the great class of fishes that can in this case be brought into court; nay, it is in all probability the oldest ganoid witness the world has yet produced ; for there appears no certain trace of this order of fishes in the great Silurian system which lies underneath, and in which, so far as geolo- gists yet know, organic existence first began. How, then, on the two relevant points — bulk and organization — does it answer to the demands of the development hypothesis? Was AN* ITS eONSBCYSaSBS. it a mere fostus of the finny tribe, of minute size, and imper- fect, embryonic faculty? Or was it of at least th© ordinary bulk, and, for its class, of the average organization ? May 1 solicit the forbearance of the non-geological reader, should my reply to these apparently simple questions seem unneces- sarily prolix and elaborate ? Peculiar opportunities of obser- vation, and the possession of a set of unique fossils, enable me to submit to our palaeontologists a certain amount of in- formation regarding this ancient ganoid, which they will deem at once mtoresting and new; and the bearing of my state- ments on the gsneral argument will, I trust, become sppereaJ as I proceed. 48 recbkt Hiaresv THX miCXKT HISTORY OF THS AJRhSOLVIB ITS FAMILY. *t had been long known to the continental nattrralista, that ia certain Russian deposits, very extensively developed, there occur in considerable abundance certain animal organisms; but for many years neither their position nor character could be satisfactorily determined. By some they were placed too ugh in the scale of organized being; by others too low. Kutorga, a writer not very familiarly known in this country, lescribed th* remains as those of mammals; — the Russian rocks contained, he said, bones of quadrupeds, and, in espe- cial, the teeth of swme: whereas Lamarck, a better known authority, though not invariably a safe one, — for he had a trick of dreaming when wide awake, and of calling his dreams philosophy, — assigned to them a place among the corals. They belonged, he asserted, as shown by certain star-like markings with which they are fretted, to the Poly- paria. He even erected for their reception a new genus of Astrea,which he designated, from the little rounded hillock which rises in the middle of each star, the genus Monticu laria. It was left to a living naturalist, M. Eichwald, to fix their true position zoologically among the class of fishes, and to Sir Roderick Murohison to determine their position geologi caily as ichthyolitos of the Old Red Sandstone. OF TEX ASTEZOLEFIS. 49 Sir Roderick, on his return from his great Russian cam- paigns, in which he fared far otherwise than Napoleon, and accomplished more, submitted to Agassis a aeries of fragments of these gigantic Ganoids; and the celebrated ichthyologist, who had been introduced little more than a twelvemonth before to the Pterichthys of Cromarty, was at firs: inclined to regard them as the remains of a large cui rassed fish of the Cephalaspian type, but generically new. Under this impression he bestowed upon the yet unknown ichthyolite of which they had formed part, the name Che- lonichthys, from the resemblance borne by the broken plates to those of the carapace and plastron of some of the Che- lonians. At this stage, however, the Russian Old Red yielded a set of greatly finer remains than it had previously furnished; and of these casts were transmitted by Profes- ser Asmus, of the University of Dorpat, to the British and London Geological Museums, and to Agassis. " I knew not at first what to do," says the ichthyologist, "with bones of so singular a conformation that I could refer them to no known type." Detecting, however, on their exterior surfaces the star-like markings which had misled Lamarck, and which he had also detected on the lesser fragments sub mitted to him by Sir Roderick, he succeeded in identifying both the fragments and bones as remains of the same genus; and on ascertaining that M. Eichwald had bestowed upon it from these characteristic sculpturings, the generic name Asterolepis, or star-scale, he suffered the name which he himself had originated to drop. Even this second name, however, which the ichthyolite still continues to bear, is in some degree founded in error. Its true scales, as I shall by and by show, were not stelliferous, but fretted by a pecu- liar style of ornament consisting of waved anastossetong 18 EB0EET HJETOET ridges, breaking atop into angular-shaped dots, scooped cut internally like the letter V; and were evidently intermedi- ate in their character between the scales which cover the Glyptolepis and those of the Holoptychius. And the stellate markings which M. Eichwald graphically describes as mi« nute paps rising out of the middle of star-like wreaths of little leaflets, were restricted to the dermal plates of the head. Agassis ultimately succeeded in classing the bones which had at first so puzzled him, into two divisions — interior and dermal; and the latter he divided yet further, though not without first lodging a precautionary protest, founded on the extreme obscurity of the subject, into cranial and opercular. Of the interior bones he specified two, — a super-scapulai bone, (supra-scapulaire,) — that bone which in osseous fishes completes the scapular arch or belt, by uniting the scapula to the cranium; and a maxillary or upper jaw-bone. But his #orld-wide acquaintance with existing fishes could lend him no assistance in determining the places of the dermal bones: they formed the mere fragments of a broken puzzle, of which the key was lost. Even in their detached and irre- ducible state, however, he succeeded in basing upon them several shrewd deductions. He inferred, in the first place, that the Asterolepis was not, as had been at first supposed, a cuirassed fish, which took its place among the Cephalaspians, but a srrongly helmed fish of that Coelacanth family to which the Holoptychius and Glyptolepis belong; in the second, that, like several of its bulkier cogeners, it was in all probability a broad, flat-headed animal; and, in the third, that as its re- mains are found associated in the Russian beds with nume- rous detached teeth of large size, — the boar-tusks of Ku- torga —which present internally that peculiar microscopic W TEE ASTSE0LEP1S. 5, character on whieh Professor Owen has erected his Den- drodic or tree-toothed family of fishes, — it would in all like- lihood be found that both bones and teeth belonged to the same group. " It appears more than probable," he said, " that one day, by the discovery of a head or an entire jaw, it will be shown that the genera Dendrodus and Asterolepia form but one." As we proceed, the reader will see how justly the ichthyologist assigned to the Asterolepis its place among the Ceelacanths, and how entirely his two other con- jectures regarding it have been confirmed. " I have had in general," he concluded, " but small and mutilated fragments of the creature's bones submitted to me, and of these, even the surface ornaments not well preserved ; but I hope the immense materials with which the Old Red Sandstone of Russia has furnished the savans of that country will not be lost to science; and that my labors on this interesting genus, incomplete as they are, will excite more and more the atten- tion of geologists, by showing them how ignorant we are of all the essential facts concerning the history of the first inhab- itants of our globe." I know not what the savans of Russia have been doing foi the last few years; but mainly through the labors of an intelligent tradesman of Thurso, Mr. Robert Dick,—one of those working men of Scotland of active curiosity and well- developed intellect, that give character and standing tc the rest, — I am enabled to justify the classification and confirm the conjectures of Agassiz. Mr. Dick, after acquainting him- self, in the leisure hours of a laborious profession, with the shells^ insects, and plants of the northern locality in which he resides, had set himself to study its geology; and with this view he procured a cooy of the little treatise on the Old Red Sandstone to whieh 1 have already referred, and whieh &2 ESCEMT E7ST0SV OF TEE ASTSSOLETIS, was at that time, as Agassiz's Monograph of the Old Bed fishes had not yet appeared, the only work specially devoted to the palaeontology of the system, so largely developed in the neighborhood of Thurso. With perhaps a single excep- tion, — for the Thurso rocks do not yet seem to have yielded a Pterichthys, — he succeeded in finding specimens, in a state of better or worse keeping, of all the various ichthyolites which I had described as peculiar to the Lower Old Red Sandstone. He found, however, what I had not described, — the remains of apparently a very gigantic ichthyolite; and, communi- cating with me through the medium of a common friend, he submitted to me, in the first instance, drawings of his new set of fossils; and ultimately, as I could arrive at no sat isfactory conclusion from the drawings, he with great liber' ality made over to me the fossils themselves. Agassiz's Monograph was not yet published; nor had I an opportu- nity of examining, until about a twelvemonth after, the easts, in the British Museum, of the fossils of Professor Asmu*. Besides, all the little information, derived from various sources, which I had acquired respecting the Rus- sian Chelonichthys, — for such was its name at the time, — referred it to the cuirassed type, and served but to mislead. I was assured, for instance, that Professor Asmus regarded his set of remains as portions of the plates and paddles of a gigantic Pterichthys, of from twenty to thirty feet in length. And so, as I had recognized in the Thurso fossils the peculiarities of the Holoptychian (Coelacanth) family, 1 at first failed to identify them with the remains of the great Russian fish. All the larger bones sent me by Mr. Dick were, I found, cerebral; and the scales associated with these indicated, not a cuirass-protected, but a scale-covered body aad exhibited, in their sculptured and broadly imhri r&suar or tee astxiomtfis, jatod surfaces, the well-marked CoBlacanth style of disposition and ornament But though I could not recognize in either bones or scales the remains of one ichthyolite more of the Old Red Sandstone, " that could be regarded as manifesting a* peculiar a type among fishes as do the Ichthyosauri and Plesioaauri among reptiles," • I was engaged at the time in a course of inquiry regarding the cerebral development of the earlier vertebrata, that made me deem them scarce less mteresting than if I could. Ere, however, I attempt com- municating to the reader the result of my researches, I must introduce him, in order that he may be able to set out with me to the examination of the Asterolepis from the same start- ing-point, to the Coelacanth family, — indisputably one of th* oldest, and not the least interesting, of its order. So far as is yet known, all the fish of the earliest fossilif- erous system belonged to the placoid or " broad plated " order, — a great division of fishes, represented in the existing seas by the Sharks and Rays, — animals that to an internal skele- ton of cartilage unite a dermal covering of points, plates, or spines of enamelled bone, and have their gills fixed. The dermal or cuticular bones of this order vary greatly in form, according to the species or family : in some cases they even vary, according to their place, on the same individual. Those button-like tubercles, for* instance, with an enamelled thorn, bent like a hook, growing out of the centre of each, which run down the back and tail, and stud the pectorals of the thorn-back, (Raja elavata,) differ very much from the smaller thorns, with star-formed bases, which roughen the other parts of the creature's body; and the bony points which mottle • Agaaabf* description of th* Pteriehthys, as quoted by Humboldt, inhi* Oeissi, • • 64 FAaTJEx Fig. 3 the back and sides of the sharks are, in most of the known species, considerably more elongated and prickly than the points which cover their fins, belly, and snout The extreme forms, however, of the shagreen tubercle or plate seem to be those of the upright prickle or spine on the one hand, and of the slant-laid, rhomboidal, scale-shaped plate on the other The minuter thorns of the ray (fig. 2, a) exemplify the extreme of the prickly type; the fins, ab- domen, and anterior part of the head of the spotted dog-fish (ScyIli- um stellare) are covered by lozenge- shaped little plates, which glisten with enamel, and are so thickly set that they cover the entire surface of the skin, (fig. 3, bt) — and these seem equally illustrative of the scale- like form. They are shagreen points passing into osseous scales, without, however, becoming really such ; though they approach them so nearly in the shape and disposition of their upper disks, that the true scales, also osse ous, of the Acanthodes sulcatus, (fig. 3, a,) a Ganoid of the Coal Measures, can scarce be distinguished from them, even when microscopically examined. It is only when seen in section that the distinctive difference appears. The true scale of the Acanthodes, though considerably elevated in the centre, seems to have been planted on the skin; whereas the scale-like sha- green of the dog-fish is elevated over it on an osseous pedicle oi footstalk (fig. 5, a) as a mushroom is elevated over the sward a Shagreen of the Thomback (Raja elavata.) b Shagreen of Sphagodus,— a placoid of the Upper Silurian.* • From Murehkon's snlurhm Syatoss, OF TEE AEYEEOLEPfJt J* an its stem; and the base of the stalk Fig. 3. is found to resemble in its stellate charac- ter that of a shagreen point of the prickly type. The apparent scale is, we find, a bony prickle bent at right angles a little over its base, and flattened into a rhonv boidal disk atop. In small fragments of shagreen, (fig. 2, »,) which have been detected in the bone-bed of the Upper Ludlow Rocks, ** aulea^ltt (Upper Silurian,) and constitute the most b. Shagreen of ScyiUum ancient portions of this substance known ^^'Sueters.) to the palaeontologist, the osseous tuber- cles are, as in the minuter spikes of the ray, of the upright thorn-like type; they merely serve to show that the pin- eoids of the first period possesssed, like those of the exist- ing seas, an ability of secreting solid bone on their cutic ulai surfaces; and that, though at least such of them as have bequeathed to us specimens of their dermal armature pos- sessed it in the form farthest removed from that of their im mediate successors the ganoid fishes, they resembled them not less in the substance of which their dermoskeletal, than in that of which their endoskeletal, parts were composed. For the internal skeleton in both orders, during these early ages, seems to have been equally cartilaginous, and the cutic- ular skeleton equally osseous. In the icrrihyolitic formation immediately over the Silurians, — that of the Lower Old Red Sandstone, — the Ganoids first appear; and the members of at least one of the families of the deposit, the Acanths, __tx family rich in genera and species,-—seem to have formed connecting links between this second order and their plaeoid predecessors. They ware severed with true PAHOX.Y ef Cheiraeem- thus mierolepidotm. ». Shagreen of Spina* Aeemthias. (Snout.) (Mag. eight diameters.) Fig. s. assies (if. 4, a,) and their free gills were protected by gill covers; and so they must be regarded aa real Ganoids but aa the shagreen of the spotted dog-fish nearly ap- proaches, in form and character, to ga noid scales, without being really such, the scales of this family, on the other hand, approached equally near, without changing their nature, to the shagreen of the Placoida, especially to that of the spiked dogfish, (Spinas Acanthias.) (Fig. 4, b.) We even find on their under surfaces what seems to be an approxi- mation to the characteristic footstalk. They so considerably thicken in the middle from their edges inwards, (fig. ft, e,) as to terminate in their centres in obtuse points. With these shagreen- like scales, the heads, bodies, and fins of all the species of at least two of the Acanth genera,— Cheiraean- thus and Diplaeanthus, — were as thick- ly covered as the heads, bodies, and fins of the sharks are with their sha- green ; and so slight was the degree of imbrication, that the portion of each scale overlaid by the two soales in immediate advance of k did not ex- ceed the one twelfth part of its entire area. In the scale of the Chsnracanihus we find the covered portion indicated by s smooth, narrow band, that ran along its anterior edges, and whieh the furrows that fretted the exposed surface did no* e3> 4> a. Section of shagreen ef Scyliium steUare. a Under surface ef do. a Section of seales of Cheiraeanthm misre- lepidotus. it. Under surface of do. (Mag. eight diameters.) OT TEE AETXBOUCPIS. M Fig.*. tmverse It may be added, that both genera had the anterior edge of the* fins armed with strong spines, — a characteris- tic of several of the Placoid families. In the Dipterian genera Osteolepis and Diplopterus the scales were more unequivocally such than in the Acanths, and more removed from shagreen. The nnder surface of each was traversed longitudinally by a raised bar, whieh attached it to the skin, and which, in the transverse section, serves to remind one of the shagreen footstalk. They are, besides, ef a rhomboidal form; and, when seen in the finer speci- mens, lying in their proper places on what had been once the creature's body, they seem merely laid down side by side in line, like those rows of glazed tiles that pave a cathe dral floor; but on more care- ful examination, we find that each little tile was deeply a. Scales ef Oeteolepu tmcrolepida b. Scales of an undSHertbed species of Glyptolepis.* grooved on its higher side and (The single scales mag. twodiame end, (for it lay diagonally in re- *"; ~ *" othe" nat *TO} hvtion to the head,) like the flags of a stone roof, (fig. 6, a,) — * These scales, whieh occur in a detached state, in s stratified elay uf the Old Bed Sandstone, near Cromarty, present for their size * arger extent of eover than the scales of any other Ganoid. M PAMIJ,T that its lateral and aatorie* neighbors impmged upon it along these grooves to the extent of about one third its area, — and that it impinged, in turn, to the same extent on the scales that bordered on it posteriorly and latero-posteriorly. Now, in the Coelacanth family, (and on this special point the foregoing remarks are intended to bear,) the scales, which were gen- erally of a round or irregularly oval form, (fig. 6, b,) over- lapped each other to as great an extent as in any of the exist- ing fishes of the Cycloid or Ctenoid orders, — to as great an extent, for instance, as in the carp, salmon, or herring. In a slated roof there is no part on which the slates do not lie double, and along the lower edge of each tier they lie triple; —there is more of slate covered than of slate seen: where- as in a tile-roof, the covered portion is restricted to a small strip running along the top and one of the edges of each tile, and the tiles do not lie double in more than the same degree in which the slates lie triple. The scaly cover of the two gen- era of Dipterians to which I have referred was a cover on the tile-roof principle; and this is an exceedingly common char- acteristic of the scales of the Ganoids. The scaly cover of the Coelacanths, on the other hand, was a cover on the slate-root principle;—there was in some of their genera about one third more of each scale covered than exposed; and this is so rare a ganoidal mode of arrangement, that, with the exception of the Dipterus, — a genus which, though it gives its name to the Dipterian sept, differed greatly from every other Dip- torian, — I know not, beyond the limits of the ancient Coel- acanth family, a single Ganoid that possessed it The bony covering of the Ccelacanths was farthest removed in character from shagreen, as that of their contemporaries the Acanth* approximated to h most nearly; they were, in this respect, the two extremes of their order; and, did we find the OF TEE ASTB&01SHB. ft* Coelacanths in but the later geological formations, while th* \canths were restricted to the earlier, it might be argued by assertors of the development hypothesis, that the amply imbricated, slate-like scale of the latter had been developed in the lapse of ages from the shagreen tubercle, by passing in its downward course — broadening and expanding as it descended — through the minute, scarcely imbricated diskr of the Acanths, and the more amply imbricated tile-like rhombs of the Dipterians and Pahconisei, until it had reached its full extent of imbrication in the familiar modern type exemplified in both the Coelacanths and the ordinary fishes. But such is not the order which nature has observed; —the two extremes of the ganoid scale appear together in the same early formation : both become extinct at a period geologically remote ; and the ganoid scales of the existing state of things whieh most nearly resemble those of ancient time are scales formed on the intermediate or tile-roof principle. The scales of the Coelacanths were, in almost all the genera which compose the family, of great size; in some species, of the greatest size to which this kind of integu ment ever attained. Of a Coelacanth of the Coal Measures the Holoptychius Hibberti, the scales in the larger speci- mens were occasionally from five to six inches in diame- ter. Even in the Holoptychius nobUissimus, in an individua. scarcely exceeding two and a half feet in length, they meas tired from an inch and a half to an inch and three quarters each way. In the splendid specimen of this last species, in the British Museum, there occur but fourteen scales between the ventrals, though these lie low on the creature's body, and the head; and in a specimen of a smaller species, — tha Holoptychius Andersoni, — but about seventeen. The exposed portion of the scale was in most species of the family curious- m FAMILY ry fretted by intermingled ridges and furrows, pits and tuber cues, which were either boldly relieved, as in the Holoptychius, at existed, as in he Glyptolepis, as slim, delicately chiselled threads, lines, and dots. The head was covered by strong plates, which were roughened with tubercles either confluent or detached, or hollowed, as in the Bothriolepis, into shal- low pita. The jaws were thickly set with an outer range of trua fiah teeth, and more thinly with an inner range of what teem reptile teeth, that stood up, tall and bulky, behind the others, like officers on horseback seen over the heads of their foot-aoldiera in front The double fine, — pectorals and ven- tral*, — were characterized each by a thick, angular, scale- oovered centre, fringed by the rays; and they must have borne externally somewhat the form caf the sweeping paddles ef the lohthyoaaarian genus, — a peculiarity shared also by J» double fin* of the Dipterus. The single fins, in all the members of the family of which specimens have been found sufficiently entire to indicate the fact, were four in number,— aa anal, a caudal, and two dorsal fins ; and, with the excep- tion of tile anterior dorsal, which was comparatively small, and bent downwards along the back, as if its rays had been distorted when young,* they were all of large size. They crowded thiekly on the posterior portion of the body, — the anterior dorsal opposite the ventral*, and the posterior dorsal opposite the anal fin. The fin-rays of the various members of the family, and such of their spinous processes aa have been detected, were hollow tubular bones; or rather, like the larger piece* in the framework of the Placoids, they were utilaginous within, and covered externally by a thin osseous • A. ponTUrvty which also occurs in tha anterior done! ef the OF TEE ASTXEOtBPie. a *rtwt or shell, whieh alone survives; and to this peculiarity they owe their family name, Coelaeanth, ear u hollow-spin*,' The internal hollow, i. e. cartilaginous ceatre, was, however equally a characteristic of the spinous preeesae* of the Oe- eostens. in their general proportions, the Coelacanths, if we perhapa except cue species, — the Glyptolepis mieroleptdctm, — were all squat, robust, strongly-built fishes, of the Dirk Hatterick or Balfour-of-Burley type; and not only in the larger specimens gigantic in their proportions, but remarkable for the strength and weight of their armor, even when ef but •moderate stature. The specimen of Holoptychius noHKssi mus in the British Museum could have maesured little mere than three feet from snout to tail when most entire; but h must have been nearly a foot in breadth, and a bullet would have rebounded flattened from its scale*. And such was that ancient Coelaeanth family, of which the oldest of our Scotch Ganoids,— the Asterolepis of Stromness, — formed one of the membera, and which for untold age* baa had no living representative. Let us now enter on our proposed inquiry regarding the cerebral development of the earlier vertebrata, and see whether we cannot ascertain after what manner the first true brains were lodged, and what those modifications were which their protecting box, the cranium, received in the subseqaenj periods. Independently of its own special interest, the inquiry will be found to have a direct bearing on our general subject m eEBSSBAt BEVEtOPzTEKY nuimmsT. development of the bakluk VERTEBRATA- ITS AFPAEENT PEIEOIPUL It is held by a class of naturalists, some of them of the high- est standing, that the skulls of the vertebrata consist, like the columns to which they are attached, of vertebral joints, com- posed each, in the more typical forms of head, as they are in Jbe trunk, of five parts or elements, — the centrum or body the two spinous processes which enclose the spinal cord, and the two ribs. These eranial vertebrae, four in number, cor- respond, it is said, to the four senses that have their sea' in the head: there is the nasal vertebra, the centrum of which is the vomer, its spinal processes the nasal and ethmoid bones, and its ribs the upper jaws ; there is the ocular ver- tebra, the centrum of which is the anterior portion of the sphenoid bone, its spinal processes the frontals, and its ribs the under jaws; there is the lingual vertebra, the cen- trum of which is the posterior sphenoid bone, its spinal pro- cesses the parietals, and its ribs the hyoid and branchia- bones, — portions of the skeleton largely developed in fishes; and, lastly, there is the auditory vertebra, the centrum of whieh is the base of the occipital bone, and its spinal pro- cesses the occipital crest, and which in the osseous fishe* •wars attached to it, as its ribs, the bones of the seaimlaa 9F TEE EABUE& VKETEBRAYA. 0& rag. And the cerebral segmsnts thus constructed wo find represented in typical diagram* of the skull, as real verte- bra*. Professor Owen, in his lately published treatise on u The Nature of Limbs," — a work charged with valuable fact, and instinct with philosophy, — figures in his draught of the archetypal skeleton of the vertebrata, the four vertebra of the head, in a form as unequivocally such as any of th* /ertehrsB of the neck or body. Now, for certain purposes of generalization, I doubt not that the conception may have its value. There are in all nature and in all philosophy certain central ideas of general bearing, round which, at distances less or more remote, the subordinate and particular ideas arrange themselves, u Cycl* and epicycle, orb in orb." La the classifications of the naturalist, for instance, all specie* range round some central generic idea; all genera round some central idea, to which we give the name of order ; all ordeis round some central idea of class; all classes round some central idea of division; and all divisions round the interior central idea which constitutes a kingdom. Sir Joshua Rey- nolds forms his theory of beauty on this principle of central ideas. ** Every species of the animal, as well as of the vege- table creation," he remarks, " may be said to have a fixed or determinate form, towards which nature is continually inclin- ing, like various lines terminating in a centre ; or it may be compared to pendulums vibrating in different directions ovei one central point, which they all cross, though only one of their number passes through any other point." He in- stances, in illustrating his theory, the Grecian beau ideal of the human nose, as seen in the statues of the Greek dei- ties It farmed a straight line, whereas all deformity of E4 SEEESSAL EIVEtorMESTT aose is of a convex or concave character, and occasioned by either a rising above or a sinking below this medial line of beauty. And it may be of use, as it is unquestionably of in terest, to conceive, after this manner, of a certain type of skeleton, embodying, as it were, the central or primary tyrx of aL vertebral skeletons, and consisting of a double range of rings, united by the bodies of the vertebra), aa the two rings of a figure 8 are united at their point of junction; the upper ring forming the enclosure of the brain, — spinal, and cephalic; the lower that of the viscera, — respiratory, circu- latory, and digestive. Such is the idea embodied in Professor Owen's archetypal skeleton. It is a series of vertebra composing double rings,— their brain-rings comparatively small in the vertebra) of the trunk, but of much greater size in the vertebras of the head. But it must not be forgotten, that central ideas, however necessary to the classification of the naturalist, are not historic facts. We may safely hold, with the philosophic painter, that the outline of the typi- cal human nose is a straight line ; but it would be very un- safe to hold, as a consequence, that the first men had all straight noses. And when we find it urged by at least one eminent assertor of the development hypothesis, — Professor Oken, — that light was the main agent in developing the sub- stance of. nerve, — that the nerves, ranged in pairs, in turn developed the vertebra?, each vertebra being but " the peri- phery or envelope of a pair of nerves," — and that the nerves of those four senses of smell, sight, tasto, and hearing, whioh, according to the Professor, " make up the head," origi- nated the four cranial vertebras which constitute the skull, — it become* us to tost the central idea, thus converted into a sort of historic myth, by the realities ef actual historv 0? TEE EAALXXS VEXTSBEATA. €1 What, then, let us inquire, is the real history of the cerebral development of the vertebrata, aa recorded in the rocks of the earlier geologic periods ? Though the vertebrata existed in the ichthyie form through- out the vastly extended Silurian period, we find in that system do remains of the cranium: the Silurian fishes seem, as hay been already said, (page 53,) to have been exclusively Pla- eoid, and the purely cartilaginous box formed by nature for the protection of the brain in this order has in no case been preserved. Teeth, and, in at least one or two instances, the minute jaws over which they were planted have been found, but no portion of the skull. We know, however, that in the fishes of the same order which now exist, the cranium con- sists of one undivided piece of a cartilaginous substance, set thickly over its outer surface with minute polygonal points of hone, (fig. 7,) composed internally of j^ T star-like rays, that radiate from the centre of ossification, and that pre- sent, in consequence, seen through a microscope, the appearance of the polygonal cells of a coral of the genus Astrea. The pattern induced is that osseous points ofpiaeout of stars set within polygons. Along cranium* . ., - ... , , (Mag. tweWe diameters.) the sides or top of this unbroken ° cranial box, that exhibits no mark of suture, we find the perforations through which the nerves of smell, sight, taste, and hearing passed from the brain outwards, and see that they nave failed to originate distinct vertebral envelopes for them selves; — they all lodge in one undivided mansion-house, and have merely separate doors. We find, further, that th* * From th* head of Raja slaoata. fte eSBEBEAI. nXVEbePKEMT nomotypaj ribs of the entire cranium consist, not of four, hto simply of a single pair, attached to the occiput, and which serves both to suspend the jaws, upper and nether, in their place under the middle of the head, and to lend support to the hyoid and branchial framework; while the scapular ring we find existing, as in the higher vertebrata, not as a cere- bral, but as a cervical or dorsal appendage. In the wide range of the animal kingdom there are scarce any two pieces of organization that less resemble one another in form than the vertebra of the placoids resemble their skulls; and the difference is not merely external, but extends to even their internal construction. In both skull and vertebras we detect an union of bone and cartilage; but the bone of each vertebra forms an internal continuous nucleus, round which the cartilage is arranged, whereas in the skulls it is the cartilage that is internal, and the bone is spread in granular points over it. If we dip the body of one of the dorsal vertebras of a herring into melted wax, and then with- draw it, we will find it to represent in its crusted state the ver- tebral centrum of a Placoid, — soft without, and osseous with- in ; but in order to represent the placoid skull, we would have first to mould it out of one unbroken piece of wax, and then to cover it over with a priming of bone-dust. And such is the effect of this arrangement, that, while the skull of a Placoid, exposed to a red heat, falls into dust, from tne cir- cumstance that the supporting framework on which the gran- ular bone was arranged perishes in the fire, the vertebra) centrum, whose internal framework is itself bone, and so not perishable, comes out in a state of beautiful entireness, — re- sembling in the thoroback a squat sand-giaas, elegantly fenced round by the lateral pillars, (fig. 8, b;) and in the dog-fish («) a more elongated sand-glass, in which the lateral pillars are •F TEE BAELIEE VBETEBEATA. wanting. Such are the heads and ver- Fig. g. tobral joints of the existing Placoids; and such, reasoning from analogy, seem to have been the character and construc- tion of the heads and vertebral joints a b of the Placoids of the Silurian period, — a Osseous centrum of earliest-born of the Vertebrata. **""* Aeanthuu: b. Osseous centrum of The most ancient brain-bearing era- Raja elavata. niums that have come down to us in ^jat ^j the fossil state, are those of the Ganoids ef the Lower Old Bed Sandstone; and in these fishes tha true skull appears to have been as entirely a simple carti lagmous box, as that of the Placoids of either the Silurian period or of the present time, or of those existing Ganoids the sturgeons. In the Lower Old Red genera Cheiracanthus and Diplaeanthus, though the heads are frequently preserved as amorphous masses of colored matter, we detect no trace of internal bone, save perhaps in the gill-covers of the first- named genus, which were fringed by from eighteen to twenty minute osseous rays. The cranium seems to have been cov- ered, as in the shark family, by skin, and the skin by minute shagreen-like scales; and all of the interior cerebral frame. work which appears underneath exists simply as faint impres s ns of an undivided body, covered by what seem to be osseous points, — the bony molecules, it is probable, which encrusted the cai tilage. The jaws, in the better specimens, are also preserved in the same doubtful style, and this state of keep- ing is the common one in deposits in which every true bone, however delicate, presents an outline as sharp as when it oc- cupied its place in the living animal. The dermal or skin- skeleton of both genera, which consisted, as has been shows (pages 55 56) of shagreen-like osseous seales and slender m eSEEBBal. DSVKLOFMENT soines, heth brilliantly enamelled, is preserved entire; wher* as the interior framework of the head exists as mere point speckled impressions; and the inference appears unavoidable that parts which so invariably differ in their state of keeping now, must have essentially differed in their substance originally. Now, in the Cheiracanthus we detect the first faint indica- tions of a peculiar arrangement of the dermal skeleton, in re- lation to certain parts of the skeleton within, which — greatly more developed in some of its contemporaries — led to im- portant results in the general structure of these Ganoids, and furnishes the true key to the character of the early ganoid head. In such of the existing Placoids as I have had an op- portunity of examining, the only portions of the dermal skel- eton of bone which conform in their arrangement to portions of the interior skeleton of cartilage, are the teeth, which are always laid on a base of skin right over the jaws : there is also an approximation to arrangement of a corresponding kind, though a distant one, in those hook-armed tubercles ef certain species of rays which run along the vertebral column; but in the shagreen by which the creature* are covered I have been able to detect no such arrangement Whether it occurs on the fins, the body, or the head, or in the scale form, or in that of the prickle, it manifests the same careless irregu- larity. And on the head and body of the Cheiracanthus, and on all its fins save one, the shagreen-like scales, though laid down more symmetrically in lines than true shagreen, manifested an equal absence of arrangement in relation to the framework within. On that one fin, however, — the caudal, — the scales, passing from their ordinary rhomboid- u to a more rectangular form, ranged themselves in right lines over the internal rays, (fig. 9, a,) and imparted to these such strength a* a splint of wood or whalebone fastened ove» m TEE EABLiBB TBSTEBBATA. Fig* ■%■' . . . *.*? ; . a fractured toe or finger imparts to the in- jured digit, — a provision whieh wss probably rendered necessary in the case of this im- portant organ of motion, from the circum- stance that it was the only fin which the creature possessed that was not strengthened and protected anteriorly by a strong spine. lb the Cheirolepis, — a contemporary fish, characterized, like its cogeners the Cheiraean- thu and Diplacanthus, by bhagreen-like scales, ou in which the spines were wanting,— we find a farther development of the provision. In all the fins the richly-enamelled dermal- covering was arranged in lines over the rays, (fig. 9, b;) and the scale, which assumes in the fins, like the scale* on the tail of the *. perhon of ssm Cheiracanthus, though somewhat more irregu- dalfinofCkeir acanthus* iariy, a rectangular shape, is so considerably b portion of eon- elongated, that it assumes for its normal cha- dalfinof Cksir- racter as a scale, that of the joint of an ex- °s* tornal ray. A similar arrangement of exter- (Ustg. threedlasa- nal protection takes place in this genus over etcrs.) the bones of the head; the cartilaginous jaws receive their osseous dermal covering, and, with these, the hyoid bones, the opereules, and the cranium. And it is in these dermal p.ates, which covered an interior skull, of which, save in one genua, — the Dipterus, — not a vestige remains in any of the Old Red fishes thus protected, that we first trace what • Th* darker, upper patch in this figure indicates a portion in waieh th* seales of the fins in the fossil still retain their enamel; — th* light**, a portion from which th* enairsl has disappeared. TO OEEEEEAI. DEVELOPMENT seem o be the homologues of the cranial sones of the cess jus fishes,—at least their homologues so far as the cutieulm can represent the internal. They appear for the first time, not as modified spinous processes, broadened, as in the cara- pace of the Chelonians, into osseous plates, but like thost corneous external plates of this order of reptiles, (known in one species as the tortoise-shell of commerce,) the origin of which is purely cuticular, and which evince so little cor- respondence in their divisions with the sutures of the bones on which they rest, that they have been instanced, in their relation to the joinings beneath, as admirable illustrations of the cross-banding of the mechanician. In the heads of the osseous fishes, the cranium proper, though consisting, like the skulls of birds, reptiles, and mam- mals, of several bones, exists from snout to nape, and from mastoid to mastoid, as one unbroken box; whereas all the other bones of the head, such as the maxillaries and inter- maxillaries, the lower jaws, the opercular appendages, the branchial arches, and the branchiostegous rays, are connect- ed but by muscle and ligament, and fall apart under the pu- trefactive influences, or in the process of boiling. This un- broken box, which consists, in the cod, of twenty-five bones is the homologue of that cranial box of the Placoids which consists of one entire piece, and the homotype, according tc Oken, of the bodies and spinal processes of four vertebras while the looser bones which drop away represent their ribs. This upper surface of the box, — that extending from the nasal bone to the nape,— is the only part over which a dermal suckler could be laid, as it is the only part with which the ex- ternal skin comes in contact; and so it is between this upper wrnsee and the cranial bucklers of the earlier Ganoids that we base to institute eonparisons. For it is a curious tact, that OF TEE EAELIEE VERTEBRATA. T! with the exception of the Old Red genera Acanthodu*, Chair- acanthus, and Diplacanthus,* all the Ganoids of the period is which Ganoids first appear have dermal bucklers placed right over their true skulls, and that these, though as united in their parts as the bones proper ta the cranium in quadrupeds and fishes, are composed of several pieces, furnished each with its independent centre of ossification. The Dipterians, the Coela- canths, the Cephalaspians, and at least one genus placed rather doubtfully among the Acanths, — the genus Cheirolepis, —all possessed cranial bucklers extending from the nape to the snout, in which the plates, various, in the several genera, in form and position, were fast soldered together, though in every instance the lines of suture were distinctly marked. On each side of this external cranium the various cerebral plates, like the corresponding cerebral ribs in the osseous fishes, were free, at least not anchylosed together; and some of their number unequivocally performed, in part at least, the functions of two of these cerebral ribs, viz. the upper and under jaws, with the functions of the opercular appen- dages attached to the latter. In the cod, as in most other osseous fishes, the upper portion of the cranium consists of thirteen bones, which represent, however, only seven bones in the human skull,—the nasal, the frontal, the two parie- tal, the occipital, and one-half the two temporal bones. And whereas in man, and in most of the mammals, there are four cf these placed in the medial line, — the four which, accord- ing to the assertors of the vertebral theory, form the spinal crests of the f 3ur cerebral vertebrae, — in the cod there are but • The Acanths of th* Coal Measures poasea* th* cranial bnek 73 eEBEBXAt. QRVBI^PbTBbT? three. The •uper-oecipitai bone, A, (fig. 10,) pieces cm to the suoerior frontal, C, C, C; and the parietal*, B, B, which m Fig. 10 m « irrn sxna»A«B or crsAjmm. or eon.* A, Occipital bone. B, B, Peristals. C, C, 0, Superior frontal 1), D, Anterior frontaL F, F, Posteriorfroniats. B, B, Mastoid bones. i, 1, Bys orbits. a, a, Par-occipital bones. * Kofaasor Owen, in fixing the homologies of the ichthyie head, differs considerably from Cuvier; but bis view seems to be de- monstrably the correct one. It will, however, be seen, that in my attempted comparison of the divisions of the ancient ganoid cranium with those of the eraniums of existing fishes, th* points «t issue between th* two great naturalists are not involved, other- wis* than a* seer* questions of word*. Tha matter to a* 0* TarE EAEXIEE TEETEEBATA, 71 the human subject from the upper and middle portions of the cranial vault, are thrust out laterally and posteriorly, and take their places, in a subordinate capacity, on each side of the super-occipital. This is not an invariable arrange- ment among fishes; — in the carp genus, for instance, the pa- rietals assume their proper medial place between the occipital and frontal bones; but so very general is the displacement, ihat Professor Owen regards it as characteristic of the great ichthyie class, and as the first example in the vertebrata, reckoning from the lower forms upwards, of a sort of nat- ural dislocation among the bones, — " a modification," he remarks, "which, sometimes accompanied by great change of place, has tended most to obscure the essential nature of parts, and their true relations to the archetype." Of all the cerebral bucklers of the first ganoid period, that which best bears comparison with the cranial front of the cod is the buckler of the Coccosteus, (fig. 11.) The general pro portions of this portion of the ancient Cephalaspian head differ very considerably from those of the corresponding part in the modern cycloid one ; but in their larger divisions, the modern and the ancient answer bone to bone. Three osseous plates in the Coccosteus, A, C, I, the homologues, apparently, of the occipital, frontal, and nasal bones range along the medial line. The apparent homologues of nined, for instance, is not whether plate A in the skulls of the cod and Coccosteus be the homologue of a part of the occipital or that of a part of the parietal bones, but whether plate A in the Coccos- teus be the homologue of plate A in the cod. The letters employed I have borrowed from Agassiz's restoration of the Coccosteus; where- as th* figures intimate divisions which the imperfect keeping of th* specimens en whieh the ichthyologist founded did ae« enable aha to 74 SEIEBEAL BEVXI^rBTElfT Fig. 11. CBAWTAL BT7CXXKB OV COCCOBTBU8 DECTMBjrS. a, a, Points of attachment to the cuirass which covered the upper part of the creature's body. the parietals, B, B, occupy the same position of lateral dis- placement as the parietals of the cod and of so many other fishes. The posterior frontals, F, and the anterior frontals, D, also occupy places relatively the same, though the latter, which are of greater proportional size, encroach much fur- ther, laterally and posteriorly, on the superior frontal C, C, C, and sweep entirely round the upper half of the eye orbits, 2, 2. The apparent homologue of the mastoid bone, E which also occupies its proper place, joins posteriorly to a little plate, a, imperfectly separated in most specimens from the parietal, but which seems to represent the par-occipital bone, and it is a curious circumstance, that as, in many of the osseous fishes, it is to these bones that the forks of the scapular arch are attached, they unite in the Coccosteus in furnishing in like manner a point of attachment to the cuirass which covered the upper part of the creature's body. Of the true internal skull of the Coccosteus there remains not a vestige 9V TEE EARLIER VERTEBRATA. 7i Like that ef the sturgeon, it must have been a perishable cartilaginous box. In the Osteolepis, — an animal the whole of whose external head I have, at an expense of some labor, and from the ex amination of many specimens, been enabled to restore,— the cranial buckler (fig. 12) was divided in a more arbitrary Fig. 12. C ff»AifTtT, Btroxxsa or osnoixrrs. style ; and we find that an element of uncertainty mingles with our inferences regarding it, from the circumstance thai some of its lines of division, especially in the frontal half, were not real sutures, but formed merely a kind of suiface- tatooing, resorted to as if for purposes of ornament. The cranial buckler of the Asterolepis exhibited, as I shall after- wards have occasion to show, a similar peculiarity; — both had their pseudo-sutures, resemblLog those false joints intro- duced by the architect into his rustier ted basements, in order to impart the neceaamry aspect of regularity to what is teebni 78 SElg-RAL UBVBLOTMBET eally termed the coursing and banding of th* faerie. Wees* however, determine, notwithstanding the induced obecur-ty that the buckler of the Osteolepis was divided transversely in the middle into two main parts or segments, — an occipita' part, C, and a frontal part, A; and that the occipital segment seems to include also the parietal and mastoid plates, and the frontal segment to comprise, with its own proper plates, not only the nasal plate, but also the representative of the ante- rior part of the vomer. All, however, is obscure. But in our uncertainty regarding the homologies of the divisions of this dermal buckler, let us not forget the homology of the buckler itself, as a whole, with the upper surface of tht true cranium in the osseous fishes. Though frequently crushed and broken, it exists in all the finer specimens of my collec tion as a symmetrically arranged collocation of enamelled plates, as firmly united into one piece, though they all indi- cate their distinct centres of ossification, as the correspond- ing surface of the cranium in the carp or cod. The lateral curves in the frontal part immediately opposite the lozenge- shaped plate in the centre, show the position of the eyes, which were placed in this genus, as in some of the carniv- orous turtl is, immediately over uie mouth, — an arrangement common to almost all the Ganoids of the Lower Old Red Sandstone. The nearly semicircular termination of the buckler formed the creature's snout; and in the Osteolepis, a« in the Glyptolepis and the Diplopterus, it was armed on the under side, like the vomer of so many of the osseous fishes, with sharp teeth. Some of my specimens indicate the nasal openings a little in advance of the eyes. The nape of the ereatu:-a waa covered by three detached plates, (9, 9, 9, fig. 13,) which rested upon anterior dorsal scales, and whose hontologueti. is the osseous fishes, may possibly be found i# «SP TEE EARLIER VERTEBRATA. 77 Fig. 18, CTPBB PAJkT Of BEAD OP OSTEOLEPIS. those bones which, uniting the shoulder-bones tc the head, complete the scapular belt or ring. The operculum we find represented by a single plate (8) which had attached to it, as its sub-operculum, a plate (13) of nearly equal size, (see figs. 14 and 15.) Four small plates (2, 4,5) formed the under curve of the eyes, described in many of the osse- ous fishes by a chain of small bones or ossicles; a consider- ably larger plate (6) occupied the place of the preopercular bone; while the intermaxillaries had their representatives in well-marked plates, (3, 3,) which, in the genera Osteolepis, Diplopterus, and Glyptolepis, we find bristling so thickly with teeth along their lower edges, as to remind us of the minia- ture saws employed by the joiner in cutting out circular holes. These externa! intermaxillaries did not, as in the perch or cod, meet in front of the nasal bone and vomer, but joined on at the side, a little in advance of the eyes, leaving the rounded termination of the cranial buckler, which, like the intermaxil- laries, was thickly fringed with teeth, to form, as has been already said the creature's snout. 78 CEREBRAL DEVELOPMENT The under jaws (10) — strongly-marked bones in at least all the Dipterian and Ccelacanth genera — we find represented externally by massy plates, bearing, like those of the upper jaw, their range of teeth. As shown in a well-preserved specimen of the lower jaw of Holoptychius, in my possession, they were boxes of bone enclosing a bulky nucleus of car- tilage, which, in approaching towards the condyloid process, where great strength was necessary, was thickly traversed by osseous cancelli, and passed at the joint into true bone. It is in the under jaws of the earlier Ganoids that we first detect a true union of the external with the internal skeleton,—of the bony plates and teeth, which were mere plates and teeth of the skin, with the osseous, granular walls which enclosed at least all the larger pieces of the cartilaginous framework of the interior. The jaws of the Rays and Sharks, formed of cartilage, and fenced round on their sides and edges by their thin coverings of polygonal, bony points, are wholly inter- nal and skin-covered; whereas the teeth, whieh rest on the soft cuticular integument right over them, are as purely dermal as the surrounding shagreen. Teeth and shagreen may, we find, be alike stripped off with the skin. Now, in the earlier ganoidal jaw, two sides of the osseous box which it composed, — its outer and under sides, — were mere dermal plates, representative of the skin of the placoids, or of their shagreen; while the other two,— its upper and in- ner sides, — seem to have been developments of the interiot osseous walls which covered the endo-skeletal cartilage. Noi is it unworthy of notice, that the reptile fishes of the period bad their iehthyic teeth ranged along the edge of an exterior dermal plate which covered the outer side of the jaw; whereas their reptile teeth were planted on a plate, ap- parently of tor development, which covered its upper OF TEE BJ3LISB VERTEBRATA. 7f edge. It is furtner worthy of remark, that while the teeth of the dermal plate, — them^lves also dermal,— seem as if they had grown out of i, and formed part of it, — just as the teeth of the Placoids grew out ef the skin on which they rest, — the reptile teeth within rested in shallow pits,— the first faint indications of true sockets. That space included within the arch formed by the sweep of the under jaws, which ve find occupied in the osseous fishes by the hyoid bones axd the branchiostegous rays, was filled up externally, in the Dpterians and Coelacanths, and in at least two genera of Cephalaspians, by dermal plates; in some genera, such as the Diplopterus, by three plates; in others, such as the Holoptychius and Glyptolepis, by two; and in the Asterolepis, as we shall afterwards see, by but a tangle plate. In the Osteolepis these plates were increased to five in aumbes by the little plates 14,14, (fig. 14,) witeh, )wwwr,iaar t*»te Fig. 14, UTOBB PABT OP HEAD OP OSTBOLBPH.* • The jaws '10, 10) which exhibit in the print their greatest breadth, would have presented in the animal* seen from beneath. m OEBEBEAL niVELOrMSPrf been also present in the Diplopterus, though my irpecisaeEs fail to show them. The general arrangement was of much elegance, — an elegance, hoiwever, which, in the accompanying restorations, the dislocation of the free plates, drawn apart to indicate their detached character, somewhat tends to obscure But the position of the eyes must have imparted to the ani- mal a sinister reptile-like aspect The profile, (fig. 15,) the Fig. is. HEAP OP OSTEOLEPIS, SBBH VK PBOFILB. result, not of a chance-drawn outline, arbitrarily filled up, but produced by the careful arrangement in their proper places of actually existing plates, serves to show how perfectly the dermo-skeletal parts of the creature were developed. Some of the animals with which we are best acouainted, if rep- resented by but their cuticular sttefofcB wta'ji appear simply as sets of hooft and horns. Even the tortoise 01 pengolin would present about the head and limbs their gaps and missing portions; but the dermo-skeleton of the Osteo- lepis, composed of solid bone, and burnished with enamel, exhibited the outline of the fish entire, and, with the excep- tion of the eye, the filling up of all its external parts. Pre their narrow and*t>*dg*a, and have nearly fallen into th* lis* of th* *ub-«v*MmlBt plates, (IS, It.) »F TEE EARLIER VERTRBRATA. 8] Renting outside, in its original state, no fragment of akin or membrane, and with even its most flexible organs sheathed in enamelled bone, the Osteolepis must have very much re sembled a fish carved in ivory; and, though so effectually covered, it would have appeared, from the circumstance, that it wore almost all its bone outside, as naked as the human teeth. The cranial buckler of the Diplopterus (fig. 16) somewhat Fig. is. OBANIAL BVGXXBn OP DOTvOPTEKUS. resembled that of its fellow-dipterian the Osteolepis, but ex hibited greater elegance of outline, My first perfect speci men, which I owe to the kindness of Mr. John Miller, of Thurso, an intelligent geologist of the north, reminded me, at it glittered in jet-black enamel on its ground of pale gray, of those Roman cuirasses which one sees in old prints, impaled on stakes, as the central objects in warlike trophies formed of spoils taken in battle. The rounded snout represented the chest and shoulders, the middle portion the waist, and the ex- pansion at the nape the piece of dress attached, which, like the Highland kilt, fell adown the thighs. The addition of a fragment of a sleeve, suspended a little over the ey# S3 CEREBRAL BRVBJ^rTtBSJT orbits, *, %, seemed all that was necessary in order to rends* the resemblance complete. But as I disinte rred the buried edge? of the specimen with a graver, the form, though it grew still more elegant, became less fhat of the ancient coat 'f armor; the snout expanded into a semicircle the eye < ibits gradually deepened; and the entire fossil became not ] vticularly like any thing but the thing it once was, — the c \nial buckler of the Diplopterus. The print (fig. 17) Rg. IT. obamxal Buoxxaa op DnrLonaatm. exhibits its true form. It consists of two main divisions wcipital (A) and frontal, (C, fig. 16;) and in each of these we hnd a pair of smaller divisions, with what seem to be in- dications of yet further division, marked, not by lines, but by dots; though I have hitherto failed to determine whether the plates which these last indicate possess their independ- ent centres of ossification. Not unfrequently, however, has the comparative anatomist to seek the analogues of two bones in one ; nor is it at least more difficult to trace in the fain divisions of the cranial buckler of the Diplopterus 0F TEE EARLIER VERTEBRATA. n the homologues of the occipital, frontal, parietal, mastoid, and nasal bones, than to recognize the representatives of the carpals of the middle and ring finger in man, in the cannon bone of the fore leg of the ox. I may mention in passing, that the little central plate of the frontal division, (1, fig. 16,) which so nearly corresponds with that of the Osteolepis occurred, though with considerable variations of form and homology, and some slight difference of position, in all the Ganoids of the Old Red Sandstone whose craniums were covered with an osseous buckler, and that its place was always either immediately between the eyes or a very little over them. Its never-failing recurrence shows that it must have had some meaning, though it may be difficult to say what. In the Coccosteus it takes the form of the male dovetail, which united the nasal plate or snout to the plate representative of the superior frontal. Of the cartilaginous box which formed the interior skull of either Osteolepis, or Diplopterus, or, with but one excep- tion, of the interior skulls of any of their contemporaries, no trace, as I have said, has yet been detected. The solitary exception in the case is, how- eves one of singular interest. In a collection of miscellaneous frag- ments sent me by Mr. Dick from the rocks of Thurso, I detected patches of palatal teeth ranged in neany the quadratures of circles, and which radiated outwards from the rectangu- lar angle or centre, (fig. 18, b.) And arith the patches there occurred plates exactly resembling the barbed head of a dart, (a,) with whieh Fig. 18. a, Palatal dart-head. b, Group of palatal teeth 14 eSRBBRAL nBVELOPMEET I had been previously acquainted, though 1 had failed to determine their character or place. The excellent state of keeping of some of Mr. Dick's specimens now enabled me to trace the patches with the dart-head, and several other plates, to a curious piece of palatal mechanism, ranged along the base of a ganoid cranium, covered externally by a brightly enamelled buckler, and to ascertain the order in which patches and plates occurred. And then, though not without some labor, I succeeded in tracing the buckler with which they were associated to the Dipterus, — a fish which, though it has engaged the attention of both Cuvier and Agassiz, has not yet been adequately restored. It is on an ill-preserved Orkney specimen of the cranial buckler of this Ganoid that the ichthyologist has founded his genus Polyphractus; while groupes of its palatal teeth from the Old Red of Russia he refers to a supposed Placoid, — the Ctenodus. But in the earlier stages of palseontological research, mistakes of this character are wholly unavoidable. The palaeontologist who did avoid them would be either very unobservant, or at once very rash and very fortunate in his guesses. If, ere an entire skeleton of the Ichthyosaurus had turned up, there had been found in different localities, in the Liasie formation, a beak like that of a porpoise, teeth like that of a crocodile a head and sternum like that of a lizard, paddles like those of a cetacean, and vertebra) like those of a fish, it would have been greatly more judicious, and more in accordance with the existing analogies, to have erected, provisionally at least, places specifically, or even generically separated, in which to range the separate pieces, than to hold that they had all united in one anomalous genus; though such was actually 2he fact And Agassis, in erecting three distinct genera out Bf the fragments of a single genus, has in reality acted at one* 9V THE EARLIER VERTEBRATA. »5 more prudently and more intelligently than if he had avoided the error by rashly uniting parts which in their separate state indicate no tie of connection. The cranial buckler of the Dipterus (fig. 19) was, like Bg. 19. eUAHTAI, BUCKLE* OP DIPTERUS that of the Diplopterus, of great beauty. In some of the finer specimens, we find the enamel ornately tatooed, withir the more strongly-marked divisions, by delicately traced lines. waved and bent, as if upon the principle of Hogarth; and though the lateral plates are numerous and small, and defy the homologies, we may trace in those of the central line, from the snout to the nape, what seem to be the represen- tatives of the frontal, parietal, and occipital bones, — the parietals ranging, as in the skull of the carp and in that of most of the mammals, in their proper place in the medial line. But the under surface of the cranium, armed, as on the upper surface, with plates of bone, exhibited an arrange-. M CEREBRAL BEVRLOTMBWT EtaBt still more peculiar, (fig. 20.) Its rectangular patches ef palatal teeth, its curious dart-like bone, placed immediato'y Fig. SO. BASB OP CEAJUUK OP DIPTBBTS. behind these, and attached, as the dart-head is attach*/ 10 the handle, to a broad lozenge-shaped plate, with two strong osseous processes projecting on either side, forms such a tout ensemble as is unique among fishes. Even here, however, there may be traced at least a shade of homological resem- blance to the bones which form the base of the osseous skull. The single lozenge-shaped plate, fA,) with its dart-head, occupies the place of the basi-occipital bone; the posterior portion of the vomer seems represented by a strong bony ridge, extending towards the snout; two separate bones, each bearing one of the angular patches of teeth, corresponds to the sphenoid bone and its al»; and attached laterally to each af these there is the strong projecting bona, on which the OF TEE EARLIER VERTEBRATE. •7 lower jaw appears to have hinged, and whieh apparently rep- resents the lower part of the temporal bone. Not less singular was the form of the creature's under jaw, (fig. 21.) rig. u. tman jaw es dictkbvb. I know no other fish-jaw, whether of the recent or the ex- tinct races, that might be so readily mistaken for that of a quadruped. It exhibits not only the condyloid, but also the coronoid processes; and, save that it broadens on its upper sdges, where in mammals the grinders are placed, so as to furnish field enough for angular patches of teeth, which correspond with the angular patches in the palate, it might be regarded, found detached, as at least a reptilian, if not mammalian, bone. The disposition of the palatal teeth of the Dipterus will scarce fail to remind the mechanist of the style of grooving resorted to in the formation of mill-stones for the grinding of flour; nor is it wholly improbable that, in correspondence with the rotatory motion of the stones to which the grooving is specially adapted, jaws so hinged may have possessed some such power of lateral motion as that exemplified by the human subject in the use of the molar teeth. The protection afforded by the osseous covering of both the tipper and under surface of the cranium ef this ichthyolite has w 8KREBEAL BEVELorMRUT resulted, in several instances, in the preservation, though al ways in a greatly compressed state, of the cranium itself, and the consequent exhibition of two very important cranial cavi ties, the brain-pan proper, and the passage through which the spinal cord passed into the brain. In the sturgeon the brain occupies nearly the middle of the head ; and there is a con- siderable part of the occipital region traversed by the spine in a curved channel, which, seen in profile, appears wide at the nape, but considerably narrower where it enters the brain-pan, and altogether very much resembling the interior of a minis hire hunting-horn. And such exactly was the arrangement of the greater cavities in the head of the Dipterus. The por- tion of the cranium which was overlaid by what may be re- garded as the occipital plate was traversed by a cavity shaped like a Lilliputian bugle-horn; while the hollow in which the brain was lodged lay under the two parietal plates, and the little elliptical plate in the centre. The accompanying print, (fig. 22,) though of but slight show, may be regarded by the Fig. 12. LOHamn>nrAX sbotiom op hsax> op oiptbbtts render with some little interest, as a not inadequate represen- tation of the most ancient brain-pan on which human eye has yet looked, — as, in short, the type of cell in which, myriads of ages ago, in at least one genus, that mysterious substance was lodged, on whose place and development so very much in the scheme of creation was destined to depend. The speci- men from which the figure is taken was laid open laterally by chance exposure to the waves on the shore* of Th'trso; OF THE EAELIEE VERTEBRATA m anethei specimen, cut longitudinally by the saw of the lap* dary, yields a aimiiar section, but greatly more compressed in the cavities; on which, of course, as unsupported hollows, the compression to which the entire cranium had been exposed chiefly acted. When the top and bottom of a box are violently forced together, it is the empty space which the box encloses that is annihilated in consequence of the violence. It is deserving of notice, that the analogies of the cranial cavities in this ancient Ganoid should point so directly on the crania! cavities of that special Ganoid of the present time whieh unites a true skull of cartilage to a dermal skull of osseous plates, — a circumstance strongly corroborative of the general evidence, negative and positive, on which I have con- eluded that the true skulls of the first Ganoids were also car- tilaginous. It is further worthy of observation, that in all the sections of the cranium of Dipterus which I have yet ex- amined, the internal line is continuous, as in the Placoids, from nape to snout, and that the true skull presents no trace of those cerebral vertebra) of which skulls are regarded by Oken and his disciples as developments. Historically at least, the progress of the ichthyie head seems to have been a progress from simple cartilaginous boxes to cartilaginous toxes covered with osseous plates, that performed &e func .ions whether active or passive, of internal bones ; and then tirom external plates to the interior bone* which the plates Lad previously represented, and whose proper work they had lone. The principle which rendered it necessary that the divis ions which exist in the dermal skulls of the first Ganoids retould so closely correspond with the divisions which exist in the internal skull* of the osseous fishe* of a greatly latei aeried doe* not seem to lie far from the surface. Of the 8* so CEREBRAL BBVSLO?*tBMT •olid parts of the ichthyie head, a certain set of pieces afford protection to the brain and cerebral nerves, and to some of the organs of the senses, such as those of seeing and hearing, while another certain set of pieces constitute the framework through which an important class of functions, manducatory and respiratory, are performed. The protective bones of merely oassive function are fixed, whereas the bones of active function, such as the jaws, the osseous framework of the opereules, and the hyoid bones, are to the necessary extent free t e. capable of independent motion. Of course, the detached character necessary to the free cerebral bones would be equally necessary in cerebral plates united dermally to the pieces of the cartilaginous framework, which performed in the ancient fish the functions of these free bones. And hence jaw plates, opercular plates, and hyoid plates, whose homolog- ical relation with recent jaws and opercular and hyoid bones cannot be mistaken. They were operative in performing identical mechanical functions, and had to exist, in conse- quence, in identical mechanical conditions. And an equally simple, though somewhat different principle, seems to have regulated the divisions of the fixed cranial bucklers of the Old Red Ganoids, and to have determined their homologies with the fixed cerebral bones of the osseous fishes. These cranial bucklers, extending from nape to snout, pro- tected the exposed upper surface of the cartilaginous skull, and conformed to it in shape, as a helmet conforms to the shape of the head, or a breast-plate to the shape of the chest And as the cartilaginous heads resembled in general out line the osseous ones, the buckler which covered theii upper surface resembled in general outline the upper sur- face of the osseous skull. It was in no case entirely a tat plate; but in every species rounded over the snout »F TEE EARLIER VEETEBEATA 91 and in most species at the sides; and so, in wder that its characteristic proportions might be preserved throughout the various stages of growth in the head which it covered, it hao to be formed from several distinct centres of ossification, and to extend in area around the edges of the plates originated from these. The workman finds no difficulty in adding tc the size of a piece of straight wall, whether by heighten- ing or lengthening it; but he cannot add to the size of a dome or arch, without first taking it down, and then erecting it anew on a larger scale. In the domes and arches of the animal kingdom, the problem is solved by building them up of distinct pieces, few or many, according to the demands of he figure which they compose, and rendering these pieces capab.e of increase along their edges. It is on this principle that the Cystidea, the Echinidse, the Chelonian carapace and plastron, and the skulls of the osseous Vertebrata, are constructed. It is also the principle on which the cranial bucklers of the ancient Ganoids were formed.* And from the general re- semblance in figure of these bucklers to the upper surface of the osseous skull, the separate parts necessary for the building up of the one were anticipated, by many ages, in the building up of the other; just as we find external arches of stone • In all probability it is likewise the principle of the placoid skull The numerous osseous points by which the latter is en- crusted, each capable of increase at the edges, seem the minute bricks of an ample dome. It is possible, however, that new points may be formed in the interstices between the first formed ones, as what anatomists term the triquetra or Wormiana form between the serrated edges of the lambdoidal suture in the human skull; and that the osseous surface of the cerebral dome may thus ex- pend, as the dome itself increases in size, not through the growth of the previously existing pieces, — the minute bricks of my illus- tration,— but through the addition of new ones. Equally, ir either ease however, that essential dirTerenoe between the pla M SEEEBRAI. BEVILOPMEKT which were erected two thousand years ago, constructed or the same principle, and relatively of the same parts, as interna. arches of brick built in the present age. Doubtless, however, with this mechanical necessity for correspondence of parts in the formation of corresponding erections, there may have mingled that regard for typical resemblance which seems so marked a characteristic of the style, if I may so express myself, in which the Divine Architect gives expression to his ideas. The external osseous buckler He divided after the general pattern which was to be exemplified, in latter times, in the divisions of the internal osseous skull; as if in illustration of that " ideal exemplar** which dwelt in hia mind from eternity, and on the palpable existence of which sober science has based deductions identical in their scope and bearing with some of the sublimeat doctrines of the theo- logian. " The recognition," says Professor Owen, ** of aa ideal exemplar for the vertebrated animals, prove* that th* knowledge of such a being as man existed before man ap- peared ; for the Divine mind which planned die archetype. also foreknew all its modifications. The archetypal idea was eoid skull and the placoid vertebra, to which I have referred, appears to hinge on the circumstance, that while the osseous nucleus of each vertebral Fig. 23. centrum could form, in even its most compli- cated shape, from a single point the osse- ous walls of the cranium had to be formed from hundreds. The accompanying diagram serves to show after what manner the verte- bral centrum in the Bay enlarges with the 8Hction op vbrtkbraj growth of the animal, by addition of bony cantrum of thorn- matter external to the point in the middle, back. at which ossification first begins. The hori- sontal lines indicate the lines of increment in the two internal cone* which each centrum comprises, and the vertical one* the lines at aerement in th* lateral pillars 9t TEE BA&UBB VERTEBRATA. 99 manifested in the flesh, under divers such modifications, upon this planet, long prior to the existence of those animal species that actually exemplify it" But while we find place in that geological history m which. every character is an organism, for the " ideal exemplar *' of Professor Owen, we find no place in it for the vertebrw-de- veloped skull of Professor Oken. The true genealogy of the head runs in an entirely different line. The nerve* of the cerebral senses did not, we find, originate cerebral verte- bral, seeing that the heads of the first and second geologic periods had their cerebral nerves, but no* their cerebral verte- bras; and that what are regarded as cerebral-vertebras ap- pear for the first time, not in the early fishes, but in the reptiles of tite Coal formation. The line of succession through the fish, indicated by the Continental assertor of the development hypothesis, is a line cut off. All the existing evidence conspires to show that the placoid heads of the Si- lurian system were, like the placoid heads of the recent period, mere cartilaginous boxes ; and that in the succeeding system there existed ganoidal heads, that to the internal car- tilaginous box added external plates of bone, the homologues, apparently,— so far at least as the merely cuticular could be representative of the endo-skeletal, — of the opercular, max- illary, frontal, and occipital bones in the osseous fishes of a long posterior period, — fishes that were not ushered upon the scene until after the appearance of the reptile in its highest forms and of even the marsupial quadruped. H STEISTBEB THE ASTEROLEPIS, ITS STRUCTURE, BULB, AMD ASPECT. With the reader, if he has accompanied me thus far, I shal aow pass on to the consideration of the remains of the Astero- lepis. Our preliminary acquaintance with the cerebral pecu- liarities of a few of its less gigantic contemporaries will be found of use in enabling us to determine regarding a class of p~—--"hat resembling peculiarities which characterized this hugest Ganoid of the Old Red Sandstone. The head of the Asterolepis, like the heads of all the other Coelacanths, and of all the Dipterians, was covered with osse- ous plates, — its body with osseous scales; and, as I have already had occasion to mention, it is from the star-like tu- bercles by which the cerebral plates were fretted that M. Eichwald bestowed on the creature its generic name. Agas- siz has even erected species on certain varieties in the pat- tern of the stars, as exhibited on detached fragments; but I am far from being satisfied that we are to seek in their peculiarities of style the characters by which the several species were distinguished. The stellar form of the tu bercle seems to have been its normal or most perfect form as it was also, with certain modifications, that of the tuber- cle of the Coccosteus and Pterichthys; but its development as a complete star was comparatively rare : in most cases the tubercle? existed without the rays,—frequently in the insu OF THE ASTEBOLSriSU 95 lated pap-like shape, but not rarely conflasat, or ef aa elon- gated or bent form; and when to these the characteristic rays were added, the stars produced wer* of a rather eccen- tric order, — stars somewhat resembling tha shadows of stars seen n water. Individual specimens have already been found, on which, if we recognize the form ®f the tubercle as a specific character, several spe- cies might be erected. The ac- S*ig« **• companying wood-cut (fig. 24) rep- resents, from a Thurso specimen, what seems to be the true normal pattern of these cerebral carvings. Seen in profile (b) the tubercles resemble little hillocks, perforated ° ... , , ,- r Dermal tubercles of Asterolepis at their base by smgle lines of (Mag. two diameters.) thickly-set caves; while seen from above, (a,) the narrow piers of bone by which the caves are divided take the form of rays. The reader will scarce fail to recognise in this print the coral Montieularia of Lamarck, or to detect, in at least the profile, the peculiarity which sug- gested the name. The scales which covered the creature's body (fig. 25) were, in proportion to its size, considerably smaller and thinner than those of the Holoptychius, which, however, they greatly resemble in their general style of sculpture. Each, on the lower part of its exposed field, was, we see, fretted by longi- tudinal anastomosing ridges, which, in the upper part, break into detached angular tubercles, placed with the apex down- ward*, and hollowed, leaf-like, in the centre ; while that cov- ered portion which was overlaid by the scales immediately above we find thickly pitted by microscopic hollows, that give to this part of the field, viewed under a tolerably high STSBCTORB Fig. U Fig 9o\ roKTIOH ov carves stra- tA«a*»*«Ain Hag. few «J ameters,) SOAJbBS OP ASTXBOUBPIS (Hat atos.) a. The surface of scale. h. Exterior but fact. B*ageifying power, a honeyoombed appearance. The central and lower parts of the interior sur- face of the scale (a) are in most of the speci- mens irregularly roughened; while a broad, smooth band, which rutin along the top and sides, and seems to have furnished the line of attachment to the creature's body, is compara- tively smooth. The exterior carvings, though they demand the assistance of the lens to see them aright, are of singular elegance and beauty; as perhaps the accompanying wood- cut, (fig. 26,) which gives a magnified view of a portion of the scale immediately above (b) from the middle of the honeycombed field on the right side, to where the anastomosing ridge* OF TBS ASTBROLEJia. SP2 send giacefully in their descent, may i» soate degree serve to show. I have seen a richly inlaid coat of mail, which was once worn by the puissant Charles the Fifth ; but its elaborate carvings, though they belonged to the age of Benvenuto Cellini, were rude and unfinished, compared with those which fretted the armor of th«> Asterolepis. The creature's cranial buckler, which was of great size and strength, might well be mistaken for the carapace of some Chelonian fish of no inconsiderable bulk. The cranial buck- lers of the larger Dipterians were ample enough to have cov- ered the corresponding part in the skulls of our middle-sized suvket-fiah, such as the haddock and whiting; the buckler ef a Cottosteus of the extreme size would have covered, if a little altered in shape, the upper surface of the skull of a cod, but the cranial buckler of Asterolepis, from which the accom- panying wood-cut was taken, (fig. 27,) would have considerably more than covered the corresponding part in the skull of s large horse ; and I have at least one specimen in my collec- tion which would have fully covered the front skull cf an ele- phant In the smaller specimens, the buckler somewhat resembles a laborer's shovel divested of its handle, and sore- ly rust-eaten along its lower or cutting edge. It consisted of plates, connected at the edge* by flat squamous sutures, or, as a joiner might perhaps say, glued together in bevelled joints. And in consequence of this arrangement, the same plate* which seem broad on the exterior surface appear compara- tively narrow on the interior one, and vies versa ■; the occipi- tal plate, (a, which, running from the nape along the centre of the buckler, occupies so considerable a space on its outer surface, exhibits inside a superficies reduced at least one half. Like nine teethe of its contemporaries, the Asterolepis ex- b&ha the little central plate between the eyea; ecu the BTaVB&nSBM Hg. »■ CBAJTIAl HVeKXXa OP ASTBaOLHPIS. (Oa* fifth nat. size, linear.) «jye orbits, unlike those of the Coccosteus, and of all the Dipterian genera, which were half-scooped out of the cranial buckler, half-encircled by detached plates, were placed com- pletely within the field of the buckler, — a circumstance in which they resemble the eye orbits of the Pterichthys, and, among existing fish, those of the sea-wolf. The characteristic is also a distinctive one in Cuvier's second family of the Acanthopterygii, — the " fishes with hard cheeks." A deep line immediately over the eyes, which, however, indicated no suture, but seems to have been mere- ly ornamental, forms a sort of rudely tatooed eyebrow; the marginal lines parallel to the lateral edges of the buck- ler were also mere tatooings; but all the others indicated joints which, though more or less anchyloned, had a real 0F TEE ASTRR0LETI8. m existence. So flat was the surface, that the edge of a ruler rests upon it, in my several specimens, both lengthwise and across ; but it was traversed by two flat ridges, which, stretch- ing from the corners of the latero-posterior, t. «. parietal, plates, (b, b,) converged at the little plate between the eyes, while along the centre of the depressed angle which they formed, a third ridge, equally flat with the others, ran towards the same point of convergence from the nape. The three ridges, when strongly relieved by a slant light, resemble not inadequately an impression, on a large scale, of the Queen's broad arrow. Fig. 28. onrxB sunpACB op cranial buckler op astkboljutis. (One fifth nat. sixe, linear.) The inner surface of the cranial buckler of Asterolepis, (fig 28,) — that which rested on the cartilaginous box which formed the creature's interior skull, — stands out in boldei relief from the stone than its outer surface and forms a more 100 ST1«CTB*RE picturesque object Like the inner surfaces of the bwektew >f Coeeosteus and Pterichthys, but much more thickly than these, it was traversed by minute channelled markings, some- what resembling those striae which may be detected in the flatter bones of the ordinary fishes, and which seem in thes* to be mere interstices between the osseous fibres. And in the plates, as in the bones, they radiate from the centres of ossifi cation, which are comparatively dense and massy, towards the thinner overlapping edges. These radiating lines are equally well marked in the cerebral bones of the human ftotus. The three converging ridges on the outer surface we find oa the inner surface also,—the lateral ones a little bent in the mid- dle, but so directly opposite those outside, that the thicken ng of the buckler which takes place along their line is At least as much a consequence of their inner as of their outer elevation over the general platform. A fourth bar ran transversely along the nape, and formed the cross beam on which the others rested; for the three longitudinal ridge* may be properly regarded as three strong beams, which, ex- tending from the transverse beam at the nape to the front, where they converged like the spoke* of a wheel at the nave, gave to the cranial roof a degree of support of which, from us great flatness, it may have stood in need. In cranial jucklers in which the average thickness of the plates does not exceed three eighth parts of an inch, their thickness in the centre of the ridges exceeds three quarters. The head if the largest crocodile of the existing period is defended by an armature greatly less strong than that worn ry the Asterolepis of the Lower Old Red Sandstone. Why this Ancient Ganoid should have beec so ponderously helmea we can but doubtfully guess; we only know, that when na- ture arms a*r soldiery, there are assailants to be rasustod antf OF TEE ACTBJtOlfcJtm. ■■*: a state of war to be maintained. The postorim wintral plate, the homologue apparently of the occipital bone, was curiously carved into an ornate massive leaf, like one of the larger leaves of a Corinthian capital, and terminated beneath, where the stem should have been, in a strong osseous knob, fashioned like a pike head. Two plates immediately over '% die homologues of the superior frontal bone, with t.i . little nasal plate which, perched atop in the middle, lay between the creature's eyes, resembled the head and breast in the female figure, at least not less closely than those of the " lady in the looster;" the posterior frontal plates in which the outer and nether half of the eye orbits were hollowed formed a pair of sweeping wings, and thus in the centre of the buckler we are presented with the figure of an angel, robed and winged, and of which the large sculptured leaf forms the body, traced in a style in no degree more rude than we might expect to see exemplified on the lichen-encrusted shield of some ancient tombstone of that House of Avenel which bore as ha arms the effigies of the Spectre Lady. Children have a peculiar knack in detecting such resemblance*; and the discovery of the angel in the cranium of the AstsroUpis I owe to one of mine. It is on this inner side of the cranial buckler, where there are no such pseudo-joinings indicated as on the external sur face, that the homologies of the plates of which h is com posed can be best traced. It might be well, however, ere setting one's self to the work of comparison, to examine the skulls of a few of the osseous fishes of our coast, and to mark how very considerably they differ from one another in their lines of suture and their general form. The cerebral divis- ions of the conger-eel, for instance, are very unlike those of the haddock or whiting; and the suture* in the head ef the ae too STBVCTBBB gurnard are dissimilarly arranged from those in the head of the perch. And after tracing the general type in the more anomalous forms, and finding, with Cuvier, that in even these the " skull consists of the same bones, though much subdivid ed, as the skulls of the other vertebrata," we will be the bet- ter qualified for grappling with the not greater anomalies which occur in the cranial buckler of the Asterolepis. The occipital plate, A. a, a, (fig. 29,) occupies its ordinary place Fig. 2*. FLATS OP CBANIAI BUCKLES OP ASTEROLBTIS. opposite the centre of the nape; the two parietals, B, B, rest oeside it in their usual ichthyie position of displacement; the superior frontal we find existing, as in the young of many ani- mals, in two pieces, C, C; the nasal plate I, placed immediatoly in advance of it, is flanked, as in the cod, by the anterior fro it- als, D, D ; the posterior frontals, F, F, which, when viewed as in the print, from beneath, seem of considerable size, aid EF TEE ASTEROLEPIS. 108 describe atoially and postoriorly about one half the eye orbits, hive their area on the exterior surface greatly reduced by the overriding squamosa sutures of the plates to whics they join; and lastly, two of these overlying plates, E, E, which, occurring in the line of the lateral bar or beam, are of great strength and thickness, and lie for two thirds of their length along the parietals, and for the remaining third along the superior frontals, — represent the mastoid bones. Sucb, so far as I have been yet able to read the cranial buckler of the Asterolepis, seem to be the homologies of its component plates. There were no parts of the animal more remarkable than its jaws. The under jaws,—for the nether maxillary con- sisted, in this fish, as in the placoid fishes, and in the quad- rupeds generally, of two pieces joined in the middle,—were, like those of the Holoptychius, boxes of bone, which enclosed central masses of cartilage. The outer and under sides were thickly covered with the characteristic star-like tubercles; and along the upper margin or lip there ran a thickly-set row of small broadly-based teeth, planted as directly on the edge of the exterior plate as iron spikes on the upper edge of a gate (fig. 30.) Mr. Parkinson expresses some wonder is Fig. 30. PORTION OP UNDER JAW OF ASTEROLEPIS, (OUTKX SIRS,) (One half nat. size.) 104 STEEeTEEE bis work on fossils, that, in a fine ichthyolite in the British Museum, not only the teeth should have been preserved, but also the lips ; but we now know enough of the construction of the ancient Ganoids to cease wondering. The lips were formed of as solid bone as the teeth themselves, and had as fair a chance of being preserved entire; just as the metallic rim of a cogged wheel has as fair a chance of being preserved as the metallic cogs that project from it Immedi- ately behind the front row, — in which the teeth present the ordinary ichthyie appearance, — there ran a thinly-set row of huge reptile teeth, based on an interior platform of bone, which formed the top of the cartilage-enclosing bos composing the jaw. These were at once bent outwards and twisted laterally, somewhat like nails that have been drawn out of wood by the claw of a carpenter's hammer, and bent awry with the wrench, (fig. 31.) They were furrowed Fig 11. ronriOH op under aw op astbaolbpis, (nnraa una.) (On* half nat. sis*.) longitodinally from point to base by minute thickly-eet striae; and were furnished laterally in moat of the specimens though not in all, with two sharp cutting edgaa. The reptile sad as yet no existence in creation; feto w» see its ftttur* OF THE ASTBEOLEPiay 105 seeming symbolized in the dentition of this ancient Ganoid h, as it were, shows us the crocodile lying entrenched behind the fish. The interior structure of these reptile teeth is very remarkable. In the longitudinal section we fird numerous eancelli, ranged lengthwise along the cuter edges, but much crossed, net-like, within, — greatly move open towards the base than at the point, — and giving place in the centre to a hollow space, occasionally traversed by a few slim osseous partitions. In the transverse section these eancelli are found to radiate from the open centre towards the circumference, like the spokes of a wheel from the nave; and each spoke seems as if, like Aaron's rod, it had become instinct with vegetative life, and had sprouted into branch and blossom. Seen in a microscope of limited field, that takes in, as in the accompanying print, (fig. 32,) not more Fig. M. msvvioh o* vnAHSvansB section of rapto.* tooth op Asnr&oum* a Mat sure- b. Mag twees* stisanjju. 106 STRECTVEE than a fourth part of the section, the appearance presented is that of a well-trained wall tree. And hence the generic name Dendrodus, given by Professor Owen to teeth found ietached in the deposits of Moray, when the creatures to which they had belonged were still unknown, — a name, however, which will, I suspect, be found synonymous rather with that of a family than of a genus; for so far as I have yet examined, I find that the dendrodic or tree-like tooth, was in at least the Old Red Sandstone, a characteristic of all the Coelaeanth family. I may mention, however, as a curious subject of inquiry, that the Coeiacanths of the Coal Measures seem to have had their reptile teeth formed of pure ivory,— a substance which I have not yet detected among the reptile- fish of the Old Red. Towards the base of the reptile teeth of Asterolepis, the interstices between the branches greatly widen, as in the branches of a tree in winter divested of its foliage, (fig. 33, e;) the texture also opens towards the base in the fish-teeth ^' outside, in which, how- ever, the pattern in the transverse section is greatly less complex and ornate than that which the reptile teeth exhibits. When cut across near the point, they appear each as a thick ring, (b,) tra- versed by lines that radiate towards the half way down, they somewhat resemble, seen under a high magnifying power A Section of Jaw of Asterolepis. ». Reptile tooth as shown in section. a, b, * e. Row of ichthyie teeth in dermal plate of jaw. B. Magnified representatives of ichthyie teeth, a and b, in A. centre; when cut across about OF TEE ASTBBOLETia. 107 those cast-iron wheels on which the engineer mounts his railway carriages, (a.) In the longitudinal section their lina of junction with the jaw is marked by numerous openings, but by no line of division, and they appear aa thickly dotteu by what were once canaliculi, or life points, as any portion of the dermal bone on which they rest. It seems truly wonderful, when one considers it, to wha minute and obscure ramifications that variety of pattern whicL nature so loves to maintain is found to descend. It descends in the fishes, both recent and extinct, to even the microscopic structure of their teeth; and we find, in consequence, not less variety of figure in the sliced fragments of the teeth of the ichthyolites of a single formation, than in the carved block* of an extensive calico punt-yard. Each species has its own distinct pattern, as if, in all the individuals of which it con- sisted, the same block had been employed to stamp h; and each genus its own general type of pattern, as if the same radical idea, variously altered and modified, had been wrought upon in all. In the Dendrodic(Coelaeanth?) family, for in- stance, it is the radical type, that from a central nave there should radiate, spoke-like, a number of arborescent branches; but in the several genera and species of the family, the branches belong, if I may so express myself, to different shrubs, and present dissimilar outlines. It has appeared to rr e„ that at least a presumption against the transmutation of species might be based on those inherent peculiarities of structure which are thus found to pervade the entire texture of the framework of animals. If we find erections differing from one another merely in external form, we have no difficulty in conceiving how, by additions and alterations, they might be drought to exhibit a perfect uniformity of plan and aspect transmutation, — development,—progression, — (if one may iOt STREOTEEE ose such terms,) —- seem possible in such circumstances. But if the buildings differ from each other, not only in external form, but also in every brick and beam, bolt and nail, no mere scheme of external alteration could ever induce a real resem- blance. Every brick would have to be taken down, and every beam and bolt removed. The problem could not be wrought by the remodelling of an old house : the only mode of solving it would be by the erection of a new one. Of the upper maxillary bones of the Asterolepis, I only know that a considerable fragment of one of the pieces recognized as such by Agassiz, has been found in the neigh- borhood of Thurso by Mr. Dick, unaccompanied, however, by any evidence respecting its place or function. It exhibits none of the characteristic tubercles of the dermal bones, and no appearance of teeth; but is simply a long bent bone, re- sembling somewhat less than the half of an ancient bow of steel or horn, — such a bow as that which Ulysses bended in the presence of the suitors. By some of the Russian geolo- gists this bone was at first regarded as a portion of the arm or wing of some gigantic Pterichthys. In the accompanying f rint (fig. 34) I have borrowed the general outline from that MAXILlLARV bone? One fourth nat. else, linear.) of a specimen of Professor Asmus, of which a east may be wer jaws, in which the hyoid bone and branchiostegous rays of the osseous fishes occui, was filled by a single plate of great size and strength, and of singular form, (fig. 36 ;] and to this plate, ex- isting as a steep ridge running along the centre of the interior aurface and thickening into a massy knob at the anterior tor mination, that nail-shaped organism, which I have described 10 lift BTEVeTEEB Fig. 86. HTOTD PLAT*. (One ninth nat sise, linear.) as one of the most characteristic bones of the Asterolepis, belonged. In the Osteolepis, the space corresponding to thai occupied by this hyoid plate was filled, as shown in fig. 14, by five plates of not inelegant form; and the divisions of the arch resembled those of a small Gothic window, in which the single central mullion parts into two branches atop. In the Holoptychius and Glyptolepis there were but two plates; for the central mullion, i. e. line of division, did not branch atop; and in the Asterolepis, where there was no line of division, the strong nail-like bone occupied the place of the central mullion. The hyoidal armature of the latter fish was strongest in the line in which the others were weakest Each of the five hyoid plates of the Osteolepis, or of the twe plates of the Glyptolepis or Holoptychius, had its own centre of ossification; and in the single plate of Asterolepis, its centre of ossification, as shown by the radiations of the fibre was the naiMiead. This head, placed in immediate con- tact with the strong boxes of bone which composed Jhe under jaw, just where their central joining occurred, seems to have lent them a considerable degree of support, which at such a juncture may have been not unnecessary. In some of the nail-heads, belonging, it is probable, to a different specie* ef AMttirolepis from that in which the nail figured m pace 7 OF TEE ASTBBOI^.,^ HI Fig. 37. and the plate in the opposite page, occurree, — for its general form is different, (fig. 37,) — there appear well- marked ligamentary impressions closely resem- bling that little spongy pit in the head of the human thigh-bone to which what is termed the round ligament is attached. The entire hyoid- plate, viewed on its outer side, resembles in form the hyoid-bone, — or cartilage rather, — of the spotted dog-fish, (Scyllium stellare;) but its area was at least a hundred times more extensive than in the largest Scyllium, and, like all the dermal plates of the Asterolepis, it was thickly fretted by the characteristic tubercles. In the Ray, as in the Sharks, the piece of thin cartilage of which this plate seems the homologue, is a flat, semi-transparent disk; and there is no part of the animal in which the progress of those bony molecules which encrust the internal framework may be more distinctly traced, as if in the act of creeping over what they cover, in slim threads or shooting points,— and much resembling new ice creeping in a frosty evening over the surface of a pool. That suite of shoulder-bones that in the osseous fishes forms the belt or frame on which the opereules rest, and fur- nishes the base of the pectorals, was represented in the As- terolepis, as in the sturgeon, by a ring of strong osseous plates, which, in one of the two species of which trace is to be found among the rocks of Thurso, were curiously fretted on theii external surfaces, and in the other species comparatively smooth. The largest, or coracoidian plate of the ring, as it occurs in the more ornate species, (fig. 38,) might be readily enough mistaken, when seen with only its surface exposed NAUr-LrXJI BONE OP HTOTD PLATE. (One half aat slse.) STBT/CTTRE Fig. » SBOULDBR (*. «. OORACOtD ?) PLATE OP ASTBXOLXPBV (One third nat sise, linear.) (or the ichthyodorulite of some large fish, allied, mayhap, t* the Gyracanthus formosus of the Coal Measures; but when detached from the stone, the hollow form and peculiar striss of the inferior surface serve to establish its true character as a dermal plate. The diagonal furrowings which traversed it, as the twisted fratings traverse a Gothic column moulded after the type of the Apprentice Pillar in Roslin chapel, seem to have underlaid the edge of the opercule ; at least I find a similar arrangement in the shoulder-plates of a large species of Diplopterus, which are deeply grooved and furrowed where the opercule rested, as if with the design of keeping up a communication between the branchiae and the external ele- ment, even when the gill-cover was pressed closely down npon them. And, — as in these shoulder-plates of the Dip- lopterus the furrows yield their place beyond the edge of the opercule to the punctulated enamel common to the outer surface of all the creature's external plates and scales,—we find them yielding their place, in the shoulder-plates of the Asterolepis, to the starred tubercles. A few detached bones, that bear on their outer surfaces the dermal markings, must have belonged to that angular- shaped portion of the head which intervened between th* cranial buckler and the intermaxillary bone; but the key for assigning to them their proper place b still to find ; and I suspect that no amount of skill on the part of the eompa 0T TEE ASTEBOLETIS. 1U rative anatomist will ever qualify him to completo the aork of restoration without it. I have submitted to the reader the cranial bucklers of jive several genera of the ganoids of the Old Red Sandstone; but no amount of study bestowed on these would enable even the most skilful ichthyologist te restore a sixth; nor is the lateral area of the head, which was, I find, variously occupied in each genus, less difficult to restore than the buckler which surmounted it Two of the more entire of these dermal bones I have figured (fig. 39, a and b) in the hope of assisting future inquirers, who. were Fig. 39. 1 8 S DBBJCAJ. SONS* OP AATXZOLBTIA. (On* third aat. sise, linear.) they to pick up all the other plates, might yet be unable, lacking the figured one*, to complete the whole. The suriously-shaped plate a, represented in its various sides by the figures 1, 2, 3, is of an acutely angular form in the trans- verse section, (the external surface, 1, forming an angle which varies from thirty to forty-five degrees with the base, 8;) and as it lay, it is probable when in its original plana 10 • 114 STRVCTERB Immediately under the edge of the cranial buckler, it may have served to commence the line of deflection from the flal top of the head to the steep descent of the sides, just as what are technically termed the spur-stones in a gable-head serve to commence the line of deflection from the vertical outline of the wall to the inclined line of the roof, or as the spring- stones of an arch serve to commence the curve. A few internal bones in my possession are curious, but exceed- Pl~t 40 ingly puzzling. The bone a, fig. 40, which resembles a rib, or bran- chiostegous ray, of one of the or- dinary fishes, formed apparently part of that osseous style which in fishes such as the haddock and cod we find attached to the suite of shoulder-bones, and which, ac- cording to Cuvier, is the analogue of the coracoidian bone, and, ac- internal sonbs op astbro- cording to Professor Owen, the ana ,«_ .. .* _. .. x logue of the clavicle. Fig. b is a (Oae half nat. stie, linear.) b e mere fragment, broken at both ends, but exhibiting, in a state of good keeping, lateral expan- sions, like those of an ancient halbert. Fig. c, 41, which is also a fragment, though a more considerable one, bears in its thicker and straighter edge a groove like that of an ichthyodorulite, which, however, the bone itself in no degree resembles. Fig. d is a flat bone, of a type common in the skeleton of fishes, but which, in mammals, we find exemplified in but the scapulars. It seems, like these, to have furnished the base to which some suite of movable bones was articulated, — in all likelihood that proportion of the carpal bonelets of the pectoral fins whieh are attached it •P TEE ASTEROLETlSv 118 Fig. 41. ntTBENAL EONS* OP ASTEROLEPIS (One third aat sise, linear.) the osseous fishes to its apparent homologue, the radius. Fig. e, a slim light bone, which narrows and thickens in the centre, and flattens and broadens at each end, was probably a scapula or shoulder-blade, — a bone which in most fishes splices on, as a sailor would say, by squamose jointings, to the coracoi- dian bone at the one end, and the super-scapular bone at the other. As indicated by its size, it must have belonged to a small individual: it is, however, twice as long, and about »ix times as bulky, as the scapula of a large cod. Of the bone represented in fig. 42,1 have determined, from a Cromarty specimen, the place and use : it formed the inte- rior base to which one of the ventral fins was attached. In all fishes the bones of the hinder extremities are inadequately represented: in none do we find the pelvic arch complete; and to that nether portion of it which we do find represented, and which Professor Owen regards a* the homologue ef the HI SJTBWCTBRB, Fig is. rscnnm op aatbbolbpis. (One half nat. slse, linear* os ischium or hip-bone, the homologues of the metatarsal ana joe-bones are attached, to the exclusion of the bones of th* thigh and leg. In the Abdominales, — fishes such as th* salmon and carp, — that have the ventrals placed behind the abdomen, in the position analogous to that in which the hinder legs of the reptiles and mammals occur, the ischiatio bones generally exist as flat triangular plates, with their heads either turned inwards and downwards, as in the herring, 01 outwards and downwards, as in the pike; whereas in some of the cartilaginous fishes, such as the Rays and Sharks, they exist as an undivided cartilaginous band, stretched transversely from ventral to ventral. And such, with but an upward di rection, appears to have been their position in the Asterolepis They seem to have united at the narrow neck A, over the middle of the lower portion of the abdomen; and to the notches of the flat expansion B, — notches which exactly re- semble those of the immensely developed carpal bones of the Ray, — five metatarsal bones were attached, from which the fin expanded. It is interesting to find the number in this ancient representative of the vertebrata restricted to five, — s number greatly exceeded in most of the existing fishes, but which is the true normal number of the vertebrate sub-king- dom as shown in all the higher examples such as man, the lasdnaniiss, and in most of the tarnaria. The form of this ST TEE ASTER0LET1S, 117 bene eomewhat resembles that of the analogous bone in those ashes, such as the perch and gurnard, cod and haddock, which have their ventrals suspended to the scapular belt; but its position in the Cromarty specimen, and that of the ventrala in the various specimens of the Coelaeanth family in which their place is still shown, forbids the supposition that it was so suspended,-—a circumstance in keeping with all the exist- ing geological evidence on the subject, which agrees in indi eating, that of the low type of fishes that have, monster-like, their feet attached to their necks, the Old Red Sandstone does not afford a trace. This inferior type, now by far the most prevalent in the ichthyie division of the animal kingdom, does not seem to have been introduced until near the close of the Secondary period, long after the fish had been degraded from its primal place in the fore front of creation. In one of my specimens a few fragments of the rays are preserved, (fig. 43, b.) They aie about the eighth part of an inch in diameter; depressed in ^' some cases in tne centre, as if, over the internal hollow formed by the decay of the cartilaginous centre, the bony crust * ^^^ . , . , , J1.J- *• Singls joint of ray of of which they are composed had given Thomback. way ; and, like the rays of the thorn- b. Single joint of ray of back, they are thickened at the joints, ^H*' and at the processes by which they were attached to the ischiatio base. It may be proper, I should here state, that of some of die internal bones figured above I have no better evidence that they belonged to the Asterolepis, than that they occui in the same beds with the dermal plates which bear the char acteristie star-like markings, — that they are of very consid arable size, — and that they formed no part of the knows fishes ef the formation. 118 STRBOTSEB On exactly toe same grounds 1 infer, that certain large cor rolites of common occurrence in the Thurso flagstones, whick contain the broken scales of Dipterians, and exhibit a curi- ously twisted form, (fig. 44 ) also belonged to the Asterolepis Fig. 44. somoirra* op astxrolhpib, (Hat else.*) and from these, that the creature was carnivorous in its hab its, — an inference which the character of its teeth fully cor roborates; and farther, that, like the sharks and rays, and tome of the extinct Enaliosaurs, it possessed the spiral dis- position of intestine. Paley, in his chapter on the compensa- tory contrivances palpable in the structure of various animals, refers to a peculiar substitutory provision which occurs in a • One of th* Thurso coprolites hi my possession is about one fourth longer than the larger of th* two specimens figured her*, and nearly thrifl* a* broad. OF TEE AST&Bei-RflE' 111 certain amphibious animal described in the Memoirs sf tie* French Academy. " The reader will remember," he emym u what we have already observed concerning th© itttsstina canal, — that its length, so many time* exceeding that ©f th* body, promotes the extraction of the chyle from the aliment, by giving room for the lacteal vessel* to act upon it through a greater space. This long intestine, whenever it occurs, is in other animals disposed in the abdomen from tide to side, in returning folds. But in the animal now under our notice, the matter is managed otherwise. The same intention is mechanically effectuated, but by a mechanism of a different kind. The animal of which I speak is an amphibious quadruped, which our authors call the Alopecias or iea- fox. The intestine is straight from one end to the other but in this straight, and consequently short intestine, is a winding, cork-screw, spiral passage, through which the £> . not without several circumvolutions, and, in fact, by % long route, is conducted to its eJt. Here the shortness of the gut is compensated by the obliquity of the perforation." This structure of intestine, which all the true Placoids possess, and at least the Sturiones among existing Ganoids, seems to have been an exceedingly common one during both the Palaeozoic and Secondary periods. It has left its impress on all the better preserved coprolites of the Coal Measures, so abundant in the shales of Newhavcn and Buidie House, and on those of the Lias and Chalk. It seem* to be equally a characteristic of well nigh all the bulkier ccprolitos of the Lower Old Red Sandstone.* In these, however, it manifests • In two of the**, in a collection of several scars, I aav* railed to detect the spiral mwkings, though thsax state ef aeerdag is decidedly good. Thar* are other appearsneas whkh lead ma te 190 STEVOTBEE OF TEE AbYXBOUFIE. ft peculiar trait, which I have failed to detect in any of toe recent fishes; nor have I yet seen it indicated, in at least the same degree, by the Carboniferous or Secondary coprolitie remains. In the bowels which moulded the coprolites of Lyme-Regis, of the Chalk, and of the Newhavea and Granton beds, a single screw must have winded within the cylindrical tube, as a turnpike stair winds within its hollow shaft; and such also is the arrangement in the existing Sharks And Rays; whereas the bowels which moulded the coprolites 01 the Lower Old Red Sandstone must have been traversed by triple or quadruple screws hud closely together, as we find the stalk of an old-fashioned wine-glass traversed by it* thickly-set spiral lines of thread-like china. And so, while on the surface of both the Secondary and Carboniferous coprolites there is space between the screw-like lines for numerous cross markings that correspond to the thickly set veiny branches which traverse the sides of the recent placoid bowel, the entire surface of the Lower Old Red coprolites is travsrsed by the spiral markings. Is there nothing strange in the fact, that after the lapse of mayhap millions of years,— nay, it is possible, millions of ages, — we should be thus able te detect at once general resemblance and special dissimilarity in even the neost perishable parts of the most ancient of the Ganoids ? I must advert, in passing, to a peculiarity exemplified in the state of keeping of the bone* of this ancient Ganoid, in at least the depositee of Orkney and Caithness. The original animal matter has been converted into a dark-colored bitumen, suspect that tha Astsrolspis was not th* only large ash of th* Low** Old Bad Sandstone; but my facts on the subject are too aeonolnsiv* to justify aught more than sedulous inquiry STATE OF XBRPIEt OF ITS EEMAIRS. i%l which in some places, where the remains lie thick, pervade* the crevices of the rocks, and has not unfrequently beet mistaken for coal. In its more solid state it can hardly be iistinguished, when used in sealing a letter, — a purpose which it serves indifferently well, — from black wax of the ordinary quality; when more fluid, it adheres scarce less strongly to the hands than the coal-tar of our gas-works and dock-yards. Underneath a specimen of Asterolepis, first pointed out to me in its bed among the Thurso rocks by Mr. Dick, and which, at my request, he afterwards raised and sent me to Edinburgh, packed up in a box, there lay * quantity of thick tar, which stuck as fast to my fingers, on lifting out the pieces of rock, as if I had laid hold of the planking of a newly tarred yawl. What had been once the nerves, muscles, and blood of this ancient Ganoid still lay under its bones, and reminded me of the appearance presented by the remains of a poor suicide, whose solitary grave, dug in a sandy bank in the north of Scotland, had been laid open by the encroachments of a river. The skeleton, with pieces of the dress still wrapped round it, lay at length along the sec- tion ; and, for a full yard beneath, the white dry sand was consolidated into a dark-colored pitchy mass, by the altered animal matter which had escaped from it, percolating down wards, in the process of decay. In consequence of the curious chemical change which ha thus taken place in the animal juices of the Asterolepis, its remains often occur in a state of beautiful preservation: the pervading bitumen, greatly more conservative in its effects than the oils and gums of an old Egyptian undertaker, hat maintained, in their original integrity, every scale, plate, and bone. They may have been much broken ere they wew first eommitted to the keeping of the rock, or in disentangling 11 iaa ras abtbboletie: mem front its rigid embrace; but they have, we find, caugk bo harm when under its care. Ere the skeleton of the Bruce, disinterred after the lapse of five centuries, was recommitted to the tomb, such measures were taken to secure its preservation, that, were it to be again disinterred, even after as many more centimes had passed, it might be found retaining unbroken its gigantic proportions. There was molten pitch poured over the bones, in a state of sufficient fluidity to permeate all the pores, and fill up the central hollows, and which, soon hardening around them, formed a bituminous matrix, in which they may lie unchanged for a thousand years. Now, exactly such was the process to which nature resorted with these gigantic skeletons of the Old Red Sandstone. Like the bones of the Bruce, they are bone* steeped in pitch; and so thoroughly is every pore and hollow still occupied, that, when cast into the fire, they flame like torches. Though black as jet, they still retain, too, in a considerable degree, the peculiar qualities of the original substance. The late Mr. George Sanderson of Edinburgh, one of the most ingenious lapidaries in the kingdom, and a thoroughly intelligent man, made several preparations for me, for microscopic examination, from the teeth and bones; and though they were by far the oldest vertebrate remains he had ever seen, they exhibited, he informed me, in the working, more of the characteristics of recent teeth and bone than any other fossils he had ever operated upon. Recent bone when in the course of bein^, reduced on the wheel to the degree of thinness necessary to secure transparency, is apt under the heat induced by the friction, to acquire a springy elasticity, and to start up from the glass slip to which it ha* been cemented; whereas bone in the fossil state usually lira a* pass've, In such circumstance*, as the stes* which «*» STATE 0V EBBTTaS OF TV* RKMAIP*, MI3 velepes it Mr. Sanderses was, aew*v$rs suryriaed « fins that the bene of the Asitreiepis still retained its elaatieity, and was scarce less liable, when heated, to start from the glass,— a peculiarity through which he st first lost seTersi oreparations. I have seen a human bone that had for ages been partially embedded in a mass of adipocere, partially enveloped in the common mould of a churchyard, exhibit two very different styles of keeping. In the adipocere it was as freah and green as if it had been divested of the integu- ments only a few week* previous; whereas the portion which projected into the mould had become brittle and porous, and presented the ordinary appearance of an old churchyard bene. And what the adipocere had done for the human acne in tbist case, seems to have been done for the bones of the Astern iepis by the animal bitumen. The size of the Asterolepis must, in the larger specimens, have been very great. In all those ganoidal fishe* of the Old Red Sandstone that had the head covered with osseous plates, we find that the cranial buckler bore a certain defi- nite proportion, — various in the several genera and species, — to the length of the body. The drawing-master still teaches his pupil* to regulate the proportions of the human figure by the seven head-lengths which it contains; and perhaps shows them how an otherwise meritorious drafts man,# much employed half an age ago in drawing for the wood-engraver, used to render his figures squat and ungrace- ful by making them a head too short Now, those ancient Ga- noids which possessed a cranial buckler may, we find, be alsc measured by head-length*. Thus, in the Coetosteus decipient the length of the cranial buckler from nape to snout equalise! * The tote Mr. Jean ITwrstos. 194 ▼BE ABfEMltfiPIS: one fifth he entire length of the creature from snout to tail. The entire length of the Glyptolepis was equal to about five one half times that of its cranial buckler. The Pterichthys was formed in nearly the same proportions. Th« Diplopterus was fully seven times the length of its buckler ; and the Osieolepis from six and a half to seven. In all th* cranial bucklers of the Asterolepis yet found, the snout is wanting. The very fine specimen figured in page 99 (fig. 28) terminates abruptly at the little plate between the eyes, the specimen figured in page 98 (fig. 27) terminates at the upper line of the eye. The terminal portion which formed 'he snoart is wanting in both, and we thus lack the measure, or module, ss the architect might say, by which the propor- tions of the rest of the creature were regulated. We can, however, very nearly approximate to it A hyoid plate is my collection (fig. 45) is, I find, so exactly proportioned to size to the cranial buckler, (fig. 28,) that it might have be- Kg. « KTOID PLATE OP THURSO ASTEBOinvrs.* (One fifth the nat. sise, linear.) • The shaded plate, (a,) accidentally presented in this specimen, belongs to the upper part of the head. It is the posterior frontal plate F, which half-encircled the eye orbit (**e Ag. 29;) and I haw introduced it into the print here, as in none of th* other print*, or of oay other specimens, is its upper surface shown. ITS FBOBABLB BULB. 125 lexiged te the «asae Lasavidaai, sad ay Ituag it ia its prop** place, and thea Banking &e aeeeeaary sJewance tor the Breadth of the nether jaw, which swept two third* around it, and was •urmounted by the snout, ws ascertain that the buckler, when entire, must have been, as nearly as may be, a foot in length. If the Asterolepis was formed in the propor- tions of the Cottosteus, the buckler (fig. 28) must have be- longed to an individual five feet in length ; if in the propor- tions of the Ptsriehthys or Glyptolepis, to an individual five and a half feet in length ; and if in those of the Diplopterus or Osteolepis, to an individual of from six and a half to seven feet in length. Now I find that the hyoid plate can be in- scribed — such is its form — in a semicircle, of which the nail-shaped ridge in the middle (if we strike off a minute portion of the sharp point, usually wanting in detached speci- mens) forms very nearly the radius, and of which the diame- ter equals the breadth of the cranial buckler, along a line drawn across at a distance from the nape, equal to two third* of the distance between the nape and the eyes. Thus, the largest diameter of a hyoid plate which belonged to a cranial buckler a foot in length is, I find, equal to seven one quarter inches, while the length of its nape somewhat exceeds three five eighth inches. The nail of the Stromness specimen measure* five and a half inches. It must have run along a hyoid plate eleven incnes m transverse breadth, and have been associated with a cranial buckler eighteen one eighth inches in length ; and the Asterolepis to which it belonged must have measured from snout to tail, if formed, as it probably was, in the pro portions of its brother Coelaeanth the Glyptolepis, eight feet three inches; and if in those of the Diplopterus, from nine •set aiae to tea feet six inches. This oldest of Scottish fish 11 • m THE ASTBEOLETIS: — this aaritest-born of the Ganoids yet known -— was at least is &u iky as a large porpoise. It was small, however, compared with specimen* of the Asterolepis found elsewhere. The hyoid plate figured in page 110, (fig. 36,) — a Thurso specimen which I owe to the kindness of Mr. Dick, — measures nearly fourteen inches, and the cranial buckler of the same individual, fifteen one fourth inches, in breadth. The latter, when entire, must have measured twenty-three one half inches in length; and the fish to which it belonged, if formed in the proportions of the Glyptolepis, ten feet six inches ; and if in those of the Dip- (opterus, from twelve feet five to thirteen feet eight inches in length. Did the shield still exist in its original state as a buckler of tough, enamel-crusted bone, it might be converted into a Highland target, nearly broad enough to cover the am- ple chest of a Rob Roy or Allan M'Aulay, and strong enough to dash aside the keenest broadsword. Another hyoid plate found by Mr. Dick measures sixteen one half inches in breadth ; and a cast in the British Museum, from one of th* Russian specimens of Professor Asmus, (fig. 46,) twenty-four inches. The individual to which this last plate belonged must, if built in the shorter proportions, have measured eighteen, and if in the longer, twenty-three feet in length. The two hyoid plate* of the specimen of Holoptychius in the British Museum measure but four and a half inches along that trans- verse line in which the Russian Asterolepis measures two feet, and the largest Thurso specimen sixteen inches and a half. The maxillary bone of a cod-fish two and a half feet from snout to tail measures three inches in length. One of the Rus- sian maxillary bones in the possession of Professor Asmus measures in length twenty-eight inches. And that space ctr ITS BULK AMD ORGANIZATION. 1 Kg. *« BTOID PLATE OP RUSSIAN ASTBROLBPIS. (One twelfth the natural sise, linear.) eumscribed by the sweep of the lower jaw which it took, in the Russian specimen, a hyoid plate twenty-four inches in breadth to fill, could be filled in the two-and-a-half-feet cod by a plate whose breadth equalled but an inch and a half. Thus, in the not unimportant circumstance of size, the most ancient Ganoids yet known, instead of taking their places, agreeably to the demands of the development hypothesis, among the sprats, sticklebacks, and minnows of their ciass. took their place among its huge basking sharks, gigantic stur- geons, and bulky sword-fishes. They were giants, not dwarf's. But what of their organization i Were they fishes low or high in the scale ? On this head we can, of course, determine merely by the analogies which their structure exhibits to that of fishes of the existing period ; and these point in three several directions ; — in two of the number, directly on genera of the hgh Ganoid order ; and in the third, on the still highei Placoids and Enaliosaurs. No trace of vertebrae has yet been found ; and »o we infer — lodging, however, a precautionary protest, as the evidanee is purely negative and therefore m 128 the asterolepis: some degree inconclusive—that the vertebral column of the Astero is was, like that of the sturgeon, cartilaginous. Respecting its external covering', we positively know, as has been already shown, that, like the Lepidosteus of America and the Polypterus of the Nile, it was composed of strong plates and scales of solid bone; and, regarding its dentition, that, as in these last genera, and even more decidedly than in these, it was of the mixed ichthyic-reptilian character,—an outer row of thickly-set fish-teeth being backed by an inner row of thinly-set reptile teeth. And its form of coprolite indicates the spiral disposition of intestine common to the Rays and Sharks of the existing period, and of the Ichthyosauri of the Secondary ages. Instead of being, as the development hypo- thesis would require, a fish low in its organization, it seems to have ranged on the level of the highest ichthyie- ptilian families ever called into existence. Had an intelligent being, ignorant of what was going on upon earth during the week of creation, visited Eden on the morning of the sixth day, he would have found in it many of the inferior animals, but no trace of man. Had he returned again in the evening, he would have seen, installed in the office of keepers of the garden, and ruling with no tyrant sway as the humble monarchs of its brute inhabitants, two mature human crea- tures, perfect in their organization, and arrived at the full stature of their race. The entire evidence regarding them, in the absence of all such information as that imparted to Adam by Milton's angel, would amount simply to this, that in the morning man was not, and that in the evening he was. There, of course, could not exist, in the circumstances, a single ap- pearance to sanction the belief that the two human creatures whom he saw walking together among the trees at sunset had been •' developed from infusorial points," not created mature. IT* BTJLB AJTB 0E0A*nEATieE 1» The evidence would, on the contrary, lie all the other way And in no degree does the geologic testimony respecting the earliest Ganoids differ from what, in the supposed case, would be the testimony of Eden regarding the earliest men. Up to a certain point in the geologic scale we find that the Ganoids are not; and when they at length make their appearance upon the stage, they enter large in their stature and high ir their organisatioc *30 nSBES OF TEE SILWBIA* ReCES: nBHSIOF 1HB BLLBRiAJH ROCBB — UPPBB AJ«D LOWEB TEEIl RECENT riSTOBV, OIDBE, ABB SIZB. Bet the system of the Old Red Sandstone represents the second, not the first, great period of the world's history. There was s preceding period at least equally extended, per- haps greatly more so, represented by the Upper and Lower Silurian formations. And what is the testimony of this morn- ing period of organic existence, in which, so far aa can yet be ahown, vitality, in the planet which man inhabits, and of whose history or productions he knows any thing, was first as- sociated with matter ? May not the development hypothesis find a standing in the system representative of this earliest age of creation, which it fails to find in the system of the Old Red Sandstone ? It has been confidently asserted, not merely that it may but that it does. Ever since the publication, in 1839, of Sir Roderick Murchison'a great work on the Silurian System, it had been known that the remains of fishes occur in a bed of the " Ludlow Rock,'* — one of the most modern deposits of Lbs Upper Silurian division; and subsequent discoveries both in England and America, had shown that even the bass of this division has its ichthyie organism*. But tor veer UTTER ABE LOWES. 1*1 after year, the lower half of the system, — a division more man three thousand feet in thickness,—had failed, though there were hands and eyes busy among its deposits, to yield any vertebrate remains. During the earlier half of the tire great period of organic existence, though the polyparia, ra diato, articulata, and mollusca, existed, as their remains tes- tified, by myriads, fish had, it was held, not yet entered upon the scene ; and the assertora of the development theory founded largely on the presumed fact of their absence. * It is still customary," says the author of the " Vestiges of Crea- tion," in his volume of " Explanations," " to speak of the earliest fauna as one of an elevated kind. When rigidly examined, it is not found to be so. In tee first place, it contains no riSE. There were seas supporting crustacean and molluscan life, but utterly devoid of a class of tenants who sssm able to live in every example of that element whieh supports meaner creatures. This single fact, that only invertobratod animals now lived, is surely in itself a strong proof that, in the course of nature, time was necessary for the creation of the superior creatures. And if so, it undoubtedly is a power- ful evidence of such a theory of development as that which 1 have presented. If not, let me hear an equally plausible reason for the great and amazing fact, that seas were for numberless ages destitute of fish. I fix my opponents down to the consideration of this fact, so that no diversion respect- ing high molluscs shall avail them." And how is this bold challenge to be met ? Most directly, and after a fashion that at once discomfits the challenger. It might be rationally enough argued in the case, that the author of the " Vestiges" was building greatly more on s Btace ef purely negative evidence, — the presumed absence 132 FIBERS OF TEE SILURIAN ROCKS I of fish from the Lower Silurian formations, — than purely neg stive evidence is, from its nature as such, suited to bear; thai only a very few years had passed since it was known that ver- tebrate remains occurred in the Upper Silurian, and only a few more since they had been detected in the Old Red Sandstone ; nay, that within the present century their frequent occur- rence in even the Coal Measures was scarce suspected ; and that, as his argument, had it been founded twelve years ago on the supposed absence of fishes from the Upper Silurian, or twenty years ago on the supposed absence of fishes from the Old Red Sandstone, would have been quite as plausible in reference to it* negative data then as in reference to it* negative data now, so it might now be quite as erroneous as it assuredly would have been then. Or it might be urged, that the fact of the absence of fish from the Lower Silurians, even were it really a fact, would be in no degree less reconcilable with the theory of creation by direct act, than with the hypoth- esis of gradual development The fact that Adam did not exist during the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth days of the introductory week of Scripture narrative, furnishes no argument whatever against the fact of his creation on the sixth day. And the remark would of course equally apply to the non-existence of fishes during the Lower Silurian period, had they been really non-existent at the time, and to their sudden appearance in that of the Upper. But the objec bon admits of a greatly more conclusive answer. " I fix my opponents down," says the author of the " Vestiges,*' " to the consideration of this fact," t. e. that of the absence of fishes from the earliest fossiliferous formations. And I, in turn, fix you down, I reply, to the consideration of the antagonist fact, not negative, but positive, and now, in the Bourse of geological discovery, fully established, that fishes EFPEB AMD inWBB, ltd w»re not absent from the earliest fossiliferous formation* Prom none of the great geological formations were fishes ab- »nt, — not even from the formations of the Cambrian divis ion. " The Lower Silurian," says Sir Roderick Murohison, is a communication with which, in 1847, he honored the writer of these chapters, «is no longer to be viewed as an inverte- brate period; for the Onchus (species not yet decided) has been found in the Llandeilo Flags and in the Lower Silurian rocks of Bala. In one respect I am gratified by the discovery; for the form is so very like that of the Onchus Murehisoni of the Upper Ludlow rock, that it is clear the Silurian system i* one great natural-history series, as is proved, indeed, by all its other organic remains." It may be mentioned further, in ad- dition to this interesting statement, that the Bala spine was detected in its calcareous matrix by the geologists of the Gov- eminent Survey, and described to Sir Roderick as that of an Onchus, by a very competent authority in such matters, — Professor Edward Forbes, and that the annunciation of the existence of spines of fishes in the Llandeilo Flags we owe to one of the most cautious and practised geologists of the pres- ent age, — Professor Sedgwick of Cambridge. So much for the fact of the existence of vertebrata in the Lower Silurian formations, and the argument founded on their presumed absence. Let me now refer — their presence being determined — to the tests of size and organization. Were these Silurian fishes of a bulk jo inconsiderable as in any de- gree to ■an^on the belief that they had been developed shortly before fr^ ^.icroscopic points ? Or were they of a structure *° !ow \ may nn'm other word»» th« «mbry« eral mass, and werl,aM? or ^ they, on the contrary, rant real scales, have been™ «■*•■ ** *• •*•••* time ? 184 FIBERS OF TEE 8TLUBIAN ROCKS: It w of importance that not only the direct tearing, but also the actual amount, of the evidence in this case, should be fairly stated. So far as it extends, the testimony is clear, but it does not extend far. All the vertebrate remains yet detected in the Silurian System, if we except the de bris of the Upper Ludlow bone-bed, might be sent through the Post-Office in a box scarcely twice the size of a copy of the " Vestiges." The naturalist of an exploring party, who, in crossing some unknown lake, had looked down >ver the side of his canoe, and seen a few fish gliding ihrough the obscure depths of the water, would be but indifferently qualified, from what he had witnessed, to write a history of all its fish. Nor, were the some six or eight individuals of which he had caught a glimpse to be of small size, would it be legitimate for him to infer that only small-sized fish lived in the lake; though, were there to be some two or three large ones among them, he might safely affirm tne contrary. Now, the evidence regarding the fishes of the Silurian formation very much resembles what that of the naturalist would be, in the supposed case, regarding the fishes of the unexplored lake; with, however, this dif- ference, that as the deposits of the ancient system in which hey occur have been examined for years in various parts of he world, and all its characteristic organisms, save the chtnyic ones, found in great abundance and fine keeping; we may conclude that the fish of the period were compara- tively few. The palaeontologist, so far as the question of number is involved, is in the circumstances, ncl6*e,,> the natu- ralist who has only once crossed the unknowra^nv but of Anri the angler who, day after day, casts his line i> /xna V »,^ sea abounding in shell-fish and crustiicef ^eration of the of months, can scarce detect a nibble. ' and now' m *« stablished, that fishes UTTER ANB LOWER. 13o years, can reckon up ail the fish which he ha3 caught a* con« siderably under a score. The existence of this great division of the animal kingdom, like that of the eariier reptiles during the Carboniferous period, did not form a prominent char- icteristic of those ages of the earth's history in which they began to be. The earliest discovered vertebral remains of the system — tiose of the Upper Ludlow rock — were found in digging the foundations of a house at Ludford, on the confines of Shrop- shire, and submitted, in 1838, by Sir Roderick Murchison to rVgassiz, through the late Dr. Malcolmson of Madras. I ased at the time to correspond on geological subjects with Dr. Malcolmson, — an accomplished geologist and a good man, too early lost to science and his friends, — and still re- member the interest which attached on this occasion to his communication bearing the Paris post-mark, from which I learned for the first time that there existed ichthyie fragments greatly older than even the ichthyolites of the Lower Old Red Sandstone, and which made me acquainted with Agas- siz's earliest formed decision regarding them. Though ex- isting m an exceedingly fragmentary condition,—for the materials of the thin dark-colored layer in which they had lain seemed as if they had been triturated in a mortar,— he ichthyologist succeeded in erecting them into six genera; though it may be very possible, — as some of these were formed for the reception of detached spines, and others for the reception of detached teeth, — that, as in the case of Dipterus and Asterolepis, the fragments of but a single genus may have been multiplied into two genera or more And minute scale-like markings, which mingled with the gen- eral mass, and were at first regarded as the impressions of real scales, have been since recognised as of the same char l*% F1SEES OF TEE SILURIAN ROeEB: acter with the scale-like markings of the Seraphim of Forfar- shire, a huge crustacean. Even admitting, however, that a set of teeth and spines, with perhaps the shagreen points represented in page 54, fig. 2, b, in addition, may have all belonged to but a single species of fish, there seem to be ma- terials enough, among the remain* found, for the erection of two species more. And we have evidence that at least two of the three kinds were fishes of the Placoid order, (Onchus Murchisoni and Onchus tenuistriatus,) and—as the sup- posed scales must be given up — no good evidence that the other kind was not. The ichthyie remains of the Silurian System next discovered were first introduced to the notice of geologists by Professor Phillips, at the meeting of the British Association in 1842.* They occurred, he stated, in a quarry near Hales End, at the base of the Upper Ludlow rock, im • " Mr. Phillips proceeded to describe some remains of a small ash, resembling the Cheiracanthus of the Old Red Sandstone, scales and spines of which he had found in a quarry at Hales End, on the western side of the Malverns. The section presented beds of the Old Red Sandstone inclined to the west; beneath these were arenaceous beds of a lighter color, forming the junction with Silurian shales; these, again, passing on to calcareous beds in the lower part of the quarry, containing the corals and shells of the Aymestry Limestone, of their agreement with which stronger evidence might be obtained elsewhere. He had found none of these scales in the junction beds or in the Upper Ludlow Shales ; but about sixty or one hundred feet lower, just above the Aymestry Limestone, his attention had been attracted to discolored spots on the surface of the beds, which, upon microscopic examination, proved to be the minute scales and spines before mentioned. These remains were only apparent on the surface, whilst the * fish-bed' of the Upper Lud- low rock, as i*. usually occurred, was an inch thick, consisting of in- numerable small teeth and spines." — Report, in " Athensram " foe 1842, of the Proceedings of the Twelfth Meeting of British Association, (Memeheeter.) BTFEB ABB lower. 191 rnediatoly over the Aymestry Limestone, and were se ex- ceedingly diminutive, that they appeared to the naked eys as mere discolored spots; but resolved under the micro- scope into scattered groupes of minute spines, like those of th* Cheiracanthus, with what seemed to be still more minuto scales, or, perhaps, —what in such circumstances could scarce be distinguished from scales, — shagreen points of the scale- like type. The next ichthyie organism detected in .he Silu- rian rocks occurred in the Wenlock Limestone, a consider- ably lower and older deposit, and was first described in the " Edinburgh Review" for 1845 by a vigorous writer and masterly geologist, (generally understood to be Professor Sedgwick of Cambridge,) as " a characteristic portion of s fish undoubtedly belonging to the Cestraciont family of the Placoid order." In the '* American Journal of Science " for 1846, Professor Silliman figured, from a work of the States' Surveyors, the defensive spine of a Placoid found in the Onondago Limestone of New York, — a rock which occurs near the base of the Upper Silurian System, as developed in the western world; * and in the same passage he made ref- erence to a mutilated spine detected in a still lower American deposit, — the Oriskany Sandstone. In the Geological Journal for 1847, it was announced by Professor Sedgwick, • "Thl* is the lowest position" (that of the Onondago Lime- stone) " in the State of New York in which any remains have been found higher in the scale of organized beings than Crustacea, with the exception of an imperfectly preserved fish-bone discovered by Hall in the Oriskany Sandstone. That specimen, together with the defensive fish-bone found in this part of the New York system, furnishes evidences of the existence of animals belonging to the alas* vertebrata during the deposition of the middle part ef th* ysotovfia strata." — American Journal of Science and Arts fix- lStf, Iff FIBBBB OF THE SILURIAN EOCES : Ladlow Aymestry limestone. Lower Ladlow. Wenloek Limestone. Wenloek Shale. Caradoe Sandstone, Ac Llandeilo Flags, fte. Flyalimmon Group Bala Limestone. Bnowdon Group. 1 s • * e V e * e (Phillips.) that he had found u d* Fish, 1838, M^» of fishes" in±t (Murchison!) Upper Llandeilo Flags TphilUpT)' ™<* by Sir Roderick Murchison, that the " de- fence of an OncAw"had Fish 1846 keen detected by the (Sedgwick.) geologists of the Gov Fish, 1846, . ., (Silliman.) ernment survey, in the Fish, 1847. Limestone near Bala. Sir Roderick referred in the same number to the remains of a fish found by Professor Phillips in the Wenloek Shale. And such, up to the pres- ent time, is the actual amount of the evidence with which we have to deal, and the dates of its piecemeal production Let us next consider the order of its occurrence Fish, 1847, in the geologic scale. (Geologists of se Government The better marked Purvey.) , ,. . . - , a. sub-divisions of the Si- lurian System, as de- scribed in the great Fueoids work specially devoted to it, may be regarded a* seven in number. An eighth has since been Fish, 1847, (Sedgwick.) VFFEE ABB LOWER 1» added, by the transference of the Tilestone* from the lower «art of the Old Red Sandstone group, to the upper part of th* Silurian group underneath; but in order the better to show how ichthyie discovery has in its slow course penetrated into the depths, I shall retain the divisions recognized as those of the system when that course began. The highest or most modern Silurian deposit, then, (No. 1 of the accompanying diagram,) is the Upper Ludlow Rock; and it is in the superioi strata of this division that the bone-bed discovered in 1838 occurs; while the exceedingly minute vertebrate remains described by Professor Phillips in 1842 occur in its base. The division next in the descending order is the Aymestry Limestone, (No. 2;) the next (No. 3) the Lower Ludlow rock; then (No. 4) the Wenloek or Dudley Limestone occurs; and then, last and oldest deposit of the Upper Silurian forma- tion, the Wenloek shale, (No. 6.) It is in the fourth, or Wen- lock Limestone division, that the defensive spine described in the " Edinburgh Review" for 1845 as the oldest vertebrate organism known at the time, was found;* while the verte- brate organism found by Professor Phillips belongs to the fifth, or base deposit of the Upper Silurian. Further, the American spines of Onondago and Oriskany, described in 1846, occurred in rocks deemed contemporary with those of the Wenloek iivision. We next cross the line which separates the base of the Upper from the top of the Lower Silurian deposits, and find a great arenaceous formation, (No. 6,) known as the Caradoc Sandstones; while the Llandeilo Flags, (No. 7,) the formation upjn which the sandstones rest, compose, according to the sections of Sir Roderick, published in 1839, the lowest •«Th*shales o*em*^witotiwW*nlock Iime*tona'" (Bdinburfr Review.) 140 FIEBBS OF TEE STLERUB BOOXBt deposit of the Lower Silurian rocks. And it is in the upper part of this lowest member of the system that the ichthyie defences, announced in 1847 by Professor Sedgwick, occur. Vertebrate remains have now been detected in the same relative position in the seventh and most ancient membei of tht system, that they were found to occupy in i\a first and most modern member ten years ago. But this is not all. Beneath the Lower Silurian division there occur vast fossiliferous deposits, to which the name " Cambrian System " was given, merely provisionally, by Sir Roderick, but which Professor Sedgwick still retains as representative of a distinct geologic period; and it is in these, greatly below the Lower Silurian base line, as drawn in 1839, that the Bala Limestones occur. The Plynlimmon rocks (a) — a series of conglom- erate, grauwacke, and slate beds, several thousand yards in thickness — intervene between the Llandeilo Flags and the Limestones of Bala, (b.) And, of consequence, the defensive spine of the Onchus, announced in 1847 as detected in these limestones by the geologists of the Government Survey, must have formed part of a fish that perished many ages ere the oldest of the Lower Silurian formations began to be de- posited. Let us now, after this survey of both the amount of our materials, and the order and time of their occurrence, pass on to the question of size, as already stated. Did the ichthyie remains of the Silurian System, hitherto examined and described, belong to large or to small fishes? The question cannot be altogether so conclusively answered as in the case of those Ganoids of the Lower Old Red Sandstone whose derma skeletons indicate their original dimensions and form. in fishes of the Placoid order, such as the Sharks and Rays the dermal skeleton i« greatly less continuous and persisted UFFEB ANB LOWER. 141 than in such Ganoids as the Dipterians and Crelacanths; and when their remains occur in the fossil state, we can reason, in most instances, regarding the bulk of the individuals of which they formed part, merely from that of detached teeth or spines, whose proportion to the entire size of the animals that bore them cannot be strictly determined. We can, indeed, do little more than infer, that though a large Placoid may have been armed with but small spines or teeth, a small Placoid could not have borne very large ones. And to this Placoid order all the Silurian fish, from the Aymestry Limestone to the Cam- brian deposits of Bala inclusive, unequivocally belong. Nor, as has been already said, is there sufficient evidence to show that any of the ichthyie remains of the Upper Ludlow rocks do not belong to it. It is peculiarly the order of the system. The Ludlow bone-bed contains not only defensive spines, but also teeth, fragments of jaws, and shagreen points; whereas, in all the inferior deposits which yield any trace of the ver- ebrata, the remains are those of defensive spines exclusively. Let us, then, take the defensive spine as the part on which to found our comparison. One of the best marked Placoids of the Upper Ludlow bone-bed is that Onchus Murchisoni to which the distinguished geologist whose name it bears refers, in his communication, as so nearly resembling the oldest Placoid yet known, — that of the Bala Limestone. And the living fishes with which the Onchus Murchisoni must be compared, says Agassiz, though " the affinity," he adds, " may be rather distant," are those of the genera " Cestracion, Centrina, and Spinax." I have placed before me a specimen of recent Spinax, of a species well known to all my readers on the sea-coast, the Spinax Aeanthias, or common dog-fish, so little a favorite with our shermen. It measures eTaetlv two feet three inches in 14ft FI8BE8 OF TEE SILURIAN ROSES 1 length; and of the defensive spines of its two dorsals, — these spear-like thorns on the creature's back immediately in advance of the fins, which so frequently wound the fisher's hand,-—the anterior and smaller measures, from base to point, an inch and a half, and the posterior and larger, two inches. I have also placed before me a specimen of Cestra- don Phillippi, (the Port Jackson Shark,) a fish now recog- nized as the truest existing analogue of the Silurian Placoids. It measures twenty-two three fourth inches in length, and is furnished, like Spinax, with two dorsal spines, of which the anterior and larger measures from base to point one one half inch, and the posterior and smaller, one one fifth inch. But the defensive spine of the Onchus Murchisoni, as exhibited in one of the Ludlow specimens, measures, though mutilated at both ends, three inches and five eighth parts in length. Even though existing but as a fragment, it is as such nearly twice the length of the largest spine of the dog-fish, unmuti- lated and entire, and considerably more than twice the length of the largest spine of the Port Jackson Shark. The spines detected by Professor Phillips, in an inferior stratum of the same upper deposit, were, as has been shown, of microscopic minuteness; and when they seemed to rest on the extreme horizon of ichthyie existence as the most ancient remains of their kind, the author of the " Vestiges " availed himself of the fact. He regarded the little creatures to which they had belonged as the foatal embryos of their class, or—to emploj the language of the Edinburgh Reviewer — as " the tokens of Nature's first and half-abortive efforts to make fish out of the lower animals." From the latter editions of his work, the paragraph to which the Reviewer refers has, I find, been expunged; for the horizon has greatly extended, and what seemed to be its line of extreme distance has travelled into th* STPER ANB LOWER. I4B middle of the prospect. But that the passage snould have at all existed is a not uninstructive circumstance, and shows how unsafe it is, in more than external nature, to regard the line at which, for the time, the landscape closes, and heaver, and earth seem to meet, as in reality the world's end, The Wenloek spine, though certainly not microscopic, is, I am informed by Sir Philip Egerton, of but small size; where- as the contemporary spine of the Onondago Limestone, though comparatively more a fragment than the spine of the Upper Ludlow Onchus, — for it measures only three inches in wngth, — is at least five times a* bulky as the largest spine of Fig. 47. .t^swa-SS^a^ a Posterior Spine of Spinax Acanthias. b. Fragment of Onondago Spine (Natural Sise.) Spinax Acanthias. Representing one of the massier fishe* disporting amid the some four or five small ones, of which in my illustration, the naturalist catches a glimpse in ford- ing the unknown lake, it at least serves to show that all the Silurian ichthyolites must not be described as small, seeing that not only might many of its undetected fish have been large, but that some of those which have been detected were setuallv so- Another American spine, of nearly the same 144 FIBER* OF TEE SILURIAN ROSES . formation, —fbr it occur* in a limestone, varying from twenty tr seventy feet in thickness, which immediately overlies that of the Onondago deposit, though still more fragmentary than the first, for its length is only two three eighth inches, — maintains throughout a nearly equal thickness, — a circum- stance in itself indicative of considers. I.« size; and in posi- tive bulk it almost rivals the Onondago one. Of the Lower Silurian and Bala fishes no descriptions or figures have yet appeared. And such, up to the present time, is the testi- mony derived from this department of Geology, so far as 1 have been able to determine it, regarding the size of the an- cient Silurian vertebrata. " No organism," says Professor Oken, '* is, nor ever has one been, created, which is not mi- croscopic " The Professor's pupils and abettors, the assert- ore of the development hypothesis, appeal to the geologies evidence as altogether on their side in the case; and straight way a few witnesses enter court. But, lo I among the ex- pected dwarfs, there appear individuals of more than th* average bulk and stature. Still, however, the question of organization remains. Did these ancient Placoid fishes stand high or low in the scale ? According to the poet, " What can we reason but from whal we know ? " We are acquainted with the Placoid fishes of the present time ; and from these only, taking analogy as oui guide, can we form any judgment regarding the rank and standing of their predecessors, the Placoids of the geologic periods. But the consideration of this question, as it is specially one on which the later assertor* of the develop- ment hypothesis concentrate themselves, I must, to secure the ipace necessary for its discussion, defer till my next chapter. Meanwhile, 1 am conscious I owe an apology to the reader foi what he must deem tedious minuteness of description, and a UPPER ABB LOWER. 141 too prolix amplitude of statement. It is only by representing things as they actually are, and in the true order of then occurrence, that the effect of the partially selected facts and exaggerated descriptions of the Lamarckian can be adequate y met. True, the disadvantages of the more sober mode are anavoidably great. He who feels himself at liberty to arrange his collected shells, corals, and fish-bones, into artistically de- signed figures, and to select only the pretty ones, will be of course able to make of them a much finer show than he who is necessitated to represent them in the order and numerical proportions in which they occur on some pebbly beach washed 6y the sea. And such is the advantage, in a literary point of view, of the ingenious theorist, who, in making figures of his geological facts, takes no more of them than suits his purpose, over the man who has to communicate the facts as he finds them. But the homelier mode is the true one. " Could we obtain," says a distinguished metaphysician,"a distinct and full history of all that has passed in the mind of a child, from the beginning of life and sensation till it grows up to the use of reason, — how its infant faculties began to work, and how they brought forth and ripened all the various notions, opin- ions, and sentiments which we find in ourselves when we come to be capable of reflection, — this would be a treasure of natural history which would probably give more light into the human faculties than all the systems of philosophers about them since the beginning of the world. But it is in vain," he adds," to wish for what nature has not put within the reach of our power." In like manner, could we obtain, it may be remarked, a full and distinct account of a single class of the animal kingdom, from its first appearance till the present Bine," this would be a treasure of natural history which would east more light" on the origin of living existences, and the 15 ^dt FTSEE8 Ok TEE SILURIAN BOOS*, r true economy of creation, than all the theories of all the phi losophers " since the beginning of the world." And in ordei to approximate to such a history as nearly as possible, — and it does seem possible to approximate near enough to substantiate the true readings of the volume, and to correct the false ones, — it is nee ssary that the real vestiges of crea tion should be carefully investigated, and their order cf suc- cession ascertained. Wttm STAEMN6 OF TEE FaABeOB* ldfl HIGH STANDING OF THE PLACOIDS. — OBJBCTIONF CONSIDERED We have seen that some of the Silurian Placoids were large of size : the question still remains, Were they high in intel ligence and organization ? The Edinburgh Reviewer, in contending with the author of the "Vestiges." replies in the affirmative, by claiming for them the first place among fishes. " Taking into account," he says, " the brain and the whole nervous, circulating, and generative systems, they stand at the highest point of a nat- ural ascending scale." They are fishes, he again remarks, that rank among " the very highest types of their class." " The fishes of this early age, and of all other ages pre- vious to the Chalk," says his antagonist, in reply, " are, for the most part, cartilaginous. The cartilaginous fishes — Chondropterygii of Cuvier — are placed by that naturalist aa a second series in his descending scale ; being, however, he says, * in some measure parallel to the first.* How far this is different from their being the highest types of the fish class, need not be largely insisted upon. Linnaeus, again, was so impressed by the low characters of many of this order, that ae actually ranked them with worms. Some of the cartila- ginous fishes, nevertheless, have certain peculiar features of organization, chiefly connected with ^production in which t+s o av Barrens they exeel ether fish; but such features are partly partaken of by families in inferior sub-kingdoms, showing that they cannot truly be regarded as marks of grade in their own class. When we look to the great fundamental character* particularly to the framework for the attachment of the muscles, what do we find ? — why, that of these Placoids, — 1 the highest types of their class,' — it is barely possible to establish their being vertebrata at all, the back-bone having generally been too slight for preservation, although the ver- tebral columns of later fossil fishes are as entire as those sf any other animals. In many of them traces can be ob- served of the muscles having been attached to the externa] plates, strikingly indicating their low grade as vertebrate animals. The Edinburgh Reviewer ' highest types of their class ' are in reality a separate series of that class, generally inferior, taking the leading features of organization of struc- ture as a criterion, but when details of organization are re- garded, stretching farther, both downward and upward, than the other series ; so that, looking at one extremity, we are aa much entitled to call them the lowest, as the Reviewer, look ing at another extremity, is to call them the * highest of their class.' Of the general inferiority there can be no room for doubt Their cartilaginous structure is, in the first place, analogous to the embryonic state of vertebrated animals in general. The maxillary and intermaxillary bones are in (hern rudimental. Their tails are finned on the under side only — an admitted feature of the salmon in an embryonic stage; and the mouth is placed on the under s tie of th* head,— also a mean and embryonic feature of structure. These characters are essential and important, whatever the Edinburgh Reviewer may say to the contrary; they are th* characters which, above all, 1 am chiefly concerned in look* 0ONSLBEEEI*. 14* tog to, fbr they are features of embryonic progress, and em- bryonic progress is the grand key to the Uieory of develop- ment" Such is the ingenious piece of special pleading which this most popular of the Lamarckians directs against the standing and organization of the earlier fishes. Let us examine :t somewhat in detail, and see whether the slight admixture of truth which it contains serves to do aught more than to render current, like the gilding of a counterfeit guinea spread over the base metal, the amount of error which lies beneath. I know not a better example than that which it furnishes, of the entanglement and perplexity which the meshes of an arti* ficial classification, when converted, in argumentative pro cesses, into symbols and abstractions, are sure to involve subjects simple enough in themselves. Fishes, according to the classification of a preponderating majority of the ichthyologists that have flourished from the earliest times down to those of Agassiz, have been divided into two great series, the Ordinary or osseous, and the Chon- dropterygii or cartilaginous. And these two divisions of the class, instead of being ranged consecutively in a continuous line, the one in advance of the other, have been ranged in mo parallel lines, the one directly abreast of the othei There is this further peculiarity in the arrangement, that the line of the cartilaginous series, from the circumstance that some of its families rise higher and some sink lower in the scale than any of the ordinary fishes, outflanks the array of the osseous series at both ends. The front which it presents contains fewer genera and species than that of die osseous division ; but, like the front of an army drawn out in single file, it extends along a greater length of ground W to this long-fronted series of the cartilaginous, or, *c 160 OBJECTIONS cording to Cuvier, chondropterygtan fishes, the Placoid families of Agassiz belong, — among the rest, the Placoids of the Silu- rian formations, Upper and Lower. But though all the Pla- coids of this latter naturalist be cartilaginous fishes, all carti- laginous fishes are not Placoids. The Sturionida. are cartila- ginous, and are, as such, ranked by Cuvier among the Chan- dropterygii, whereas Agassiz places them in his Ganoid ordei Many of the extinct fishes, too, such as the Acanthodei, Dip- terida, Cephalaspida, were, as we have seen, cartilaginous in their internal framework, and yet true Ganoids notwith- standing. The principle of Agassiz's classification wholly differs from that of Cuvier and the older ichthyologists, for it is a classification founded, not on the character of the internal but on that of the cuticular or dermal skeleton. And while to the geologist it possesses great and obvious advan- tages over every other, — for of the earlier fishes very little more than the cuticular skeleton survives, — it has this further recommendation to the naturalist, that, (in so far at least as its author has been true to his own principles,) instead of anom- alously uniting the highest and lowest specimens of their class, — the fishes that most nearly approximate to the reptiles on the one hand, and the fishes that sink furthest towards the worms on the other, — it gathers into one consistent order all the individuals of the higher type, distinguished above their fellows by their development of brain, the extensive range of their instincts, and the perfection of their generative sys- tems. Further, the history of animal existences, as re- corded in the sedimentary rocks of our planet, reads a recom- mendation of this scheme of classification which it extends to no other. We find that in the progress of creation the fishes began to be by groupes and septa, arranged according to !be principle on which it erects its orders. The Placoids eOEBlBEBSB. lil came first, the Ganoids succeeded them, and the Ctenoids and Cycloids brought up the rear. The march has been marshalled according to an appomted programme, the order of whicn it is peculiarly the merit of Agassiz to have ascertained. Now, may I request the reader to mark, in the first place that what we have specially to deal with at the present stags of the argument are the Placoid fishes of the Silurian forma tions, Upper and Lower. May I ask him to take note, in the second, that the long-fronted chondropterygian series of Cuvier, though it includes, as has already been said, the Placoid order of Agassiz,—just as the red-blooded division of animals includes the bimana and quadrumana, — is no more to be regarded as identical with the Placoids, than the red-blooded animals are to be regarded as identical with the apes or with the human family. It simply includes them in the character of one of the three great divisions into which it has been separated, — the division ranged, if I may so express myself, on the extreme right of the line; its middle portion, or main body, being composed of the Sturiones, a family on the general level of the osseous fishes ; while, ranged on the extreme left, we find the low division of the Suctorii, i. e. Cyclostomi, or Lampreys. But with the middle and lower divisions we have at present nothing to do; for of neither of them, whether Sturiones or Suctorii, does the Silurian System exhibit a trace. Further be it remarked, that the scheme of classification which gives an abstract standing to die. Chondropterygii, is in itself merely a certain perception of resemblance which existed in certain minds, having carti- lage for its general idea; just as another certain perception of resemblance in one other certain mind had cuticular skeleton for its general idea, and as yet another perception ot resemblance in yet other certain minds had red blood for m OBJECTIONI' ha general idea. As shown by the disparities which obtain among the section which the scheme serves to separate fron. the others, it no more determines rank or standing than that greatly more ancient scheme of classification into " ring' streaked and spotted," which served to distinguish the flocks of the patriarch Jacob from those of Laban his father-in-law, but which did not distinguish goats from sheep, nor sheep from cattle. The effect of introducing, after this manner, generalizations made altogether irrespective of rank, and avowedly without reference to it, into what are inherently and specifically que*- tions of rank, admits of a simple illustration. Let us suppose that it was not with the standing of the Silurian Placoids that wo had to deal, but with that of the mammals of the recent period, including the quadrumana, and even the bimana, and that we had ventured to describe them, in the words of the Edinburgh Reviewer, as " the very highest types of their class." What would be thought of the reasoner who, in challenging the justice of the estimate, would argue that these creatures, men as well as monkeys, belonged simply to that division of red-blooded animals which includes, with the bimana and quadrumana, the frog, the gud- geon, and the earthworm ? — a division, he might add, "which when details of organization are regarded, stretches farther both downward and upward," than that division of the white- blooded animals to which the crab, the spider, the cuttle-fish, and the dragon fly belong; " so that, looking at one extremity, any one is as much entitled to call the red-blooded animals the lowest division, as any other, looking at another ex- tremity, is to call them the highest division, of animals." What, it might well be asked in reply, has the earthworm, with its red blood to do in a question respecting the place bOBSIBBBEfc. 168 aad standing of the bimana ? Or what, in the parallsl ease, save the fnutorii:— the worms of Linmeua — to do in a question respecting the place and standing of the real Placoids ? True it is that, according to one principle of classification, now grown somewhat obsolete, men and earth- worms are equally red-blooded animal*; true it is that, according to another principle of classification, the Placoids of Agassiz and the cartilaginous worms of Linnaeus are equally Chondropterygii. The bimana and the earthworm have their red blood in common; the glutinous hag and the true Placoida have as certainly their internal cartilage in common; and if the fact of the red blood of the worm lowers in no degree the rank of the bimana, then, on the same principle, the fact of the internal cartilage of the glutinous hag cannoi possibly detract from the standing of the true Placoid. In both cases they are creature* that entirely differ, — the earth- worms from the bimana, and the cartilaginous worms from the Placoids; and the classification which tags them together, whether it be that of Aristotle or that of Cuvier, cannot be converted into a sort of minus quantity, of force enough to detract from the value and standing of the bimana in the one case, or of the true Placoids in the other. It is in no degree derogatory to the human family that earth- worms possess red blood; it is in no degree derogatory to the true Placoida that the Suctorii poaseas cartilaginous skeletons. Let the reader now mark the use which has been made, by the author of the " Vestiges," of the name and authority of Linneus. " Linnwus," he states,<( was so impressed by the low character of man} of this order, (the Chondropterygii,) hat he actually ranked them with worms." Now, what is the act here ? Simply that Linnssua had no such general ordei 154 OBJECTIONS as the Chondropterygii in his eye at all. Though chiefly remarkable as a naturalist for the artificialness of his classifi- cations, his estimate of the cartilaginous fishes was remarkable — though carried too far in its extremes, and in some cagree founded in error — for an opposite quality. It was an estimate formed, in the main, on a natural basis. Instead of taking their cartilaginous skeleton into account, he looked chiefly at their standing as animals; and, struck with that extent of front which they present, and with both their superiority on the ex- treme right, and their inferiority on the extreme left, to the ordinary fishes, he erected them into two separate orders, the one lower and the other higher than the members of the osse- ous line. And so far was he from regarding the true Placoids — those Chondropterygii which to an internal skeleton of cartilage add external plates, points, or spines of bone — as low in the scale, that he actually raised them above fishes alto- gether, by erecting them into an order of reptiles, — the order Amphibia Nantes. Surely, if the name of Linnaeus was to be introduced into this controversy at all, it ought to have been in connection with this special fact; seeing that the point to be determined in the question under discussion is simply the place and standing of that very order which the naturalist rated so high, — not the place and standing of the order which he degraded. It so happens that there is one of the Chon- dropterygii which, so far from being a true Placoid, does not possess a single osseous plate, point, or spine: it is a worm like creature, without eyes, without movable jaws, without vertebral joints, without scales, always enveloped in slime, and greatly abhorred by our Scotch boatmen of the Moray Frith, who hold that it burrows, like the grave-worm, in the decaying bodies of the dead. And this creature, " the glutinous hag," or, according to north-countrv fishermen, the eeNSIBRREB. Ii5 ' raraper-eel," or u poison-ramper," was regarded by Lia- nssus as belonging, not to the class of fishes, but to the Vermes. Now, this is the special fact with which, in the development controversy, the author of the " Vestiges M con- nects the name of the Swedish naturalist f All the fish of the Silurian System belonged to that true Placoid order which Linnaeus, impressed by its high standing, erected into an order, not of worms, but of reptiles. He elevated A, the true Placoid, while he degraded B, the glutinous hag. But it was necessary to the argument of the author of the " Ves- tiges " that the earliest existing fish should be represented as fish low in the scale; and so he has cited the name and authority of Linnaeus in its bearing against the glutinous hag B, as if it had borne against the standing of the true Placoid A. The Patagonians are the tallest and bulkiest men in the world, whereas their neighbors the Fuegians are a slim and diminutive race. And if, in some controversy raised regard- ing the real size of the more gigantic tribe, they were to be described as the " very tallest types of their class," any state- ment in reply, to the effect that some trustworthy voyager had examined certain races of the extreme south of America, and had found that they were both short and thin, would be neither relevant in its facts nor legitimate in its bearing. But if the controversialist who thus strove to strengthen his case by the voyager's authority, was at the same time fully aware that the voyager had seen not only the diminutive Fuegians, but also the gigantic Patagonians, and that he had described these last as very gigantic indeed, the introduction of the statement regarding the smaller race, when he wholly sank the statement regarding the larger, would be not merely very irrelevant in the circumstances, but also very unfair. Such, however, is the style of statement to which the author ef the 1M PBOesJBBS * Vestiges " has (1 trust inadvertently) reeortod xa that eon troversy. It is not uninstructive to mark how slowly and gradually the naturalists have been groping their way to a right ciasaifi cation hi the ichthyie department of their science, and how it has been that identical perception of resemblance, having cartilage for its general idea, to which the author of the " Vestiges " attaches so much importance, that has served mainly to retard their progress. Not a few of the more dis- tinguished among their number deemed it too important a distinction to be regarded as merely secondary; and so long as it was retained as a primary characteristic, the fishes failed to range themselves in the natural order;—dissimilar tribes were brought into close neighborhood, while tribes nearly allied were widely separated. It failed, a* has been shown, to influence Linnaeus; and though he no doubt pressed hi* peculiar views too far when he degraded the glutinous has into a worm, and elevated the Sharks and Rays into reptiles it is certainly worthy of remark, that, in the scheme of class- ification which i* now regarded as the most natural, — that of Professor Muller, modified by Professor Owen, — the iehthyic worms of the Swede are placed in the first and lowest order of fishes, — the Dermopteri, — and the greater part of his ichthyie reptiles, in the eleventh and highest,— the Plagiostomi. Cuvier yielded, aa has been shown, to the idea of resemblance founded on the material of the ichthyie framework, and so ranged his fishes into two parallel lines. Professor Oken, after first enunciating as law that " the char acteristie organ of fishes is the osseous system," confessed the " great difficulty " which attaches to the question of skel- etal " texture or substance," and finally gave up the distinctior founded on it as obstinately irreducible to the purposes of a 0F ICSTHVlfl CLASSIFICATION. IfF) antural classification. " The cartilaginous fiahe*,'5 he says,•* »o pear to belong to each other, and are also usually arranged to- gether ; yet amongst them we find those species, such a* th« Lampreys, which obviously occupy the lowest grade of all fishes, while the Sharks and Rays remind us of the Reptilia." Auad so, sinking the consideration of texture altogether, he placed the family of the Lamprey, including the glutinous hag, at the bottom of the scale, and the Sharks and Rays at the top. Agassiz's system, peculiarly his own, has had the rare merit as I have shown, of furnishing a key to the history of the fish in its several dynasties, which we may in vain seek in any other. His divisions,— if, retaining his strongly-marked Placoids and Ganoids, as orders stamped in the mint of nature, we throw his perhaps less obviously divisible Ctenoids and Cy- cloids into one order,— the corneous or horn-covered, — are scarcely lew representative of periods than those great classes of the vertebrata, mammals, birds, reptiles, and fishes, which we find not less regularly ranged in their order of succession in the geologic record than in the " Animal Kingdom " of Cuvier,— a shrewd corroboration, in both cases, I am dis- posed to th? ik, of the rectitude of the arrangement What seems to be the special defect of his system is, that having erected his four orders, and then finding a certain number of residuary families that, on his principle of cuticular character; stubbornly refused to fall into any determinate place, he dis- tributed them among the others, with reference chiefly to the totally distinct principle of Cuvier. Thus the Suctorii, soft, smooth, slimy-skinned fishes, that do not possess a single placoid character, and are not true Placoids, he has yet placed in his Placoid order, influenced, apparently, by the " per- ception of resemblance that has cartilage for its central den;" and the effect has been a massing into one SBOsanlnia 14 tm PEOSRBaS and entangled group the fishes of the first period of geologic history, with fishes of which we do not find a trace save in the existing scene of things, and of the highest families of their class with families that occupy the lowest place. But we live in an age in which even the benefactors of the world of mind cannot make false steps with impunity; and so while Agassiz's three ichthyie orders will continue to be recognized by the palaeontologist as the orders of three great geologic periods, the Suctorii have already been struck from off his higher fishes by the classification of Muller and Owen, and carried to that lowest point in the scale (indicated by Linnaeus and Oken) which their infbrior standing renders so obviously the natural one. Some of my readers may per- haps remember how finely Bacon, in his " Wisdom of the Ancients," interprets the old mythologio story of Prometheus Prometheus, says the philosopher, had conferred inestimable favors on men, by moulding their forms into shape, and bring- ing them fire from heaven ; and yet they complained ef him and his teachings to Jupiter. And the god, instead of cen- suring their ingratitude, was pleased with the complaint, and rewarded them with gifts. In putting nature to the question, it is eminently wholesome to be doubting, cross-examining, complaining; ever demanding of our masters and benefactors the philosophers, that they should reign over us, not arbitra rily and despotically, m Like the old kings, with high *xaeting looks, Seeptred and globed," but like our modern constituuonal monarchs, who govern by law ; and, further, that an appeal from their decisions on aa! subjects within the jurisdiction of Nature should for ever he open to Nature herself. The »eeming ingratitude of sue* •F ICETrETIC CLAaHFICATieB. 159 a course, if the "complaints" be made ia a right spirit and on proper grounds, Jupiter always rewards with gifts. Let u* now see for ourselves, in this sprit, whether there may not be something absolutely derogatory, in the existence of a cartilaginous skeleton, to the creatures possessing it; or whether a deficit of internal bone may nf$ be greatly more than neutralized, as it assuredly must have been in the view of Linnaeus, Muller, and Owen, by a larger than ordinary share of a vastly more important substance MS BANE BETENBENT TBS PLAOOID BBJLDI. EHBBTORIO 0SURACTRRIST1CS NOT NECESSAEILT OI A L9<» OEBEB. Teat special substance, according to whose mas* and de- gree of development all the creatures of this world take rank in the scale of creation, is not bone, but brain. Were ani- mals to be ranged according to the solidity of their bones, the elass of birds would be assigned the first place; the family of the Felida, including the tiger and lion, the second; and the other terrestrial carnivore, the third. Man and the herbiv- orous animal*, though tolerably low in the scale, would be in advance of at least the reptiles. Most of these, however, would take precedence of the sagacious Delphinida; the osseous fishes would come next in order; the true Placoids would follow, succeeded by the Sturiones ; and the Suctorii, i. *. Cyclostomi or Lampreys, would bring up the rear. There would be evidently no order here : the utter confusion of such an arrangement, like that of the bits of a dissected map flung carelessly out of its box by a child, would of itself demonstrate the inadequacy and erroneouaness of the regulating principle. But how very different the appear- ance presented, when for solidity of bone we aubsti- hite dsvslmpmmt of brain/ Man takes his proper place en brain, serf bobs. lei at tha head of creation , the lower mamaasJia follow,—aad species in due order, according to ha asoeucum of intel- ligence ; the birds succeed the maaunaiia ; the reptiles sue ceed the birds; the fishes succeed the reptiles; next in the long procession come the invertebrate animals; and these, too, take rank, if not according to their devolopmen of brain proper, at least according to their development of the substance of brain. The occipital nervous ganglion of the scorpion greatly exceeds in adze that of the earthworm; and the occipital nervous ring of the lobster, that of the intes- tinal Ascaris. At length, when we reach tha krwest «r aerite division of the animal kingdom, tha saaataBew ptohed and «pott*d. TEE EMBRYONIC TAIL. 1#9 sart ef the skeleton which is homologically representative of the skeletons of the higher vertebrata, from that part of it whieh is peculiar to the creature as a fish, viz. the dorsal and caudal rays, and the extremities of the double fins. These emphatically ichthyie portions of the animal may be dissi- pated by boiling, whereas what Linnaeus would perhaps term its reptilian portion abides the heat without reduction. But is not the one-sided tail, so characteristic of the sharks, and of almost all the ancient Ganoids, also a characteristic of the young salmon just burst from the egg ? Yes, assuredly; and, so far as research on the subject has yet extended, of not only the salmon, but of all the other osseous fishes in their foetal state. The salmon, on its escape from the egg, ia a little monster of about three quarters of an inch in length, with a huge heart-shaped bag, as bulky as all the rest of its body, depending from its abdomen. In this bag provident nature has packed up for it, in lieu of a nurse, food for five weeks; and, moving about every where in its shallow pool, with its provision knapsack slung fast to it, it reminds on* disposed to be fanciful, save that its burden is on the wrong ■ide, of Scottish soldiers of the olden time summoned to attond their king in war, — M Bach on his back, a slender store, His forty days' provision bore, As ancient statutes tell." Around that terminal part of the creature'* body traversed by the caudal portion of the vertebral column, which com- mences in the salmon immediately behind the ventrals, there runs at this period, and for the ensuing five weeks in which it does not feed, a membranous fringe or fin, which exactly resembles that of the tadpole, and which, existing simply a* aa expansion of the skin, exhibits no mark or rays. Ia th* lft 1TO EMBRVONIC PECULIARITTES place ef the true caudal fin, however, we may detect with the assistance of a lens, an internal framework with two well-marked lobes, and ascertain, further, that this tail is set on awry, — the effect of a slight upward bend in the creature'* body. And when viewed in a strong light as a transparency we perceive that the spinal cord takes the same upward bend and, as in the sturgeon, passes in an exceedingly attenuated form into the upper lobe. What may be regarded as the design of the arrangement is probably to be found in the pe -uliar form given to the little creature by the protuberan bag in front. A wise instinct teaches it, from the moment of its exclusion from the egg, to avoid its enemies. In the in- stant the human shadow falls upon its pool, we see it darting into some recess at the side or bottom, with singular alacrity; and in order to enable it to do so, and to steer itself aright, — as, like an ill-trimmed vessel, deep in the water ahead, the balance of its body is imperfect, — there is, if I may so ex- press myself, a heterocercal peculiarity of helm required. It has got an irregularly-developed tail to balance an irregularly- developed body, as skiffs lean on the one beam and full on the other require, in rowing, a cast of the rudder to keep them straight in their course. Sinking altogether, however, the final cause of the peculi- arity, and regarding it simply as a fatal one, that indicates a certain stage of imperfection in the creature in which it oc- curs, on what principle, I ask, are we to infer that what is a sign of immaturity in the young of one set of animals, is a mark of inferior organization in the adult forms of another set ? The want of eyes in any of the animal families, or the want of organs of progression, or a fixed and sedentary con dition, like that of the oyster, are all marks of great inferion rv. And yet, if we admit the principle, that what are evidences NOT NSCXSSARILY OF A LOW ORDER. 171 of immaturity in the young members of one family are signs *f inferior organization in the fully-grown members of another, it could easily be shown that eyes and legs are defects, and that the unmoving oyster stands higher in the scale than the ever-restless fish or bird. The immature Tubularia possess locomotive powers, whereas in their fully developed state they remain fixed to one spot in their convoluted tubes. The im- mature Lepas is furnished with members well adapted for swimming, and with which it swims freely; as it rises to w...as maturity, these become blighted and weak; and, when fully grown,—fixed by its fleshy pedicle to the rock or float- ing log to which it attached itself in its transition state, — it is no longer able to swim. The immature Balanus is fur nished with two eyes: in its state of maturity these are ex anguished, and it passes its period of full development in darkness. Further, it is not generally held that in the human family a white skin is a decided mark of degradation, but rather the reverse ; and yet nothing can be more certain than that the Negro foetus has a white skin. Since eyes, and or- gans of progression, and a power of moving freely, and a white skin, are mere embryonic peculiarities in the Balanus the Lepas, the Tubularia, and the Negro, and yet are in them- ■elves, when found in the mature animal, evidences of a high, not of a low standing, on what principle, I ask are wa to infer tnat the peculiarity of a heterocercal tail, embryonic in the salmon, is, when found in the mature Placoid, an evi dence, not of a high standing, but of a low ' Every true analogy in the case favors an exactly opposite view. In the heterocercal or one-sided tail, the vertebral joints gradually diminish, as in the tails of the Sauria and Ophidia, till they terminate in a point; whereas the homocerca) tail common to me oeseous fishe* exhibit* no true analogy with any tails rn TEE FLACOIB TAIL. si the hgher order*. Its abruptly terminating vertebral co umn, .mmensely developed posterior processes, and broadly expanded osseous rays, seem to be simply a few of the many ma?ks of decline and degradation which fishes, the oldest of the vertebrata, exhibit in this late age of the world, and which in at least the earlier geologic periods, when they were great y younger as a class, they did not betray. Fig. 48. a Tail of Spinax Acanthias. b. Tail of Ichthyosaurus Tenuirostru, (Bnckland.) In illustration of this view, I would fain recommend to the reader a simple experiment. Let him procure the tail of a common dog-fish, (fig. 48, a,) and cutting it across about half an inch above where the caudal fin begins, let him boil it roBRrtly fbr about half an hour. He will first see it swell TEE FLACOIB FAX*. 1*0 and then burst, all around those thinner parts of th* fin tha are traversed by the caudal rays, — wholly mucoidal, as showc by this test, in their texture, and which yield to the boiling water, as if formed of isinglass. They finally dissolve, and drop away, with the surrounding cuticular integument; and then there only remains, as the insoluble framework of the whole, the bodies of the vertebrae, with their neural and hoemal processes. The tail has now lost much of its ichthyie character, and has acquired, instead, a considerable degree of resemblance to the reptilian tail, as exemplified in the sau- rians. I have introduced into the wood-cut, for the purpose of comparison, the tail of the ichthyosaurus, (*.) It consists like the other, of a series of gradually diminishing vertebra. and must have also supported, says Professor Owen, a pro- pelling fin, placed vertically, as in the shark, which, how ever, from its perishable nature, has in every instance dis appeared in the earth, as that of the dog-fish disappears in the boiling water. It will be seen that its processes are com paratively smaller than those of the fish, and that the bodies of its vertebrae are shorter and bulkier; but there is at least a general correspondence of the parts ; and were the tail of the crocodile, of which the vertebral bodies are slender and the processes large, to be substituted for that of the enaliosaur here the correspondence would be more marked still. After thus developing the tail of the reptile out of that of the fish, — as the cauldron-bearing Irish magician of the tale developed young ladies out of old women, — simply by boiling, let the reader proceed to a second stage of the experiment, and see whether he may not be able still further to develope the reptilian tail so obtained, into that of the mammal, by burning. Let him spread it out on a piece of iron hoop, and thrust it into the fire 5 and then, after exposure for some time to a red heat ha* m TEE FLAOOIB TATA. consumed and dissipated its merely cartilaginous portions such as the neural and hosmal processes, with the little pieces which form the sides of the neural arch, and left only the wh tened bodies of the vertebrae, let him say whether the bony portion which remains does not present a more exact resemblance to the mammiferous tail — that of the dog, for example — than any thing else he ever saw. Th© Lamarck- &ns may well deem it an unlucky circumstance, that one spe- cial portion of their theory should demand the depreciation of ihe heterocercal tail, seeing that it might be represented with excellent effect in another, as not merely a connecting link in the upward march of progression between the tail of the true fish and that of the true reptile, but as actually containing in itself— as the caterpillar contains the future pupa and but- terfly — the elements of the reptilian and mammiferous tan. If there be any virtue in analogy the heterocercal tail is, I epeat, of a decidedly higher type than the homocercal one. It furnishes the first example in the vertebrata of the coc- cygeal vertebra diminishing to a point, which characterizes not only all the higher reptiles, but also all the higher mam- mals, and which we find represented by the Os coccygis in man himself. But to this special point I shall again refer. With regard to that rudimentary state of the occipital framework of the Placoids to which the author of the " Ves- tiges" refers, it may be but necessary to say that, notwith- standing the simplicity of their box-like skulls, they bear in their character, as cases for the protection of the brain at least as close an analogy to the skulls of the higher ani- mals, as those of the osseous fishes, which consist usually of the extraordinary number of from sixty to eighty bones — i mark — the author of the " Vestiges " himself being judge in the case — rather of inferiority than the reverse. " Ele- THE PLACOID CRANIUM ABB MOUTB. 171 nation is marked in the scale," we find him saying, " By an animal exchanging a multiplicity of parts serving one end, for a smaller number." The skull of a cod consists of about thrice as many separate bones as that of a man. But I do not we.l see that in this case the fact either of simplicity in excess or of multiplicity in excess can be insisted upon ia e'ther direction, as a proper basis for argument Nearly the same remark applies to the maxillaries as to the skull. The under jaw in man consists of a single bone; that of the thorn- back — if we do not include the two suspending ribs, which belong equally to the upper jaw — of two bones, (the number in all the mammiferous quadrupeds :i that of the cod of four bones, and, if we include the suspending rib*, of twelve. On what principle are we to hold, with one as the repre- sentative number of the highest type of jaw, that two in- dicates a lower standing than four, or four than twelve f In reference to the further statement, that in many of the an- cient fishes " traces can be observed of the muscles hav ing been attached to the external plates, strikingly indi- cating their low grade as vertebrate animals," it may be answer enough to state, that the peculiarity in question was not a characteristic of the most ancient fishes, — the Placoida of the Silurian system, — but of some Ganoids of the suc- ceeding systems. The reader may remember, as a case in point, the example furnished by the nail-like bone of Asterolepis, figured in page HI, in which there exists depres- sions resembling that of the round ligament in the head of the quadrupedal thigh-bone. And as for the remark tha). the opening of tne mouth of the Placoid, " on the under side of the head," is indicative of a low embryonic condition, it might be almost sufficient to remark, in turn, that the lowest family of fishes — that to which the supposed worme lit TEE FEASOIB af LinBJsas belong— have the mouth net under, bat at the anterior termination of the head, — in itself an evidence that the position of the mouth at the extremity of the mux- ale, common to the greater number of the osseous fishes; can be no very high character, seeing that the humblest of the Suctorii possess it; and that many osseous fishes, whose mouths open, not on the under, but the upper side of the snout, as in the distorted and asymetrical genus Platessa, are not only in no degree superior to their bony neighbors, and far inferior to the placoid ones, but bear, in direct coil- s'.- - uce of the arrangement, an expression of unmistakable stupidity. The objection, however, admits of a greatly mors conclusive reply. " This fish, to speak in the technical language of Agassis.' says the Edinburgh Reviewer, in reference to the ancien ichthyolite of the Wenloek Shale," undoubtedly belongs ti the Cestraciont family of the Placoid order, — proving tc demonstration that the oldest known fossil fish [1845] be- longs to the highest type of that division of the vertebrata." I may add, that the character and family of this ancient specimen was determined by our highest British authority in fossil ichthyology, Sir Philip Egerton. And it is in depre- ciation of Professor Sedgwick's statement regarding its higk standing that the author of the " Vestiges" refers to the supposed inferiority indicated by a mouth opening, not at the extremity of the muzzle, but under the head. Let us, then, fully grant, for the argument's sake, that the occurrence of the mouth in the muzzle is a sign of superiority, and its oc- currence under the head a mark of great inferiority, and then ascertain how the fact stands with regard to the Cestra- cie-n. " The Cestracion sub-genus," says Mr. James Wilson, ia his admirable treatise on fishes, whieh form* the articl* 4RANIUM ABB M0BTE. m Ichthyology in the " Encyclopaedia Britannica," u has the temporal aperture, the anal fin, and rounded teeth, of Squalus Mustelus, but the mouth is teeminal, or at the ex rRRMrrr of tee pointrd muzzle." The accoinpanj ing Fig. «». roar jacxsoh shauk, {Cestracion Phillippi.) figure, (fig. 49,) taken from a specimen of Cestracion in the collection of Professor John Fleming, may be recorded as of some little interest, both from its direct bearing on the point in question, and from the circumstance that it represents, not inadequately for its size, the sole surviving species (Cestracion Phillippi) of the oldest vertebrate family of creation. With this family, so far as is yet known, ichthyie existence first be- gan. It does not appear that on the globe which we inhabit there was ever an ocean tenanted by living creatures at all that had not its Cestracion, — a statement which could not be made regarding any other vertebrate family. In Agassiz's " Tabular View of the Genealogy of Fishes," the Cestracionts, and they only, sweep across the entire geologic scale. And, as shown in the figure, the mouth in this ancient family, instead of opening, as in the ordinary sharks, under the middle of th* head, to expose them to the *u*picion of being creature* of m QESTATIOE lew and embryonic character, opened hi a broad, honest Iota lag muzzle, very much resembling that of the hog. Tha mouths of the most ancient Placoids of which we know any thing, did not, I reiterate, open under their heads. But why introduce the element of embryonic progress into Ms question at all ? It is not a question of embryonic pro- gress. The very legerdemain of the sophist — the juggling by which he substitutes his white balls for black, or converts his pigeons into crows — consists in the art of attaching the conclusions founded on the facts or conditions of one sub- ject, to some other subject essentially distinct in its nature. Gestation is not creation. The history of the young of ani- mals in their embryonic state is simply the history of the festal young; just as the history of insect transformation, in which it has been held by good men. but weak reasoners, that there exists direct evidence of the doctrine of the resurrection, is the history of insect transformation, and of nothing else. True, the human mind is so constituted that it converts all nature into a storehouse of comparisons and analogies; and this fact of the metamorphosis of the creeping caterpillar, after first passing through an intermediate period of apparen death as an inert aurelia, into a winged image, seemed tc have seized on the human fancy at a very early age, as won- derfully illustrative of life, death, and the future state. The Egyptians wrapped up the bodies of their dead in the chrysalis form, so that a mummy, in their apprehension, was simply a human pupa, waiting the period of its enlargement; and the Greeks had but one word in their language for butterfly and the soul. But not the less true is it, notwithstanding, that the facts of insect transformation furnish no legitimate key to the totally distinct facts of a resurrection of the body, and of a life after death. And on what principle, then, are we to trace EOT CBBATieN 179 the origin of past dynasties in the changes of the foetus, if not the rise of the future dynasty in the transformations of the caterpillar ? " These [embryonic] characters [that of the heterocercal tail, and of the mouth of the ordinary shark type] are essential and important," remarks the author of tht> "" Vestiges," " whatever the Edinburgh Reviewer may say to the contrary ; — they are the characters which, above all, I am chiefly concerned in looking to, for they are the features of embryonic progress, and embryonic progress is the grand key to the theory of development." Yes ; the grand key to the theory of foetal development; for embryonic progress is foetal development But on what is the assertion based that they form a key to the history of creation ? Aurelia are not human bodies laid out for the sepulchre, nor are butterflies human souls ; as certainly gestation is not creation, nor a life of months in the uterus a succession of races for mil- lions of ages outside of it. On what grounds, then, is the assertion made ? Does it embody the result of a discovery, or announce the message of a revelation ? Did the author of the " Vestiges " find it out for himself, or did an angel from heaven tell it him ? If it be a discovery, show us, we ask, the steps through which you have been conducted to it; if a revolution produce, for our satisfaction, the evidence or which it rests. For we are not to accept as data, in a ques- tion of science, idle comparisons or vague analogies, whethei produced through the intentional juggling of the sophist, 01 ^voluntarily conjured up in the dreamy delirium of an excited fancy. It is one of the difficulties incident to the task of replying to any dogmatic statement of error, that every mere annun- ciation of a false fact or false principle must be met by elab- orate counter-statement or carefully constructed argument I«*J APo&oev. and that prolixity is thus unavoidably entailed on the wntrr veraialiat who labor* to set right what his antagonist has so*. wrong. The promulgator of error may be lively and enter- taining whereas hi* pains-taking confutetor run* no small risk of being tedious and dull. May I, however, solicit the for- bearance of the reader, if, after already spending much time in skirmishing on ground taken up by the enemy, —one of the disadvantages incident to the mere defendant in a contro- versy of this nature, —I spend a little more in indicating what I deem the proper ground on which the standing of the earlier vertebrata should be decided. To the test of brain I nave already referred, as all-important m the question: I would now refer to the test of what may be termed homologieal symmetr* of organization. THE PRINCIPLE OF DEGRADATION. 181 THE PROGRESS OF DEGRADATION. ITS HISTORY. Though all animals be fitted by nature for the life which their instincts teach them to pursue, naturalists have learned to recognize among them certain aberrant and mutilated forms, in which the type of the special class to which they belong seems distorted and degraded. They exist as the monster famities of creation, just as among families there ap- pear from time to time monster individuals,—men, for in- stance, without feet, or hands, or eyes, or with their feet, hands, or eyes grievously misplaced,—sheep with their fore legs growing out of their necks, or ducklings with their wings attached to their haunches. Among these degraded races, that of the footiess serpent, which "goeth upon its belly," has been long noted by the theologian as a race typi- cal, rii its condition and nature, of an order o^ hopelessly degraded beings, borne down to the dust by a clinging curse; am\curiously enough, when the first comparative anatomists in me world give their readiest and most prominent instance of degradation among the denizms of the natural world, it is this very order of footless reptiles that they select. So far as the geologist yet knows, the Ophidians did not appear during the Secondary ages, when the monarch? of creation belonged 16 188 TEE PRINCIPLE to the reptilian division, but were ushered upon the scene in the times of the Tertiary deposits, when the mammalian dynasty had supplanted that of the Iguanodou and Megalosau- rus. Their ill omened birth took place when the influence ef their house was on the wane, as if to set such a stamp of otter hopelessness on its fallen condition, as that set by the birth of a worthless or idiot heir on the fortunes of a sinking family. The degradation of the Ophidians consists in the absence of limbs, — an absence total in by much the greater number of their families, and represented in others, as in the boas and pythons, by mere abortive hinder limbs con cealed in the skin; but they are thus not only monsters through defect of parts, if I may so express myself, but also monsters through redundancy, as a vegetative repe- tition of vertebra and ribs, to the number of three or four hundred, forms the special contrivance by which the want of these is compensated. I am also disposed to regard th* poison-bag of the venomous snakes as a mark of degra- dation ; — it seems, judging from analogy, to be a pro- tective provision of a low character, exemplified chiefly in the invertebrate families, — ants, centipides, and mosqui- tos, — spiders, wasps, and scorpions. The higher camivora are, we find, furnished with unpoisoned weapons, which. Eke those of civilized man, are sufficiently effective, simply from the excellence of their construction, and the power with which they are wielded, for every purpose of assault or defence It is only the squalid savages and degraded boschmen of creation that have their feeble teeth and tiny ■tings steeped in venom, and so made formidable. Monstros- ity through displacement of parts constitutes yet another form of degradation; and this form, united, in some instances, te the other two, we find curiously exemplified in tha geologies EF BSanAutofTO*. 133 history of the fish, — a history which, with all its blanks* aad missing portions, is yet better known than that of any other division of the vertebrata. And h is, I am convinced, from » survey of the progress of degradation in the great iehthy: division, —a progress recorded at "with a pen of Iron u. the rock for ever," — and not from superficial views founded on the cartilaginous or non-cartilaginous texture of the iehthyic skeleton, that the standing of the kingly fishes of the earlier periods is to be adequately determined. Any other mode of survey, save the parallel mode which takes developmen of brain into account, evolves, we find, nothing like principle, and lands the inquirer in inextricable difficulties and incon- sistencies. In all the higher non-degraded vertebrata we find a certain uniform type of skeleton, consisting of the head, the vertebral column, and four limbs, and these last, in the various sym- metrical forms, whether exemplified in the higher fish, the higher reptiles, the higher birds, the higher mammals, or in man himself, occur always in a certain determinate order. In all the mammals, the scapular bases of the fore limbs begin opposite the eighth vertebra from the skull backward*, the seven which go before being cervical or neck vertebrae; in the birds, — a division of the vertebrata that, from their pecu- liar organization, require longer and more flexible necks than the mammals, — the scapulars begin at distances from the occiput, varying, according to the species, from opposite the thirteenth to opposite the twenty-fourth vertebra ; and in the reptiles —a division which, according to Cuvier, " presents a greater diversity of forms, character*, and modes of gait, than any of the other two," — they occur at almost all points, from opposite the second vertebra, at in the frog, to opposite the thirty-third or thirty-fourth vertebra, as ia sasae species 181 FEOaBESa sf Btostesmurus. But in all,— whether mamma Is, bird*, 01 aadegraded reptiles, — they are so placed, that the creatures posses* necks, of greater or less length, as an essential portion of their general type. The hinder limbs have also in all ' e three divisions of the animal kingdom their typical place. They occur opposite, or very nearly opposite, the posterior termination of the abdominal cavity, and mark the line of separation between the vertebrae of the trunk (dorsal lumbar, and sacral) and the third and last, or caudal division ef the column,—a division represented in man by but four vertebra*, and in the crocodile by about thirty-five, but which is found to exist, as I have already said, in all the more per- fect forms. The limbs, then, in all the symmetrical animals ef the first three classes of the vertebrata, mark the three great divisions of the vertebral column, — the division of the neck, the division of the trunk, and the division of the tail. Let us now inquire how the case atands with the fourth and lowest class, — that of the fishe*. In those existing Placoid* that represent the fishes of the earliest vertebrate period, the places of the double fins, — pectorals and ventrals, — which form in the ichthyie class th« true homologues of the limbs, correspond to the places which these occupy in the symmetrical mammals, birds, and reptile* The scapular bases of the fore or pectoral fins ordinarily be gin opposite the twelfth or fourteenth vertebra ,* but they range as in man and the mammals, in a forward direction, so that the fin* themselves are opposite the eighth or tenth. The pelvic bases of the ventral fins are placed nearly opposite the base of the abdomen, ao that, as ia all the synunetrical animals, th* OF BESEABATlaM. ie% vent opens between, or nearly between, those hinder limbs which the bases »upport. In the Ray*, which, so far aa is ye. known, did not appear in creation until the Secondary ages had begun, the bases of the fore limbs, t. e. pectoral fins, are attached to the lower part of a huge cervical vertebra, nearly equal in length to all the trunk vertebra united; and in the Chimeridae, which also first, appear in the Secondary division, they are attached, as in the osseous fishes, to the hinder part of the head. But in the representatives of all those Silurian Placoids yet known, of which the family cais be determined, or any thing with safety predicated, the cervica division is found to occur as a series of vertebrae: they pre- sent in this, as in the hinder portion of their bodies, the home- logical symmetry of organization typical of that vertebral sub kingdom to which they belong. In the second great period of ichthyie existence, — that ef the Old Red Sandstone, — we find the first example, in th* class of fishes, of " monstrosity through displacement of parts,' and apparently also — in at least two genera, though the evi- dence on this head be not yet quite complete — of " mon- strosity through defect of parts." In all the Ganoids of the period, with (so far as we can determine the point) only twe sxceptions, the scapular bases of the fore limbs are broughi forward from their typical place opposite the base of the cervi cal vertebrse, and stuck on to the occipital plate. Thert: occurs, in consequence, in one great order of the ichthyie class, such a departure from the symmetrical type as would take place in a monster example of the human family in whom the neck had been annihilated, and the arms stuck on to the back of the head. And in the genera Coccosteus and Pterichthys we find tne first example of degradation througb defoci. In the Pterichthys the hinder limbs seem wanting 188 FBOaEBEfi and in the CoeeosUus we find no trace of the/*r» limbs. Th* one resembles a monster of the human family born withoui hands, and the other a monster born without feet. Ages and centuries pass, and long unreckoned periods come to a close; and then, after the termination of the Palaeozoic period, we see that change taking place in the form of the ichthyie tail. to which 1 have already referred, (and to which I must refer at least once more,) as singularly illustrative of the progress of degradation. Yet other ages and centuries pass away, during w'lich the reptile class attains to its fullest development, in point of size, organization, and number; and then, after the times of the Cretaceous deposits have begun, we find yet another remarkable monstrosity of displacement introduced among all the fishes of one very numerous order, and among no inconsiderable proportion of the fishes of another. In the newly-introduced Ctenoids, (Aeanthopterygii,) and in those families of the Cycloids which Cuvier erected into the order Malacopterygii sub-brachiati, the hinder limbs are brought forward, and stuck on to the base of the previously misplaced fore limbs. All the four limbs, by a strange monstrosity of displacement, are crowded into the place of the extinguished neck. And such, at the present day, is the prevalent type among fishes. Monstrosity through defect is also found to in- crease ; so that the snake-like apoda, or feet-wanting fishes, form a numerous order, some of whose genera are devoid, as in the common eels and the congers, of only the hinder limbs, while in others, as in the genera Muraena and Synbranchus, both hinder and fore limbs are wanting. In the class of fishes, as fishes now exist, we find many more evidences of the mon- strosity which results from both the misplacement and defect of parts, than in the other three classes of the vertebrata united and knowing their geological hist^ v l ier than mat of any oi OF BB9BABATT0N. 1B1 the others, ws know, in consequence, tha? the monstrosities did not appear early, but late, and that the progreaa of th* race as a whole, though it still retain* not a few of the higher forms, has been a progress, not of development from the loa to the high, but of degradation from the high to the low. The reader may mark for himself, in the flounder, plaice, •alibut or turbot, — fishes of a family of which there appear* no trace in the earlier periods, — an extreme example of the degradation of distortion superadded to that of displacement. At a first glance the limbs seem but to exhibit merely the amount of natural misarrangement and misorder common to the Acanthopterygii and Sub-brachiati; —- the base of the pectorals are stuck on to the head, and the base of the ven- tral* attached to that of the pectoral*. From the circum- stance, however, that the creature ia twisted half round and laid on it* side, we find that at least one of the pairs of double fin* — the pectorals — perform the part of single fins, — one projecting from the animal's superior, the other from its inferior side, in the way the anal and dorsal fins project from the upp^r and under surfaces of other fishes; while its real dorsal and anal fins, both developed very largely, and — in order to preserve its balance — in about an equal degree, and wonderfully correspondent in form, perform, from their lateral position, the functions of single fin*. Indeed, at a first glance they *eem the analogue* of the hugely-developed pec- toral* of s very different family of flat fishes, — th* Ray*. it would appear a* if single and double fins, by some such mutual agreement as that which, according to the old ballad, took place between the churl of Auchtermuchty and hw ante, bad agreed to exchange callings, and perform each the work ef the ether. The «ail, too, possesses, in censequeBoe and the mouth towards the right. The skull, in consequence, exhibits in its fixed bones, a strange Cyclopean character, unique among the families of creation: it has its one well-marked eye orbit opening, like that of Polyphemus, direct in the middle of the fore part of its head; while the other, external to the cranium altogether, we find placed among the free bones, di- rectly over the maxillaries. And the wry mouth — twisted in the opposite direction, as if to keep up such a balance of de- formity a* that which the breast-hump of a hunchback forms to the hump behind — is in keeping with the squint eyes. The jaws are strangely asymmetrical. In symmetrical fishes the two bone* that compose the anterior half of the lower jaw are as perfectly correspondent in form and size as the left hand ot (eft foot is correspondent, in the human subject, to the right hand or right foot; but not such their character in the floun- der. The one i* a broad, short, nearly straight bone ; the other ia larger, narrower, and beat like a bow; and while the one semains only from four to six teeth, the other contains from thirty to thirty-five. Scarcely in the entire ichthyie kingdom are there any two jaw* that less resemble one another than the twe salve* of the jaw of the flounder, turbot, halibut, or plaice The totormaxillary bone* are equally ill matched: the on* te 9F BRSRABATIOE 188 folly twice the sixe of the other, and contain* about thrice a* many teeth. That bilateral symmetry of the skeleton which a ao invariable a characteristic of the vertebrata, that ordinary observers, who have eyes for only the rare and the uncora mon, fail to remark it, but which a Newton could regard as s* wonderful, and so thoroughly in harmony with the uniformity ef the planetary system, has scarce any plaae in the asymmet- rical head of the flounder. There exists in some of our north country fishing villages an ancient apologue, which, though not remarkable for point or meaning, at least serves to show that this peculiar example of distortion the rude fishermen of a former age were observant enough to detect Once on a time the fishes met, it is said, to elect a king; and their choice fell on the herring. " The herring king !" contempt- uously exclaimed the flounder, a fish of consummate vanity, and greatly piqued on th'« occasion that its own presumed claim* should have i uverlooked; " where, then, am I ? " And straightway, in punishment of it* conceit and rebellion, " its eye* turned to the back of its head." Here ia there a story palpably founded on the degradation of misplacemen and distortion, which originated ages ere the naturalist had recognized either the term or the principle. It would be an easy matter for an ingenious theorist, not much disposed to distinguish between the minor and the master laws of organized being, to get up quite as unexcep- tionable a theory of degradation as of development. The one-eyed, one-legged Chelsea pensioner, who had a child, un- born at the lime, laid to his charge, agreed to recognize hi* relationship to the little creature, if, on it* coming into the world, it was found to have a green patch over its eye, and a wooden leg. And, in order to construct a hypothesis ef progressive degradation, the theorist has bat to Bake An 190 PBoeBEse granted the transmission to other generations of defects and compensating redundancies at once as extreme and acciden to as the loss of eyes or limbs, and the acquisition of timbe! legs or green patches. The snake, for instance, he might re- gard aa a saurian, that, having accidentally lost its limbs, ex- erted itself to such account throughout a series of generations, in making up for their absence, as to spin out for itself, by dint of writhing and wriggling, rather more than a hundred ad- ditional vertebra, and to alter, for purposes of greater flexibil- ity, the structure of all the rest. And as fishes, when nearly ■tunned by a blow, swim for a few seconds on their side, he might regard the flounders as a race of half-stunned fishes, pre- viously degraded by the misplacement of their limbs, that, instead of recovering themselves from the blow given to some remote parent of the family, had expended all their energies in twisting their mouths round to what chanced to be the under ■ide on which they were laid, and their eyes to what chanced to be the upper, and that made their pectorals serve for ana) and dorsal fins, and their anal and dorsal fins serve for pecto- rals. But while we must recognize in nature certain laws of disturbance, if I may so speak, through which, within certain limits, traits which are the result of habit or circumstance in the parents are communicated to their offspring, we would err as egregiously, did we take only these into account, with- out noting that infinitely stronger antagonist law of reproduc- tion and restoration which, by ever gravitating towards the original type, preserves the integrity of races, as the astrono- me" would, who, in constructing his orrery, recognized only that law of propulsion through which the planets speed through the heavens, without taking into account that antag- onist law of gravitation which, by maintaining them m theii orbits, insures the regularity of their movements. The ia* OF aseRABATI&Nc iiU •t restoration would recover and right the sunned fish laid en its side; the tow of reproduction would g;*e limbs to the offspring of the mutilated saurian. We have evidence, ii the extremeness of the degradation in these cases, that it cannot be a degradation hereditarily derived from accident. Nature is we find, active, not in perpetuating the accidental wooden legs and g;een patches of ancestor* in their de- scendants, but in restoring to the offspring the true limbs and eyes which the parents have lost. It is, however, not with a theory of hereditary degradation, but a hypothesis of gradual development, that I have at present to deal; and what I have to establish as proper to the present stage of my argument is, that this principle of degradation really exists, and that the history of its progress in creation bears directly against the assumption that the earlier vertebrata were of a lower type than the vertebrata of the same ichthyie class which exist now.* * It will scarce be urged against the degradation theory, that those races which, tried by the tests of defect or misplacement of parts, we deem degraded, are not less fitted for carrying on what In their own little spheres is the proper business of life, than the non-degraded orders and families. The objection is, however, a possible one, and one which a single remark may serve to obviate It is certainly true that the degraded families are thoroughly fit' ted for the performance of all the work given them to do. Tl ey rrea<«js increase when placed in favorable circumstances, and, when /igorous and thriving, enjoy existence. But then the same rosy be said of all animals, without reference to their place in the scale; — the mollusc is as thoroughly adapted *<% its circumstances and as fitted to accomplish the end proper to its being, as the mam ■tiferous quadruped, and the mammiferous quadruped as man him. self; ant the fact of perfect adaptation in no decree invalidates the ether not less eertaln fact of difference of rank, nor proves that tha «Mlta*e it equal to th* quadruped, or the quadruped to man. Aad, m FEOaEBSfi The progress ef the iehthyic ail, as recorded in geeiegN history, corresponds with that of the iehthyic iimba. And as in the existing state of things we find fishes that nearly represent, in this respect, all the great geologic periods, •— I say nearly, not fully, for I am acquainted with no fish ade- quately representative of the period of the Old Red Sand- stone, — it may be well to cast a glance over the contemporary ^eries, as illustrative of the consecutive one. in those Placoids of the shark family that to a large brain unite homological symmetry of organization, and represent the fishes of the first period, we find, as I have already shown, that the ver- tebrse gradually diminish in the caudal division of the column, until they terminate in a point, — a circumstance in which they resemble not merely the Detailed reptiles, but also all the higher mammiferous quadrupeds, and even man himself. And it is this peculiarity, stamped upon the less de- structible portions of the framework of the tail, — vertebrse and processes, — rather than the one-sided or heterocercal form of the surrounding fin, composed of but a mucoidal substance, that constitutes its grand characteristic ; seeing that m some Placoid genera, such as Scyllium Stellare, the terminal portion of the fin is scarce less largely developed above than below, and that in others, as in most of the Ray family, the under lobe of the fin is wholly wanting. In the sturgeon, — one of the few Ganoids of the present time, — we secome sensible of a peculiar modification in this heterocer- tf course, the remark equally bears on the reduced as on the unele- vated, — on lowness of place when a result of degradation in races pertaining te a higher division of animals, as on lowness of place when a result of the humble standing of th* division to waieh th* rasa* belong. OF BBSRABATieN, 188 ca> type of tail; the lower lobe is, we find, composed, as is Sjnnaa and Scyllium, of rays exclusively; while through the centre of tho upper lobe there runs an acutely angular patch of lozenge-shaped plates, like that which runs through the centre of the double fins of Dipterus and the Coelacanths But while in the sharks the gradually diminishing vertebral stand out in bold relief, and form the thickest portion of the tail, that which represents them in the sturgeon (the angular patch) is slim and thin, — slimmer in the middle than even at the sides; — in part a consequence, no doubt, of the want, in this fish, of solid vertebra), but a consequence also of the extreme attenuation of the nervous cord, in its prolongation into the lobe of the fin. Further, the rays of the tail — its peculiarly ichthyie portion, which are purely mucoidal hi Spinax, Scyllium, and Cestracion — have become osseou* in the sturgeon. The fish has set and become fixed, as cement sets in a building, or color* are fixed by a mordant. And it is worthy of special remark that, correspondent with the peculiarly ichthyie development of tail in this fish, ws find the prevailing ichthyie displacement of the fore limbs. Again, in the Lepidosteus, another of the true Ganoids which still exist, the internal angle of the upper lobe of the tail wholly disappears, and with the internal angle the pro- longation of the nervous cord. Still, however, it is what the tail of the sturgeon would become were the angular patch to be obliterated, and rays substituted instead, — it is a tail set on awry. And in this fish also we find the ichthyie displacement of fore limb. One step more, and we arrive at tha homo- cercaj or equal-lobed tail, which seems to attain to its most extreme type in those fishes in which, as in the perch and flounder, the last vertebral joint, either very little or very abruptly diminished in size, expands into broad processes 17 184 raoaRBss wft.vint hoxtologue in the higher animals, on which the cau- dal rays rest a* their bases. And in by much the target proportion of the*e fishes all the four limbs are slung round the neck;— they at once exhibit the homocercal tail in its broadest type, and displacement of limb in its moat extreme form. Now, in tracing the geologic history of the ichthyie tail, we find these several steps or gradations from the heterocercal to the homocercal, represented by periods and formations. The Siluran periods may be regarded as representative of that true heterocercal tail of the Placoids, exemplified in Spinax, (page 172, fig. 48,) and Cestracion, (page 177, fig. 49.) The whole caudal portion of this latter animal, commencing imme- diately behind the ventrals, is, as becomes a true tail, slim, when compared with its trunk; the vertebras are of very considerable solidity; the rays mucoidal; and where the spinal column runs into the terminal fin, it takes such an up- ward turn as that which the horse-jockey imparts, by tha process of nicking, to the tails of the hunter and the race- horse. And with the heterocercal tail, so true in its homolo- gies to the tails of the higher vertebrata, we find associated, as has been shown, the true homological position of the fore limbs. With the commencement cf the Old Red Sandstone theganoidal tail first presents itself; and we become sensible of a change in the structure of the attached fin, similar to thai exemplified in the caudal rays of the sturgeon. As shown by the irregularly-angular patch of scales which in all the true Coelacanths, and almost all the Dipterians,* runs through the • The vertebral column in the genus Dipbpteru* ran, as in the plaeoid ffsnas Seylkum, aearly through the middle of the eaada; an OF BBSRABATIOE. 188 ■eject toea ef the fin, and terminates ia a point (see fig. 88,) * must have aosaeaaod the gradually diminishing vertebras, oj Fig. W taxi, or osTaeurri* a diminishing spinal cord, their analogue; but the rays, fairly set, as their state of keeping in the rocks certify, exist as nar- row oblong plates of solid bone ; and their anterior edges are strengthened by a line of osseous defences, that pass from scales into rays. And in harmonious accompaniment with this fairly stereotyped edition of the ichthyie tail, we find, in the fishes in which it appears, the first instance of displace- ment of limb, — the bases of the pectorals being removed from their original position, and stuck on to the nape of the neck. It may be remarked, in passing, that in the tails of two ganoid- r1 genera of this period, — the Coccosteus and Pterichthys, — die analogies traceable lie rather in the direction of the tails of the Rays than in those of the Sharks; and that one of these, the Coccosteus, seems, as has been already intimated, to have had no pectorals, while it is doubtful whether in the Pterichthys the pectorals were not attached to the shoulder, instead o the head. In the Carboniferous and Permian system* there occur, especially among the numerous species *f the genua Paleeoniscus, tails of the type exemplified by th* 106 PROSRBSS mternal angle of the tail of the sturgeon: the lozenge-shapes scales run in acutely angular patches through their upper lobes but such is their extreme flatness, as shown by the disposition of the enamelled covering, that it appears exceedingly doubt* ful whether any vertebral column ran beneath; — they seent but to have covered greatly diminished prolongations of the spinal cord. In the base of the Secondary division, — another long stage towards the existing state of things, ^ — we find, with the homocercal tail, which now appears for the first time, numerous tails like that of the Lepxdoa- teue, (fig. 51,) of an intermediate type; — they are rather Fig. <1. tan, or ultidosthcs ossbu*. tail* set on awry than truly heterocercal. The diminished cord has disappeared from among the fin rays. In the nu merous Lepidoid genus, and the genera Semionotus and Tetra gonolepis, — e.\\ ganoidal fishes of the Secondary period — this intermediate style is very marked; while in theii contemporaries of the genera Urceus, Microdon, and Pycno< dus, we find the earliest examples of true homocercal tails, And in the Ctenoids and Cycloids of the Chalk the homo- cercal tail receives its fullest development. It finds base* foi as rays in broad uon-homologicai processes, that spread ** OP DEGRADATION. 187 behind abruptly-terminating vertebras, (fig. 53,) in the Fig. 52. taxx *r raaoH period in which, by a strange process of degradation, the four ichthyie limbs are first gathered mto a cluster, and hung about the neck.* * In the following diagram a few simple lines serve to exhibit the progress of degradation. Fig. a represents the symmetrical Placoids of the Silurian period, consisting of head, neck, body, tail, fore limbs and hinder limbs ; fig. h represents those heterocercal Ga uoids of the Old Red Sandstone, Coal Measures, and Permian System, in which the neck is extinguished, and the fore limbs stuck on to the occiput; fig. c, those homooeroal Ganoids of the Trias Lias, Oolite, and Silurian. Old Bed, Ac Lias, Ac Cretaceous. o « S^r—fr. abed Flaeoid. Het. Ganoid. Horn. Ganoid. Ctenoid. 17* Plates** 188 PROGRESS I am aware, that by some very distinguished comparative anatomists, among the rest Professor Owen, the attachment, •o common among fishes, of the scapular arch and the fore limbs to the occipital bone, is regarded, not as a displacement, but as a normal and primary condition of the parts. Recog- nizing in the scapular bones the ribs of the occipital centrum^ the anatomists of this school of course consider them, when found articulated to the occiput, as in their proper and origi- nal place, and as in a state of natural dislocation when re- moved, a* in all the reptiles, birds, and mammals, farther down. We find Professor Oken borrowing support to his hy- pothesis from this view. The limbs, he tells us, are simply ribs, that in the course of ages have been set free, and have. become by development what they now are. And it is un questionably a curious and interesting fact, that there are cer tain animals, such as the crocodile, in which every centrum of the vertebral column, and of every vertebra of the head, ha* its ribs or rib-like appendages, with the exception of the oc- cipital centrum. And it is another equally curious fact, that there is another certain class of animals, such as the osseous horn-covered fishes, with the Sturionids, Salamandroidei, and at least one genus among the Placoids,(the Chirmeroidei,) in which this occipital centrum bears as its ribs the scapular bones, with their appendages the fore limbs. It is the centrum without ribs that is selected in these animals as the centrum to which the Weslden, whose tails spread out into broad terminal processes, with- out homologue in the higher animals ; fig. d, those Acanthopterygii of the Chalk that, in addition to the non-homological processes, have both fore limbs and hinder limbc stuck round the head; while fig. s represents the asymmetrical Platessa, of the same period, with one of its eyes in the middle of its head, and the other thrust out te the side. OF DEGRADATION. 198 scapular ribs should be attached. Be it remembered, how ever, that while it is unquestionably the part of the compara- tive anatomist to determine the relations and homologies of those parts of which all animals are composed, and to inter- pret the significancy in the scale of being of the various modes and forms in which they exist, it is as unquestionably the part of the geologist to declare their history, and the order of their succession in time. The questions which fall to be determined by the geologist and anatomist are entirely different. It is the function of the anatomist to decide re garding the high and the low, the typical and the aberrant and so, beginning at what is lowest or highest in the scale, m least or most symmetrical in type, he passes through the in- termediate forms to the opposite extreme : and such is the order natural and proper to his science. It is the vocation of the geologist, on the other hand, to decide regarding the early and the late. It is with time, not with rank, that he has to deal. Nor is it in the least surprising that he should seem at issue with the comparative anatomist, when, in classifying his groupes of organized being according to the periods of their appearance, there is an order of arrangement forced upon him, different from that which, on an entirely different prin- ciple, the anatomist pursues. Nor can there be a better illustration of a collision of this kind, than the one furnished by the case in point. That peculiarity of structure wh.ch, as the lowest in the vertebral skeleton, is to the compaiative anatomist the primary and original one, and which, as such, furnishes him with his starting point, is to the geologist r arimary, but secondary, simply because it wa* not primary, but secondary, in the order of it* occurrence. It bolongs, so far as w8 yet know., not tc the first period of vert* brato existence, but to the second > aad appears in geologis 200 PKOGKESS. history as does that savage state which certain philosophers have deemed the original condition of the human species, in the history of civilization, when read by the light of the Re- vealed Record, under the shadow of those gigantic ruins of the East that date only a few centuries after the Flood. It is found to be a degradation first introduced during the lapse of an intermediate age,—not the normal condition which ob- tained during the long cycles of the primal one. It indicates, not the starting point from which the race of creation began, but the stage of retrogradation beyond it at which the pil- grims who set out in a direction opposite to that of the goal first arrived.* * I would, however, respectfully suggest, that that theory of cer- ebral vertebrae, on which, in this question, the comparative anato- mists proceed" as their principle, and which finds as little support in the geologic record from the actual history of the fore limbs as from the actual history of the bones of the cranium, may be more inge- nious than sound. It is a shrewd circumstance, that the rocks refuse to testify in its favor. Agassiz, I find, decides against it on other than geological grounds; and his conclusion is certainly rendered not the leas worthy of careful consideration by the fact that, yielding to the force of evidence, his views on the subject underwent a thor- ough change. He had first held, and then rejected it. "I have shared," he says, " with a multitude of other naturalists, the opinion which regards the cranium as composed of vertebrae; and I am con- sequently in some degree called upon to point out the motives which have induced me to reject it." " M. Oken," he continues, " was the first to assign this signification to the bones of the cranium. The new doctrine he expounded was received in Germany with great enthusiasm by the school of the philosophers of nature. The author conceived the cranium to con- sist of three vertebrae, and the basal occipital the sphenoid, and the ethmoid, were regarded as the central parts of these cranial vertebrae. On these alleged bodies of vertebrae, the arches enveloping the cen- tral parts of the nervous system were raised, while on the opposite side were attached the inferior pieces, which went to form the vege- tative arch destined to embrace the intestinal canal and the large vessels. tfc would be too tedious to enumerate in this place the OF BEftRABATION. 88 This fact of degradation, strangely indicated la geologic history, with reference to all the greater divisions of the animal kingdom, has often appeared to me a surpassingly wonderful one. We can see but imperfectly, in those twi light depths to which all such subjects necessarily belong and yet at times enough does appear to show us what a very superficial thing infidelity may be. The general aa« vance in creation has been incalculably great. The lower Uvisions of the vertebrata preceded the higher; — the fish changes which each author introduced, in order to modify this mat- ter so as to make it suit his own views. Some went the tength of affirming that the vertebras of the head were as complete as those of the trunk; and, by means of various dismemberments, separations, and combinations, all the forms of the cranium were referred to the vertebras, by admitting that the number of pieces was invariably fixed in every head, and that all the vertebrate, whatever might be their organisation in other respects, had in their heads the same number of points of ossification. At a later period, what was erro- neous in this manner of regarding the subject was detected; bat the idea of the vertebral composition of the head was still retained. It was admitted as a general law, that the cranium was composed of three primitive vertebrse, as the embryo is of three blastodermic leaf- lets ; but that these vertebras, like the leaflets, existed only ideally, and that their presence, although easily demonstrated in certain oases, could only be slightly traced, and with the greatest difficulty, in other instances. The notion thus laid down of the virtual existence of cranial vertebras did not encounter very great opposition; it could not be denied that there was a certain general resemblance between the osseous case of the brain and the rachidian canal; the occipital, 1e particular, had all the characteristic features of a vertebra. But whenever an attempt was made to push the analogy further, and to determine rigorously the anterior vertebras of the cranium, the ob- server found himself arrested by insurmountable obstacles, and he was obliged always to revert to the virtual existence. " In order to explain my idea clearly, let me have recourse to aa example. It is certain that organised bodies are sometimes endowed with virtual qualities, which, at a certain period of the being's life, alade diasaetiaa, aad all our means of investigation. It i* tha*, that 888 vieeEBaa preceded the reptile, the reptile preceded the Bird, the bird preceded the mammiferous quadruped, and the mammiferous quadruped preceded man. And yet, is there one of these great divisions in which, in at least some prominent feature, the present, through this mysterious clement of degradation, is not inferior to the past ? There was a time in which the ichthyie form constituted the highest example of life; but the seas during that period did not swarm with fish of the degraded type. There was, in like manner, a time when all at the moment of their origin, the eggs of all animals have such a resemblance to each other, that it would be impossible to distinguish, sven by the aid of the most powerful microscope, tb* ovarial egg of a craw-fish, for example, from that of true fish. And yet who would deny that beings in every respect different from each other exist in these eggs r It is precisely because the difference manifests itself at a later period, in proportion as the embryo develops itself, that we are authorized to conclude, that, even from the earliest period, the eggs were different, — that each had virtual qualities proper to itself, although they could not be discovered by our senses. If, on the con- trary, any one should find two eggs perfectly alike, and should observe two beings perfectly identical issue from them, he would greatly err if he ascribed to these eggs different virtual qualities. It is therefore necessary, in order to be in a condition to suppose that virtual properties peculiar to it are concealed in an animal, that these properties should manifest themselves once, in some phase or other of its development. Now, applying this principle to the theory of cranial vertebras, we should say, that if these vertebras virtually exist in the adult they must needs show themselves in reality, at a certain period of development. If, on the contrary, they are found neither in the embryo nor the adult I am of opinion that we are entitled likewise to dispute their virtual existence. " Here, however, an objection may be made to me, drawn from the physiological value of the vertebrse, the function cf which, as is well known, is, on the one hand, to furnish a solid support to th* muscular contractions which determine the movements of the trunk, and, on the other, to protect the centres of the nervous system, by farming * more or less solid case completely around them. Th* bodies «f th* vertebra* are particularly destined to tb* first of thee* OF BEaEABATIOK. 803 »e earnivora and all the herbivorous quadrupeds were repre- sented by reptiles; but there are no such magnificent reptiles on the earth now as reigned over it then. There was ar after time, when birds seem to have been the sole represen- tatives of the warm-blooded animals; but we find, from the Drints of their feet left in sandstone, that the tallest men might have " Walked inder their huge legs, and peeped about." Further, there was an age when the quadrupedal mammals offices; the neurapophyses to the second. What can be more natu- ral than to admit, from the consideration of this, that in the head, the bodies of the vertebrae diminish in proportion as the moving function becomes lost, while the neurapophyses are considerably de- veloped for protecting the brain, the volume of which is very consid- erable, when compared with that of the spinal marrow ? Have we not an example of this fact in the vertebrae of the tail, where the neurapophyses become completely obliterated, and a simple cylin- drical body alone remains i Now, may it not b». the case, that in the head, the bodies of the vertebrse have disappeared; and that, in con- sequence, there is a prolongation of the cord only as far as the moving functions of the vertebrae extend ? There is some truth in this argument, and it would be difficult to refute it a priori. But it loses all its force the moment that we enter upon a detailed examin- ation of the bones of the head. Thus, what would we call, accord- ing to this hypothesis, the principal sphenoid, the great wings of thp sphenoid, and the ethmoid, which form the floor of the cerebral cav ity ? It may be said they are apophyses. But the apophyses pro- tect the nervous centres only on the side and above. It may be said that they are the bodies of the vertebrae. But they are formed without the concurrence of the dorsal cord; they cannot, therefore, De the bodies of the vertebrse. It must therefore be allowed, that these bones at least do not enter into the vertebral type j that they are in some measure peculiar. And if this be the case with them, why may not the other protective plates be equally independent of the vertebral type; the more so, because the relations of the fron- tals and parietals vary so much, that it would be almost imnossibl* to ascdga to them a constant place i" $04 raaaRBBB St* BBCEABATieN. were the magnates of creation ; but it was an age in whiefe the sagacious elephant, now extinct, save in the comparatively small Asiatic and African circles, and restricted to two species, was the inhabitant of every country of the Old World, from it* southern extremity to the frozen shores of the northern ocean ; and when vast herds of a closely allied and equally colossal genus occupied its place in the New. And now, in the time* of the high-placed human dynasty, — of those formally delegated monarchs of creation, whose nature it is to look behind them upon the past, and before .hem, with mingled fear and hope, upon the future, — do we not as certainly see the elements of a state of ever-sinking degradation, which is to exist for ever, as of a state of ever- increasing perfectibility, to which there is to be no ena ? Nay, of a higher race, of which we know but little, this much we at least know, that they long since separated into two great classes,— that of the " elect angels, and of an gels that kept not their first estate " TBS SILURIAN MOtLBSOS. BWIDKNCE OP THE SILURIAN MOIXWCi - Of THE FOSSIL FLORA. ANCIENT TREE. Aftee dwelling at such length on the earlier fishes, ft may ■eera scarce necessary to advert to their lower contemporaries the molluscs, — that great division of the animal kingdom which Cuvier places second in the descending order, in hia ■urvey of the entire series, and first among the inverte- brates ; and which Oken regards as the division out of which the immediately preceding class of the vertebral animals have been developed. " The fish," he says, " is to be viewed a* a mussel, from between whose shells a monstrous abdomen has grown out." There is, however, a peculiarity in the mol- luscan group of the Silurian svstem, to which I must be per- mitted briefly to refer, as, to employ the figure of Sterne, it present* " two handles " of an essentially different kind, and as in all such two-handled cases, the mere special pleader is ■ure to avail himself of only the handle which best auits hia purpose for the time. Cuvier'* first and highest class of the mollusca is formed ef what are termed the Cephalopods, — a class of creature* possessed of great freedom of motion : they can walk, swim, and seise their prey; they have what even the lowest ashes 18 886 EVIDENCE ©F such as the lancelet, want, — a brain enclosed in a cartilagi- nous cavity in the head, and perfectly formed organ* of sight; they possess, too, what is found in no other mollusc, — organs of hearing ; and in sagacity and activity they prove more than matches for the smaller fishes, many of which they overmas- ter and devour. With this highest class there contrasts an exceedingly low molluscous class at the bottom of the scale, or, at least, at what is now the bottom of the scale ; for they constitute Cuvier's fifth class; while his sixth and last, the Cir- rhopodes, has been since withdrawn from the molluscs alto- gether, and placed in a different division of the animal king- dom. And this low class, the Brachiopods, are creatures that, living in bivalve shells, unfurnished with spring hinges to throw them open, and always fast anchored to the same spot, can but thrust forth, through the interstitial chinks of their prison- houses, spiral arms, covered with cilia, and winnow the water for a living. Now, it so happens that the mollu3can group of the Silurian system is composed chiefly of these two extreme classes. It contains some of the other forms; but they are few in number, and give no character to the rocks in which they occur. There was nothing by which I was more im- pressed, in a visit to a Silurian region, than that in its an- cient graveyards, as in those of the present day, though ia a different sense, the high and the low should so invariably meet together. It is, however, not impossible that, in even the present state of things, a similar union of the extreme forms of the marine mollusca may be taking place in deep- sea deposits. Most of the intermediate forms provided with shells capable of preservation, such as the shelled Gastero poda and the Conchifers, are either littoral, or restricted to comparatively small depths; whereas the Brachiopoda are leap sea shells; and the Cephalopoda may be found vy aging TEE SILURIAN MOLLUSCS 887 far from land, in the upper strata of the sea above them. Even in tie seas that surround our own island, the Brachiopodous mol- luscs — terebratula and crania — have been found, ever since deep-sea dredging became common, to be not very rare shell* ; and in the Mediterranean, where they are less rare still, fleets of Argonauts, the representatives of a highly organized family of the Cephalopods, to which it is now believed the Bellerophon of the Palaeozoic rocks belonged, may be seen skimming along the surface, with sail and oar, high over the profound depths in which they lie. And, of course, when death comes, that comes to high and low, the remains of both Argonauts and Brachiopods must lie together at the bottom, in beds almost totally devoid of the intermediate forms. Now, the author of the " Vestiges," in maintaining hia hypothesis, suspends it on the handle furnished him by the immense abundance of the Silurian Brachiopods. The Silu- rian period, he says, exhibits " a scanty and most defective development of life ; so much so, that Mr. Lyell calls it, par excellence, the age of Brachiopods, with reference to the by no means exalted bivalve shell-fish which forms its pre. dominant class. Such being the actual state of the case, I must persist in describing even the fauna of this age, which we now know was not the first, u. gencaUy speaking, such a humble exhibition of the animal kingdom as we might ex- pect, upon the development theory, to find at an early stage of the history of organization." The reader will at once dis- cern the faLacy here. The Silurian period was peculiarly an age of Brachiopods, for in no other period were Brachio- pods so numerous, specifically or individually, or of such size or importance; whereas it was not so peculiarly an age of Cephalopods, for these we find introduced in still greater num- bers during the Liasic and Oolitic periods. In 1848, when 808 EVIDENCE «F Professor Edward Forbes edited the Paheentelegieal map ef Britain and Ireland, which forms one of the very admirable aeries of " Johnstone's Physical Atlas," the Cephalopods of the Silurian rocks of England and Wales were estimated at forty-eight species, and the Brachiopods at one hundred and fifty; whereas at the same date there were two hundred and five Cephalopods of the Oolitic formation* enumerated, and but fifty-four Brachiopods. It ia the mollusc* of the infe- rior, not those of the superior class, that constitute (with their contemporaries the Trilobites) the characteristic fbuila of the Silurian rocks; and hence the propriety of the distinctive name suggested by Sir Charles Lyell. But in the develop- ment question, what we have specially to consider is, not the numbers of the low, but the standing of the high. A country may be distinctively a country of flocks ana herds, or a country of the carnivorous mammalia, or, like New South Wales or the Galapagos, a country of marsupial animals or of reptiles. Its human inhabitants may be merely a few hunters or shep- herds, too inconsiderable in numbers, and too much like their brethren elsewhere, to give it any peculiar standing aa a home of men. But in estimating the highest point in the scale to which the animal kingdom has attained within its limits, it is of its few men, not of its many beasts, ihai we must take note. And the point to be specially decided re- garding the organisms of the Silurian system, in this ques- tion, is, not the proportion in number which the lower forms bore to the higher, but the exact rank which the higher bore in the scale of existence. Did the system furnish but a single Cephalopod or a single fish, we would yet have as certainly to determine that the chain of being reached as high as the Cephalopod or the fish, a* if the remain* of these crea tures constituted its most abundant fossils. The ehain of TSB 8ILBBJAN MOLLBSOfe. m aaiaaai life reached quite as high on the evening of the sixth day of creation, when the human family was restricted to a single pah*, as it doe* now, when our statists reckon up by millions the inhabitants of the greater capitals of the world ; and the special pleader who, in asserting the contrary, would insist on determining the point, not by the rank of the men of Eden, but by the number of minnows or sticklebacks that swarmed in its rivers, might be perhaps deemed ingenious in his expedients, but certainly not very judicious in the use of them. It is worthy of remark, however, that the Brachiopods of those Paleozoic periods in which the group occupied such large apace in creation, consisted of greatly larger and more important animals than any which it contains in the present day. It has yielded to what geological history shows to be the common fate, and sunk into a state of degradation and decline. The geological history of the vegetable, like that of the animal kingdom, ha* been pressed into the service of the development hypothesis; and certainly their respective courses, both in actual arrangement and in their relation to human knowledge, seem wonderfully alike. It is not much more than twenty years since it was held that no exogenous plant existed during the Carboniferous period. The frequent occurrence of Coniferae in the Secondary deposit? had been conclusively determined from numerous specimen*; but, founding on what seemed a large amount of negative evi dence, it was concluded that, previous to the Liasic age nature had failed to achieve a tree, and that toe rich vege tation of the Coal Measures had been exclusively composed of magnificent immaturities of the vegetable Kingdom, — ef gigantic ferns and club-mosses, that attained to the size o^ forest trees, and of thicket* of the swamp -tevtog Wrsetaii !8« 810 BVt bense er family of plants, thst well nigh rivalled in height these rat ests of mast* which darken the rivers of our great commercial cities. Such was the view promulgated by M. Adolphe Brongniart; and it may be well to remark that, so far as the evidence on which it was based was positive, the view waa sound It is a fact, that inferior orders of plants were de- veloped in those ages in a style which, in their present state of degradation, they never exemplify: they took their place, not, as now, among the pigmies and abortions of creation, but among its tallest and goodliest productions. It is, however, not a fact that they were the highest vegetable forms of their time. True exogenous trees also existed in great numbers and of vast size. In various localities in the coal fields of both England and Scotland, — such as Lennel Braes and Allan Bank in Berwickshire, High-Heworth, Fellon, Gates- head, and Wideopen near Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and in quarries to the west of the city of Durham, — the most abundant fossils of the system are its true woods. In the quarry of Craigleith, near Edinburgh, three huge trunks have been laid open during the last twenty years, within the space of about a hundred and fifty yards, and two equally massy trunks, within half that space, in the neighboring quarry of Granton, all low in the Coal Measures. They lie diagonally athwart the strata, — at an angle of about thirty, — with the nether and weightier portion of their boles below, like snag* jl the Mississippi; and we infer, from their general direction, that the stream to which they reclined must have flowed from nearly north-east to south-west. The current was probably that of a noble river, which reflected on its broad bosom the shadow of many a stately tree. With the exception of one ef the Granton specimens, which still retains its strong-kneed roots, they are all wi3re portion* of trees, rounded at both TEE FOSSIL FLOEA. til enu* as if by attrition or decay; and yet one of these por- tions measures about six feet in diameter by sixty-one feet in length another four feet in diameter by seventy feet in length; and the others, cf various thickness, but all bulky enough to equal the masts of large vessels, range in length from thirty-six to forty-seven feet. It seems strange to one who derives his supply of domestic fuel from the Dalkeith and Falkirk coal-fields, that the Carboniferous flora could ever have been described as devoid of trees. I can scarce take up a piece of coal from beside my study fire, without detecting in it frag- ments of carbonized wood, which almost always exhibit the characteristic longitudinal fibres, and not uufrequently the medullary rays. Even the trap-rocks of the district enclose, in some instances, their masses of lignite, which present in their transverse sections, when cut by the lapidary, the net- like reticulations of the coniferse. The fossil botanist, wno devoted Himself chiefly to the study of microscopic structure, would have to decide, from the facts of the case, not that trees were absent during the Carboniferous period, but that, in consequence of their having been present in amazing numbers, their remains had entered more palpably and exten- sively into the composition of coal than those of any other vegetable.* So far as is yet known, they all belonged to the • It is stated by Mr. Witham, that " except in a few instances, ne had ineffectually tried, with the aid of the microscope, to obtain some insight into the structure of coal. Owing," he adds, " to its great opacity, which is probably due to mechanical pressure, the aotion of chemical affinity, and the percolation of acidulous waters, all traoea of organisation appear to have been obliterated." I have heard th* late Mr. Sanderson, who prepared for Mr. Witham most of the speci- mens figured in his well-known work on the " Internal Structure oi Fosctt V*f*tahl*a," and from whom the material* of hia statement oa fit EVIDENCE CF two great division* if the eonifbrous family, sraaearians and pines. The huge tree* of Craigleith and Granton wore of the farmer tribe,and approximate more nearly to Altingia exceisa Ftg.iS. ALTTMeiA BXCB1SA., (VOBVOLX-ISLAXD fOT.j From • young specimen to the Botanic Garden, Edinburgh. thl£ point seem to have been derived, make a similar remark. It was rare, he said, to find a bit of coal that exhibited the organic struc- ture. The case, however, is far otherwise; and the ingenious me- chanic and his employer were misled, simply by the circumstance, that it w rare to find pieces of coal which exhibit the ligneous fibre, existing in a state of keeping solid enough to stand the grinding of the lapidary's wheel. The lignite usually occurs in thin layers ol a labstance resembling soft charcoal, at which, from the loose adhesion 3f the fibres, th e coal splits at a stroke ; and as it cannot be prepared as a transparei v, it is bent examined by a Stanhope lens. It will bs found, tried in this manner, that so far is vegetable fibre from being of rare cocurrenoe in coal, — our Scotch coal at least, — that elmosi every en bio inch contains its hundreds, nay, its thousands, of •alls. TEE FOSSIL FLORA, 818 the Norfolk-Island pine, — a noble araucarian, that rears its proud head from a hundred and sixty to two hundred feet over the soil, and exhibits a green and iuxuriant breadth of foliage rare among tie Coniferae, — than any other living tre« Beyond the Coal Measures terrestrial plants become ex- tremely rare. The fossil botanist, on taking leave of the lower Carboniferous beds, quits the land, and sets out to sea ; and it seems in no way surprising, that the specimens whica he there adds to his herbarium should consist mainly of Fwa • cect and Confervca. The development hypothesis can borre * no support from the simple fact, that while a high terrestrial vegetation grows upon dry land, only algae grow in the sea; and even did the Old Red Sandstone and Silurian systemsjur- nish, as their vegetable organisms, fueoids exclusively, the evidence would amount to no more than simply this, that the end of the Palaeozoic periods produced plants of the land, and Jie sea of the Palaeozoic periods produced plants of the sea In the Upper Old Red Sandstone, —the formation of the Holoptychius and the Stagonolepis,— the only vegetable re mains which I have yet seen are of a character so exceedingly obscure and doubtful, that all I could venture to premise re- garding them is, that they seem to be the fragments of sorely comminuted fueoids. In the formation of the Middle Old Red, — that of the Cephalaspis and the gigantic lobster of Car- mylie, — the vegetable remains are at once more numerous and better defined. I have detected among the gray micaceous sandstones of Forfarshire a fucoid furnished with a thick, squat stem, that branches into numerous divergent leaflets or fronds, of a slim paralielogrammical, grasa-like form, and which, as a whole, somewhat resemble* the scourge of cords attached to a handle with which a boy whip* his top. And 918 EVIDENCE #F Professor Fleming describes a still more remarkable vegeta ble organism of tho same formation, " which, occurring in the form of circular, flat patches, composed each of numer- ous smaller contiguous circular pieces, is altogether no unlike what might be expected to result from a compressed berry, such as the bramble or rasp." In the Lower Old Red, — the formation of the Coccosteus and Cheiracanthus, — the re mains of fueoids are more numerous still. There are gray alaty beds among the rocks of Navity, that owe their fissile character mainly to their layers of carbonized weed; and "among the rocks of Sandy-Bay, near Thurso," says Mr. Dick, " the dark impressions of large fueoids are so numer- ous, that they remind one of the interlaced boughs and less bulky pine-trunks that lie deep in our mosses." A portion of a stem from the last locality, which I owe to Mr. Dick, meas- ures three inches in diameter ; but the ill-compacted cellular tissue of the algae is but indifferently suited for preservation ; and so it exists as a mere coaly film, scarcely half a line in thickness. The most considerable collection of the Lower Old Red fueoids which I have yet seen is that of the Rev. Charles Clouston of Sandwick, in Orkney, — a skilful cultivator of geological science, who has specially directed his palaeontol- ogical inquiries on the vegetable remains of the flagstones of his district, as the department in which most remained to be done ; but his numerous specimens only serve to show what a poverty-stricken flora that of the ocean of the Lower Old Red Sandstone mast have been. I could detect among them but two species of plants; — the one an imperfectly pre served vegetable, more nearly resembling a club-moss than aught else which I have seen, but which bore on its surface TEE FOSSIL FLORA. 818 matead of the well-marked scales of the Lyeopodiaeea, lrreg alar row* of tubercle*, that, when elongated in the profile as sometime* happens, might be mistaken for minute, ill-de fined leaves; the other, a smooth-stemmed fucoid, existing on the stone in most cases as a mere film, in which, however, thickly-set longitudinal fibres are occasionally traceable, and which may be always distinguished from the other by ita ■harp-edged outline, and from the circumstance that its stems continue to retain the same diameter for considerable distances, after throwing off at acute angles numerous branches nearly as bulky as themselves. In a Thurso specimen, about two feet in length, which I owe to the kindness of Mr. Dick, there are stems continuous throughout, that, though they ramify in that space into from six to eight branches, are nearly aa thick atop as at bottom. They are the remains, in all proba- bility, of a long, flexible weed, that may have somewhat resembled those fueoids of the intertropical seas, which, streaming slantwise in the tide, rise not unfrequently to the surface in from fifteen to twenty fathoms of water; and as, notwithstanding their obscurity, they are among the most perfect specimens of their class ye found, and contrast with the stately araucarians of the Coal Measures, in a style which cannot fail to delight the heart of every assertor of the de- velopment hypothesis, I present them to the reader from Mr. Dicks specimen, in a figure (fig. 54) which, however slight its interest, has at least the merit of being true. The stone exhibits specimens of the two species of Mr. Clouston's collection, — the sharp-edged, finely-striated weed, a, and that roughened by tubercles, b ; which, beside* the distinctive character manifested on its surface, dif- fers from the other in rapidly losing breath with every kranch whieh it throws off, and in consequenee, runs soon 81b EVIDENCE Of to a point The cut on the opposite page (fig. 8ft) repre sents not inadequately the cortical peculiarities of the twe Fig. 94 pveorM or rax lowbb ox*b aan SAirnsToira *. Smootnttsmmsd spec*es & Tuber?ted (Oae sixth aat. size, iu«**r TEE WSSSIL FLOAA. fig. 96 a aassetA sttmmsd speetes. b. Tuoer^ed speotes, (Natural slse.) speciea when best preserved. The surface of the tubercled one will perhaps remind the Algologist of the knobbed surface of the thong or receptacle of Himanthalia lorea, a recent fucoid, common on the western coast of Scotland, but rare on the east An Orkney specimen lately sent me by Mr. William Watt, from a quarry at Skaill, has much the appearance of one of the smaller ferns, such as the moor-worts, sea ■pleen-worts, or maiden-hair*. It exists as an impression in diluted black, on a ground of dark gray, and has so little sharpness of outline, that, like minute figures in oil-paintings, it seems more distinct when viewed at arm's length than when microscopically examined, but enough remains to shew that it must have been a terrestrial, not a marine plant. The accompanying print (fig. 56) may be regarded as no un faithful representation of this unique fossil in its state of imperfect keeping. The vegetation of the Silurian system, from its upper beds down till where we reach the aero of life, is, like that of the Old Red Sandstone, almost exclusively fucoida). In the older fossiliferous deposits of the system in Sweden, Russia, the Lake Districts of England, Canada, and the Itnitod States, fueoids octant, to the exeluaton, ae far as is 19 818 EVIDENCE OF Fig. «e. rams? a* tee lowbb old bed saksstonb. (Natural sis*.) yet known, of every other vegetable form ; and such is their abundance in some localities, that they render the argilla- ceous rocks in which they lie diffused, capable of being fired as an alum slate, and exist in others as seams of a compact anthracite, occasionally used as fuel. They also occur in those districts of Wales in which the place and sequence of the various Silurian formations were first determined, though apparently in a state of keeping from which little can be premised regarding their original forms. Sir Roderick Murchison sums up his notice of the vegetable remains of the system in the province whence it derives its name, by stating that he had submitted his specimens to " Mr. Robert Browr and Dr Greville, and that neither of these eminent botanists were able to say much more regarding them than that they were fucoid-like bodies." Such are the vegetable organisms of the Old Red Sand- stone and Silurian systoms: they are the remains of the TEE FOSSIL FLORA. 818 indent marine plant* of ancient marine deposits and, as such, tend quite as little support to the developmen hypothesis as toe recent algae of our existing seas. The case, stated in it* most favorable form, amounts simply to this, — that at certain early periods, — represented by the Upper and Lower Silu- rian and the Old Red deposits, — the seas produced sea-plants; and that, at a certain later period, — that of the Carboniferous system, — the land produced land-plants. But even this, did it stand alone, would be a too favorable statement. I have seen, on one occasion, the fisherman bring up with his nets, far in the open sea, a wild rose-bush, that, though it still bore its characteristic thorns, was encrusted with serpula, and laden with pendulous lobularia. It had been swept from its original habitat by some river in flood, that had undermined and torn down the bank on which it grew; and after float- ing about, mayhap for months, had become so saturated with water, that it could float no longer. And in that single rose-bush, dragged up to the light and air from its place among Sertularia, Flustra, Serpula, and the deep-sea fueoids, I had as certain an evidence of the existence of the dico- tyledonous plant, as if I had all the families of the Rosacea? before me. Now, we are furnished by the more ancient for- nations with evidence regarding the existence of a terres- rial vegetation, such as that which the rose-bush in this case supplied. We cannot expect that the proofs should be nu- merous. In the chart of the Pacific attached to the bettor editions of " Cook's Voyages," there are several notes along me tract of the great navigator, that indicate where, in mid ocean, trees or fragments of trees had been picked up. These entries, however, are but few, though they belong to all the three voyages together: if I remember aright, there are oary five entries in all, — two in the Northern, and three EVIBENS8 OF tn the Southern Pacific. The floating shrub or tree, at a great distance from land, is of rare occurrence in even the present scene of things, though the breadth of land be great and trees numerous ; and in the times of the Silurian and Old Red Sandstone systems, when the breadth of land was ap- parently not great, and trees and ahrubs, in consequence, not numerous, it must have been of rarer occurrence still. We learn, however, from Sir Charles Lyell, that in the ** Hamil- ton group of the United States, — a series of beds that cor- responds in many of its fossils with the Ludlow rocks of England,— plants allied to the Lepidodendra of the Carbonif- erous type are abundant; and that in the lower Devonian strata of New York the same plant* occur associated with ferns." And I am able to demonstrate, from an interesting fossil at present before me, that there existed in the period of the Lower Old Red Sandstone vegetable forms of a class greatly higher than either Lepidodendra or ferns. In my little work on the Old Red Sandstone, 1 have referred to an apparent lignite of the Lower Old Red of Cromarty, which presented, when viewed by the microscope, marks of che internal fibre. The surface, when under the glass, re sembled, I said, a bundle of horse-hairs lying stretched in par- allel lines : and in this specimen alone, it was added, had ! found aught in the Lower Old Red Sandstone approaching tc proof of the existence of dry land. About four years ago I had .his lignite put stringently to the question by Mr. Sanderson and deeply interesting was the result. I must first mention, however, that there cannot rest the shadow of a doubt regard- ing the place of the organism in the geologic scale. It is une- quivocally a fossil of the Lower Old Red Sandstone. ! found n partially embedded, with many other nodule* half-diiinterred By the sea, >n an ichthyolitie isypomt, a few hundred vard* tc FEB FOSSIL FLORA. 881 the sast ef the town of Cromarty, which occurs more than four hundred feet over the Great Conglomerate base of in* system. A nodule that lay immediately beside it contained a well-preserved specimen of the Coccosteus Decipiens; and ia the nodule in which the lignite itself i* contained, (fig. 57,) Fig. 5T. usMTra or tkx lows* old bed sakostowe (On* third nat. sis*, linear.) the practised eye may detect a scattered group of scale* of Diplacanthus, a scarce less characteristic organism of the lowei formation. And what, asks the reader, is the character of this very ancient vegetable, — the most ancient, by three a/hole formations, that has presented its internal structure to the microscope ? is it as low in the scale of development as in the geological scale ? Does this venerable Adam of the forest appear, !i*e the Adam of the infidel, as a squalid, ill- formed savage, with a rugged shaggy nature, which it would require the auggestive necessities of many age* painfully to oak into civtiisation ? Or does it appear rather like the Adam 19* 888 UMIEBJT CONIFER. ef the poet and the theologian, independent, to its instants aeously-derived perfection, of all after development ? "Adam, the goodliest man of men since bora His sons." [« its tissue vascular or cellular, or, like that of some of the cryptogamia, intermediate ? Or what, in fine, is the nature and bearing of its mute but emphatic testimony, on that doc- trine of progressive development of late so strangely resua citated ? in the first place, then, this ancient fossil is a true wood,— a Dicotyledonous or Polycotyledonous Gymnosperm, that, like he pines and larches of our existing forests, bore naked seeds, which, in their state of germination, developed either double lobes to shelter the embryo within, or shot out a fringe of ver- ticillate spikes, which performed the same protective func- tions, and that, as it increased in bulk year after year, received its accessions of growth in outside layers. In the transverse section the cells bear the reticulated appearance which distin- guish the coniferse, (fig. 58, a;) the lignite had been exposed in its bed to a considerable degree of pressure; and so the open- ings somewhat resemble the meshes of a net that has been drawn a little awry ; but no general obliteration of their origi- nal character has taken place, save in minute patches, where they have been injured by compression or the bituminizing process. All the tubes indicated by the openings are, as in re cent coniferse, of nearly the same size; and though, as in many of the more ancient lignites, there are no indications of annual rings, the direction of Jic medullary rays is distinctly traceable. The longitudinal sections are rather less distinct than the transverse one; in the section parallel to the ra- dius ef the aten er bole the circular disks of the conifers* ANCIENT "ONIFEB «g. « arraaaAL btbuttt/eb or u*vtte or lowbb old bed saBneaoma a. Transverse section. b. Longitudinal section, (parallel to radius, or medullary rays.) a. Longitudinal section, (tatigentat,or parallel to the bark.) (Mag. forty diameters.) were at first not at all detected; and, as since shown by a very fine microscope, they appear simply as double and tripla ines of undefined dots, (b,) that somewhat, resemble the stip- pled markings of the miniature painter; nor are the open 884 ANCIENT CONIFER. the microscope the peculiarities of its original structate. vV frari in it an unfafiBn Adam,— not a half-developed aavage.* Che olive leaf which the dove brought to Noah established a least three important facts, and indicated a few more. It showed moat conclusively that there was dry land, that there were olive trees, and that the climate of the sur- rounding region, whatever change it might have undergone, was still favorable to the development of vegetable life. * Oa a pceat of «a«h impartaaoe I find it necessary to strengthen my testimesy by auxiliary evidence. The following is the judg- ment an this ancient petrifaction, of Mr. Nicol of Edinburgh, — confessedly one of our highest living authorities in that division of fossil betaay which takes cognisance of the internal structure of lignites, and decides, from their anatomy, their race and family: — "Edinburgh, 19th July, 1845. M Dbas But, — I have examined the structure of the fossil wood whieh yoa found ia the Old Red Sandstone at Cromarty, and have ae hesitation in stating, that the reticulated texture of the trans- verse sections, though somewhat compressed, clearly indicates a soniferous origin; but as there is not the slightest trace of a disc to be seen to the longitudinal sections parallel to the medullary rays, it is impossible to say whether it belongs to the Pine or Arsu- oariaa division. I am, Ae., "William Niool." It will be seen that Mr. Niool failed to detect what I now deem the discs of this conifer, — those stippled markings to which I have referred, and whieh th* engraver has indicated in no exaggerated style, in one of the longitudinal sections (») of the wood-cut given above. But jven wsre this portion of the evidence wholly want- ing, we would be left in doubt hi consequence, not whether the Old Bed lignite formed part of a true gymnospermous tree, but whether that tree is new represented by the pines of Europe and America, or by the arauearians of Chili and New Zealand. Were I to risk as epfadoa ia a department not particularly my province n wonld be ia favor ef as arausarian relationship. ANeiBNT eONIFBE. 888 And, further, it might be very safbly tafhrred from h, that if olive tree* had survived, other trees and plant* must have survived also; and that the dark muddy prominences round which the ebbing currents were faat sweeping to lower levels, would soon present, as in antediluvian times, their coveringa of cheerful green. The olive leaf spoke not of merely & partial, but of a general vegetation. Now, the coniferous lignite of the Lower Old Red Sandstone we find charged, like the olive leaf, with a various and singularly interesting evidence. It is something to know, that in the times of the Coccosteus and Asterolepis there existed dry land, and that that land wore, as at after periods, its soft, gay mantle of green. It is same. thing also to know, that the verdant tint was net owiag to a profuse development of the mere immaturities of the vege- table kingdom, — crisp, alow-growing lichens, or watery spore propagated fungi that shoot up to their full size in a night,— nor even to an abundance of the more highly organised fam- ilies of the liverworts and the mosses. These may have abounded then, as now; though we have not a shadow of evidence that they did. But while we have no proof wha.- ever of their existence, we have conclusive proof that there existed orders and families of a rank far above them. On the dry land of the Lower Old Red Sandstone, on which, according to the theory of Adolphe Brogniart, nothing higher than a lichen or a moss could have been expected, the •hip- carpenter might have hopefully taken axe in hand, to explore the woods for some such stately pine as the one described by Milton,— M Hewn ea Norwegian hfils, to b« th* mast Of some great admiral.'' Tiewed simply in its picturesque aspect this okae leaf ef ike Old led seeaw sot at all devoid of poetry. We smU ANCIENT CONTFEB apwards into the high geologic zones, passing from ancient to still more ancient scenes of being and, as we voyage along, find ever in the surrounding prospect, as in the existing scene from which we set out, a graceful intermixture of land and water continent, river, and sea. We first coast along the land of the Tertiary, inhabited by the strange quadrupeds af Cuvier, and waving with the reeds and palms of the Paris Basin; the land of the Wealden, with its gigantic iguanodon rustling amid its tree ferns and its cycadeae, comes next; then comes the green land of the Oolite, with its little pouched insectivorous quadruped, its flying reptiles, its vast jungles of the Brora equisetum, and its forests of the Helmsdale pine ; and then, dimly as through a haze, we mark, as we speed on, the thinly scattered islands of the New Red Sandstone, and pick up in our course a large floating leaf, veined like that of a cabbage, which not a little puzzles the botanists of the ex pedition. And now we near the vast Carboniferous continent, and see along the undulating outline, between us and the sky the strange forms of a vegetation, compared with which that a of every previously seen land seems stunted and poor. We speed day after day along endless forests, in which gigantic club-mosses wave in air a hundred feet over head, and skirt interminable marshes, in which thickets of reeds overtop the mast-head. And, where mighty rivers come rolling to th*! sea, we mark, through the long-retiring vistas which they open into the interior, the higher grounds of the country covered with coniferous trees, and see doddered trunks of vast size, like those of Granton and Craigleith, reclining under the banks in deep muddy reaches, with their decaying tops turned adown the current. At length the furthermost promontory of this long range of coast comes full in view : we near it, — we have eome up abreast of it: we see the ahells of the Mom ANCIENT SeNTJER. 887 tain Limestone glittering white along its funnel shore, ana the green depths under our keel lightened by the flush of innumerable morals; and then, o.dding farewell to the land forever, — for so the geologists of but five years ago would have advised, — we launch into the unmeasured ocean of the Old Red, with its three consecutive zones of animal life. Not a single patch of land more do those geologic chart* exhibit which we still regard as new. The zones of the Silurian and Cambrian succeed the zones of the Old Red; and, darkly fringed by an obscure bank of cloud ranged along the last zone in the series, a night that never dissipate* settles down upon the deep. Our voyage, like that of the old fabulous navigators of five centuries ago, terminates on the sea in a thick darkness, beyond which there lies no shore and there dawns no light. And it is in the middle of this vast ocean, just where the last zone of the Old Red leans against the first zone of the Silurian, that we have succeeded in dis- covering a solitary island unseen before, — a shrub-bearing land, much enveloped in fog, but with hills that at least look green in the distance. There are patches of floating sea- weed much comminuted by the surf all around it; and on one projecting headland we see clear through our glasses a cone-bearing tree. This certainly is not the sort of arrangement demanded by the exigencies of the development hypothesis. A true wood at *he base of the Old Red Sandstone, or a true Placoid in the Limestones of Bala, very considerably beneath the base of the Lower Silurian system, are untoward misplacements for the purposes of the Lamarckian; and who that has watched the progress of discovery for the last twenty years, and aeen the place of the earliest ichthyolite transferred from the Ctoboaaferous to toe Cambrian system, and that of the 828 ANCIENT C0NIFEK, earliest exogenous lignite from the laa* to uie Lower De vonian, will now venture to say that fossil wood may no. yet be detected as low in the scale as any vegetable organjsm whatever, or fossil fish as low as the remains of any annual ? But though the response of the earlier geologic systems ba thus unfavorable to the development hypothesis, may not men such as the author of the " Vestiges" urges that the geologic evidence, taken as a whole, and in its bearing on groupes and periods, establiahea the general fact that the lower plants and animals preceded the higher,—that the conifers, for instance, preceded our true forest trees, such as the oak and elm, — that, in like manner, the fish preceded the reptile, that the reptile preceded the bird, that the bird preceded the mammiferous quadruped and the quadrumana, and that the mammiferous quadruped and the quadrumana preceded man ? Assuredly yes t They may and do urge that Geology furnishes evidence of such a succession of ex- istences ; and the arrangement seems at once a very won- derful and very beautiful one. Of that great and imposing procession of being of which this world has been the scene, the programme has been admirably marshalled. But the order of the arrangement in no degree justifies the inference based upon it by the Lamarckian. The fact that fishes ana. reptiles were created on an earlier day than the beasts of the ftald and the human family, gives no ground whatever for the belief that " the peopling of the earth was one of a natural kind, requiring time," or that the reptiles and fishes have been net only the predecessors, but also the progenitors of the beasts and of man. The geological phenomena, even had the author of the " Vestigesn been consulted in their arrangement, and permittod to determine their se- quern*, wotld yet have failed to furnish, not merely an AEtfcTEBT COSTTjnSBv *M Bdequate forindatlon for the devasoesBant hyp^lw*** hat eves the slightest preeumpticm in It* favor In BsaJtiag good the assertion, may I ask the reader to Billow me through »« detaito of a sia^ne tleBugh *ome^ 8M smpEEFoernoN SOTamPOMTION NOT parental RELATION. TEE BSOlNNINSS OF LIFE Several thousand yeara ago, ere the upheaval of the last of our raised beaches, there existed somewhere on the British coast a submarine bed, rich in sea-weed and the less destruc- tible zoophytes, and inhabited by the commoner Crustacea and molluscs. Shoals of herrings frequented it every autumn, haunted by their usual enemies the dog-fish, the cod, and the porpoise; and, during the other seasons of the year, it was swum over by the ling, the hake, and the turbot. A con- siderable stream, that traversed a wide extent of marshy country, waving with flags and reeds, and in which the frog and the newt bred by millions, entered the sea a few hun- dred yards away, and bore down, when in flood, its modicum of reptilian remains, some of which, sinking over the sub- marine bed, found a lodgment at the bottom. Portions of reeds and flags were also occasionally entombed, with now and then boughs of the pine and juniper, swept from the higher grounds. Through frequent depositions of earthy matter brought down by the streamlet, and of sand thrown ap by tie sea, a gradual elevation of the bottom went on, ill at length the deep-sea bed came to exist as a shallow sank, ever whieh birds of the wader family stalked mid-leg NOT PARENTAL RELATIOE. SSI aeep when plying for food; and on one occasion a amal por- poise, losing his way, and getting entangled amid its shoals perished on it, and left his carcass to be covered up by its mud and silt That elevation of the land, or recession of the sea, to which the country owes its last acquired marginal strip of soil, took place, and the shallow bank became a flat meadow, raised some six or eight feet above the sea-level. Herbs, shrubs, and trees, in course of time covered it over; and then, as century succeeded century, it gathered atop a thick stratum of peaty mould, embedding portions of birch and hazel bushes, and a few doddered oaks. When in this state, at a comparatively recent period, an Italian boy, ac- companied by his monkey, was passing over it, when the poor monkey, hard-wrought and ill-fed, and withal but indiffer- ently suited originally for braving the rigors of a keen north- ern climate, lay down and died, and his sorrowing master covered up the remains. Not many years after, the mutilated corpse of a poor shipwrecked sailor was thrown up, during a night-storm, on the neighboring beach : it was a mere frag- ment of the human frame, — a mouldering unsightly mabs, de- composing in the sun ; and a humane herd-boy, scooping out a shallow grave for it, immediately over that of the monkey, buried it up. Last of all, a farmer, bent on agricultural im- provement, furrowed the flat meadow to the depth of somt six or eight feet, by a broad ditch, that laid open its organic contents from top to bottom. And then a philosopher of the school of Maillet and Lamarck, chancing to come that way, stepped aside to examine the phenomena, and square them with his theory. First, along the bottom of the deep ditch he detects marine erganisms of a low order, and generally of a amall sure 883 SEFEEPOaiTlON There are dark indistinct markings traversing the gray silt, which he correctly enough regards as the remains of fueoids and blent with these, he finds the stony cells of Austin, the calcareous spindles of the sea-pen, the spines of echinus, and the thin granular plates of the Crustacea. Layers of mus sel and pecten shells come next, mixed up with the shells of buccinum, natica, and trochus. Over the shells there occui defensive spines of the dog-fish, blent with the button-like, thornset boucles of the ray. And the minute skeletons of her- rings, with the vertebral and cerebral bones of coo, rest o r these in turn. He finds, also, well-preserved bits of reed, and a fragment of pine. Higher up, the well-marked bones of the frog occur, and the minute skeleton of a newt; higher still, the bones of birds of the diver family ; higher still, the skeleton of a porpoise; and still higher, he discovers that of a monkey, resting amid the decayed boles and branches of dicot- yledonous plants and trees. He pursues his search, vastly delighted to find his doctrine of progressive development so beautifully illustrated ; and last of all he detects, only a few inches from the surface, the broken remains of the poor sailor. And having thus collected his facts, he sets himself to collate them with his hypothesis. To hold that the zoophytes had been created zoophytes, the molluscs molluscs, the fishes fishes, the reptiles reptiles, or the man a man, would be, ac- cording to our philosopher, alike derogatory to the Divine wis- dom and to the acumen and vigor of the human intellect r it would be " distressing to him to be compelled to picture the power of God, as put forth in any other manner than in those slow, mysterious, universal laws, which have so plainly an eternity to work in; " nor, with so large an amount of evi deuce before him as that which the ditch furnishes, — evidence NOT faeental relation. 883 conclusive to the effect that creation is but development, — doe* he find it necessary either to cramp his faculties or outrage his tasto, by a weak yielding to the requirements of any such belief. Meanwhile the farmer, — a plain, observant, elderly man, comes up, and he and the philosopher enter into conversa- tion. " I have been reading the history of creation in the ■ide of your deep ditch," says the philosopher, " and find the record really very complete. Look there," he adds, pointing to the unfossiliferous strip that runs along the bottom of the bank " there, life, both vegetable and animal, first began. It began, struck by electricity out of albumen, as a con- geries of minute globe-shaped atoms, — each a hollow sphere within a sphere, a* in the well-known Chinese puz- zle ; and from these living atoms were all the higher forma progressively developed. The ditch, of course, exhibits none of the atoms with which being first commenced ; for the atoms don't keep; — we merely see their place indicated by that unfossiliferous band at the bottom; but we may detect immediately over it almost the first organisms into which — parting thus early into the two great branches of organic be- ing — they were developed. There are the fucoida, first-born among vegetables, — and there the zoophytes, well nigh the lowest of the animal forms. The fueoids are marine plants for, according to Oken, * all life is from the aea, — none from the continent;' but there, a few feet higher, we may see the remains of reeds and flags, — semi-aqueous, semi-aerial plants of the comparatively low monocotyledonous order into whicl the fueoids were developed ; higher still we detect fragments of pines, and, I think, juniper, — trees and shrubs of the land of an intermediate order, into which the reeds and flags ware developed in turn; and in that peaty layer immediately be- aeath tha vegetable mould, there occur boughs and trunks SO* SS4 jarFBRPOSlTION ef Btaexened oak, —a noble tree of the dieotyledonoub division, — the highest to which vegetation in ha upward course ha* yet attained. Nor is the progress of the other great branch of organized being — that of the animal kingdom — less dis tinctly traceable. The zoophytes became Crustacea and mol- ^scs,— the Crustacea and molluscs, dog-fishes and herrings, — the dog-fish, a low placoid, shot up chiefly into turbot, cod and ling ; but the smaller osseous fish was gradually convert- ed into a batrachian reptile ; in short, the herring became a frog, — an animal that still testifies to its ichthyological origin, by commencing life as a fish. Gradually, in the course of years, the reptile, expanding in size and improving in faculty, passed into a warm-blooded porpoise; the porpoise at length, tiring of the water as he began to know better, quitted it altogether, and became a monkey, and the monkey by slow degrees improved into man, — yes, into man, my friend, who has still a tendency, especially when just shooting up to his full stature, and studying the * Vestiges,' to resume the monkey. Such, Sir, is the true history of creation, aa clearly recorded in the section of earth, moss, and silt, which you have so opportunely laid bare. Where that ditch now opens, the generations of the man atop lived, died, and were developed. There flourished and decayed his great-great- great-great-grandfather the sea-pen, — his great-great-great- grandfather the mussel, — his great-great-grandfather the her- ring, — his great-grandfather the frog, — his grandfather the porpoise, — and his father the monkey. And there also lived, died, and were developed, the generations of the oak, from the kelp-weed and tangle to the reed and the flag, and from the reed and the flag, to the pine, the juniper, the hazel, and the ^bjrch." ( Master," replica the farmer, u I see you are a scholar «0T PARENTAL EELATieN. m and, I suspect, a wag. It would take a great dea< ef believ ing to believe all that. In the days of my poor old neigh bor the infidel weavei, who died of delirium tremens thirty years ago, I used to read Tom Paine; and, as I was a link wild at the time, 1 was, I am afraid, a bit of a sceptic. It wasn't easy work always to be as unbelieving as Tom, espe- cially when the conscience within got queasy; but it would be a vast deal easier, Master, to doubt with Tom than to believe with you. I am a plain man, but not quite a fool; and as I have now been looking about me in this neigh- borhood for the last forty years, I have come to know that it gives no assurance that any one thing grew out of any other thing because it chances to be found atop of it, Master. See, yonder is Dobbin lying lazily atop of his bundle of hay; and yonder little Jack, with bridle in hand, and he in a few minutes will be atop of Dobbin. And all I see in that ditch, Master, from top to bottom, is neither more nor less than a certain top-upon-bottom order of things. I see sets of bones and dead plants lying on the top of other sets of bones and dead plants, — things lying atop of things, as I say, like Dobbin on the hay and Jack upon Dobbin. I doubt not the sea was once here, Master, just as it was once where you see the low-lying field yonder, which I won from it ten years ago. I have carted tangle and kelp-weed where I now cut clover and rye-grass, and have gathered periwinkles where I now see snails. But it is clean against experience, as my poor old neighbor the weaver used to say, -— against my experience, Master,—that it was the kelp-weed that became the rye-grass, or that the periwinkles freshened into snails. The kelp-weed and periwinkles belong to those plants and animals of the sea that we find growing in only the sea; the rye-grass and snail* to those plants and Animals of the land 886 STFBEFOaiTlON that ws lad growing on only the Land, it is contrary to all experience, and all testimony too, that the one passed intc the other, and so I cannot believe it; but I do and must be Iieve, instead, — for it is not contrary to experience, and much according to testimony, — that the Author of all created both land productions and sea productions at the ' times before ap- pointed, and ' determined the bounds of their habitation.' 1 By faith we understand that the world* were framed by the word of God;' and I find I can be a believer on God's terms at a much less expense of credulity than an infidel on yours." But in this form at least it can be scarce necessary that the argument should be prolonged. The geological phenomena, I repeat, even had the author if the " Vestiges " been consulted in their arrangement, and permitted to determine their sequence, would fail to furnish a single presumption in favor of the development hypothe- sis. Does the ditch-»ide of my illustration furnish it with a single favoring presumption ? The arrangement and se- quence of the various organisms are complete in both the zoological and phytological branch. The flag and reed succeed the fucoid; the fir and juniper succeed the flag and reed; and the hazel, birch, and oak succeed the fir and juniper. In like manner, and with equal regularity, zoophytes, the radiate, the articulate, molluscs, fishes, reptiles, birds, and mammals, are ranged, the superior in succession over the inferior classes, in the true ascending order; and yet we at once see that the evidence of tba ditch-side, amounting in the aggregate to no more than this, that the remains of the higher lie over those ef toe lower organisms, gives not a shadow of support to the hypothesis that the lower produced the higher. Por, accord- ing to the honest farmer, the faet mat any one thing ia NOT PAEBNTAX EELATIvBt SS? found lying on the top of any other thing, furnishes ne pre- sumption whatever that the thing below stands In the rela- tion of parent to the thing above. And the evidence which the well-ranged organisms of the ditch-side do not furnish the organisms of the entire geologic scale, even *>er? rh«-y equally well ranged, would fail to aupply. The foasiiiferous portion of the ditch-aide of my illustration may be, let u* tup pose, some five or six feet in thickness; the foasiiiferous portion of the earth's crust must be some five or six miles in thickness. But the mere circumstance of space introduces no new element into the question. Equally in both case* the fact ef superposition is not identical with the fact of parental relation, nor even in any degree an analogous fact As, however, the succession of remains in the foasiiiferous series of recks is infinitely less favorable to the develop- ment hypothesis than that of the organisms of the ditch-aide it is not very surprising that the disciple* of the development school should be now evincing a disposition to escape from the ascertained facts of Geology, and the legitimate conclu- sions based upon these, unto unknown and unexplored prov- inces of the science; or that they should be found virtually urging, that though some of the ascertained facts may *eem to bear against them, the facts not yet ascertained may be found telling in their favor. Such, in effect, ia the course taken by the author of the " Vestiges," in his " Explanations," when, availing himself of a difference of opinion which ex- ists among some ef our most accomplished geologists regard- ing the first epochs of organized existence, he take* part with the section who hold that we have not yet penetrated to the deposits representative of the dawn of being, and that fossil-charged formations may yet be detected beneath the oldest recks ef what is bow regarded a* th* lowest feesilifer 888 TEE BBSINNINeS ous system. Sir Charles Lyell and Mr. Leonard Horn*! represent the abler and better-known assertors of this last view; while Sir Roderick Murchison and Professor Sedgwick rank among .he more distinguished assertors of the antago- nist one. It would be of course utterly presumptuous in the writer of these pages to attempt deciding a question regarding which such men differ; but in forming a judg- ment for myself, various considerations incline me to hold, that the point is now very nearly determined at which, to employ the language of Sir Roderick, " life was first breathed into the waters." The pyramid of organized ex- istence, as it ascends in the by-past eternity, inclines sen- sibly towards its apex, — that apex of " beginning " in which, on far other than geological grounds, it is our privilege to believe. The broad base of the superstructure, planted on the existing now, stretches across the entire scale of life, animal and vegetable; but it contracts as it rises into the past; — man — the quadrumana — the quadrupedal mammal — the bird — and the reptile — are each in succession struck from off its breadth, till we at length see it with the ver- tebrata, represented by only the fish, narrowing, as it were, to a point; and though the clouds of the upper region may hide its extreme apex, we infer from the declination of its sides, that it cannot penetrate much farther into the pro- found. When Steele and Addison were engaged in break- ing up, piecemeal, their Spectator Club,— killing off good Sir Roger de Coverly with a defluction, marrying Will Honeycomb to his tenant's daughter, and sending away Captain Sentry and Sir Andrew Freeport to their estatea in the country, — it was shrewdly inferred that the " Spec- tator " himself was very soon to quit the field , and the sudden discontinuance of his lucubrations justified the in OF LIFE, 888 ference. And a corresponding style of reasoning, based on the corresponding fact of the breaking up and piece- meal disappearance of the group of organized being, see mi equally admissible. It is somewhat difficult to conceive how at least many more volumes of the geolcgic record than the known ones could be got up without the club. Further, — »o fai as yet appears, the fish must have lived in advance of the rep- tile during the three protracted periods of the Old Red Sandstone, the two still more protracted periods of the Up- per and Lower Silurians, and the perhaps more protracted period still of the Cambrian deposits ; — in all, apparently, a greatly more extended space than that in which the rep- tile lived in advance of the quadrupedal mammal, or the quadrupedal mammal lived in advance of man. On prin- ciples somewhat similar to those on which, with reference to the average term of life, the genealogist fixes the probable period of some birth in his chain of succession of which he cannot determine the exact dato, it seems natural to infer that the birth of the fish should have taken place at least not earlier than the time* of the Cambrian system. There is another consideration, of at least equal, if not greater weight. A general correspondence is found to obtain in wide- ly-separated localities, in the organic contents of that lowest band of the Lower Silurian or Cambrian system in which fossila have been detected. In Russia, in Sweden, in Norway, in the Lake district of England, and in the United States, there are certain rocks which occupy relatively the same place, and en- close what may oe described generally as the same remaina They occur in Scandinavia as that" fucoidal band " of Sir Ro- derick Murchison which forms the base of the vast Palaeozoic basin of the Baltic; they exist in Cumberland and Westmore- land as the Skiddaw slates of Professcr Sedgwick, and beai m TEE BBeiNNINCe alas their fWoidal impreesiona, blent with graptolitoa; they are present in Norta America as those Potsdam sandstones of the States' geologist* in which fueoids so abound, mixed with a minute lingula, that they impart to some portion* of the strata a carboniferous character. But with these deep-lying beds in all the several localities, thousands of miles apart, in which their passage into the inferior deposit* has been traced, fossils cease. And why cease with them ? In one locality the ancient ocean may have been of such a depth in the period immediately previous, and represented, in consequence, by the atrata immediately beneath, that no animal could have lived at its bottom, — though I do not well aee why the re- mains of those animals who, like the shark and pilot-fish, are frequently seen swimming over the profoundest depths, might not, did such exist at the time, be notwithstanding found at its bottom; oar in another locality every trace of organization in the nether rocks may have been obliterated, at some posterior period, by fire. But it ia difficult to imagine that that uniform oesaation of organized life at one point, which seems to have conducted Sir Roderick Murchison and Professor Sedgwick to their conclusion, should have been thus a mere effect of ac- cident. Accident has its laws, but uniformity is not one of them; and should the experience be invariable, aa it already seema extensive, that immediatoly beneath the fucoidal beds organic remains cease, I do not see how the conckiaion is to be avoided, that they represent the period in which at least taUtencss capable of preservation were first introduced. Every ease of coincident ceaaation which has occurred since the determination of the second case, must be reckoned, not simply as an additional unit in evidence, but, on the prin eiples whieh determine mathematical probability, as a unit multiplied first by the chances against it* eeeurrenee, re- OF LIFE. 9ft garoed as a mere contingency in that exact fbrntatksa, aad second, by the aum of all the previous occurrences at the same point In this curious question, however, which it must be the part of future explorers in the geological field definitely to settle the Lamarckian can have no legitimate stake. It ia but na- tural that, in his anxiety to secure an ultimate retreat for hia nypothesis, he should desire to see that darkness in which ghosts love to walk settling don a on the extreme verge of the geological horizon, and envelop ng in its folds the first begin- nings of life. But even did the cloud exist, it is, if 1 may so express myself, on its nearer side, where there is light, — not within nor beyond it, where there is none, — that the Battle must be fought. It 1* to Geology as it is known to U, that the Lamarckian has appealed,— not to Geology as it is not known to be. He has summoned into court existing wit- nesses ; and, finding their testimony unfavorable, he seeks to neutralize their evidence by calling from the " vasty deep," of the unexamined and the obscure, witnesses that " woa'J come," — that by the legitimate authorities are not known even to exist, — and with which he himself is, on his own confession, wholly unacquainted, save in the old scholastic character of mere possibilities. The possible fossil can have no more standing in this controversy than the "possible angeV He telle us that we have not yet got down to that base-line of all the foasiiiferous systems at which life first began; and very possibly we have not. But what of thai? He has carried his appeal to Geology as it is; — he has referred his case to the testimony of the known witnesses, for m no case can the unknown ones be summoned or produced. It is on the evidence of the known, and the known only, that the exact value of his claims must be determined; aad his m 848 TEE BEeiNNINSS OF LIFE. appeal to the unknown serves but to show how thoroughly n* himself feels that the actually ascertained evidence bears against him. The severe censure of Johnson on reasoners of this class is in no degree over-severe. " He who will deter- mine," said the moralist," against that which he knows, be- cause there may be something which he knows not, — he that can set hypothetical possibility against acknowledged cer- tainty, — is not to be admitted among reasonable beings." But the honest farmer's reminiscences of his deceased neighbor the weaver, and his use at second-hand of Hume's experience-argument, naturally l**d me to another branch of the subjecL LaJLARCEIAN BrrTOTBRSIS, 841 IJalsARCKIAN HYPOTHESIS OF THE ORIGIN OF PLANTS ITS CONSEQUENCES. I nave said that the curiously-mixed, semi-marine, semi lacustrine flora of the Lake of Stennis became associated in my mind, like the ancient Asterolepis of Stromness, with the development hypothesis. The fossil, as has been shown represents not inadequately the geologic evidence in the question, — the mixed vegetation of the lake may be regarded as forming a portion of the phytological evidence. " All life," says Oken, " is from the sea. Where the sea organism, by self-elevation, succeeds in attaining into form, there issues forth from it a higher organism. Love arose ou of the sea-foam. The primary mucus (that in which elec- tricity originates life) was, and is still, generated in those very parts of the sea where the water is in contact with earth and air, and thus upon the shores. The first creation of the or- ganic took place where the first mountain summits projected out of the water, — indeed, without doubt, in India, if the Himalaya be the highest mountain. The first organic forms, whether plants or animals, emerged from the shallow parts of the sea.'''' Maillet wrote to exactly the same effect a full century ago "lot word," we find him saying, in his " Telliamed " 844 LAJtAECKIAN UTPOTEBSTS " de net herbs, plants, roots, grain*, and all of this kind that the earth produces and n>irishes, come from the sea? I* it not at least natural to think so, since we are certain that all our habitable lands came originally from the sea ? Besides, in small islands far from the continent, which have appeared sut a few ages ago at most, and where it is manifest that never any man had been, we find shrubs, herbs, roots, and sometimes animals. Now, you must be forced to own either that these productions owed their origin to the sea, or to a new creation, which is absurd." It is a curious fact, to which, in the passing, I must be permitted to call the attention of the reader, that all the leading assertors of the development hypothesis have been bad geologists. Maillet had for his errors and deficiencies the excellent apology that he wrote more than a hundred years ago, when the theory of a universal ocean, promul- gated by Leibnitz nearly a century earlier, was quite a* good aa any of the other theories of the time, and when Geology, aa a science, had no existence. And so we do not wonder at an ignorance which was simply that of hi* age, when we find him telling his readers that planto must have originated in the sea, seeing that "all our habitable lands came originally from the sea " meaning, of course, by the statement, not at all what the modern geologist would mean were he to employ even the same words, but simply that there was a time when the universal ocean co- vered the whole globe, and that, a* the waters gradually di- minished, the loftier mountain summits and higher table- lands, in appearing in their new character as islands and continents, derived their flora from what, in a universal seaan could be the only possible existing flora, —that of the eaa But what shall we say of the equally profound ignorance OF THE ORISm OF PLANTS. 84ft manifested by Profeeaor Oken, a living authority, whom ws find prefacing for the Ray Society, in 1847, the Engli*b tranalation of hia " Elements of Physio-philosophy ? " " The first creation of the organic took place," we find him saying, "where the first mountain summits projected out of the sea, —indeed, without doubt, in India, if the Himalaya be the highest mountain." Here, evidently, in this late age of the world, in which Geology does exist as a science, do we find the ghost of the universal ocean of Leibnitz walking once more, as if it had never been laid. Is there now in all Bri- tain even a tyro geologist so unacquainted with geological fact as not to know that the richest flora which the globe ever saw bad existed for myriads of ages, and then, becoming extinct, had slept in the fossil state for myriads of ages more, ere the highest summits of the Himalayan range rose over the surface of the deep ? The Himalayaa disturbed, and bore up along with them in their upheaval, vast beds of the Oolitic system. Belemnites and ammonites have been dug out of their sides along the line of perpetual snow, seventeen thousand feet over the level of the sea. What in the recent period form the loftiest mountains of the globe, existed aa portiona of a deep-aea bottom, swum over by the fishes and reptiles of the great Secondary period, when what is now Scotland had its dark forests of stately pine, —repre^ sented in the present age of the world by the lignites of Helms- dale, Eathie, and Eigg, —and when the plants of a former creation lay dead and buried deep beneath, in shales and fire- clay, __existing as vast beds of coal, or entombed in solid rock, as the brown massy trunks of Granton and Craigleith. And even ere these tost existed as living trees, the conifer* eus lignite of the Lower Old Red Sandstone found at Cro ■tarty had passed into the fbeeil state, and lay aa a semi 846 LAKAECELAN BYPOTBRSI8 calcareous, semi-bituminous mass, amid perished Dipterians and extinct Coccostei. So much for the Geology of the Ger- man Professor. And be it remarked, that the actualities in this question can be determined by only the geologist The mere naturalist may indicate from the analogies of his science, what possibly might have taken place but what really did take place, and the true order in which the event* occurred t is the part of the geologist to determine. It cannot be out of place to remark, further that geological discovery is in no degree responsible for the infidelity of the development hypothesis ; seeing that, in the first place, the hypothesis is greatly more ancient than the discoveries, and, in the second, that its more prominent assertors are exactly the men who Know least of geological fact. But to this special point I shall again refer. The author of the " Vestiges " is at one, regarding the sup- posed marine origin of terrestrial plants, with Maillet and Oken; and he regards the theory, we find him stating in his " Explanations," as the true key to the well-established fact, that the vegetation of groupes of islands generally corre- sponds with that of the larger masses of land in their neigh- borhood. Marine plants of the same kinds crept out of the sea, it would seem, upon the islands on the one hand, and upon the larger masses of land on the other, and thus pro- duced the same flora in each; just as tadpoles, after passing their transition state, creep out of their canal or river on the opposite banks, and thus give to the fields or meadows on the right-hand side a supply of frogs, of the same appearance and size as those poured out upon the fields and meadows of the left. " Thus, for example," we find him saying, " the Galapagos exhibit general characters in common with South America; and the Cape da Vera islands, aria Africa. They OF TEE 0RI9IN OP PLANTS, « are, in Mi. Darwin's aappy phrase, satellites to these aeattliusaxto, m respect of natural history. Again," he continues, a wne» masses of land are only divided from each other by Bans* seas, there is usually a community of forms. The European and African shores of the Mediterranean present an example. Our own islands afford another of far higher value. It appear* that the flora of Ireland and Great Britain is various, oj rather that we have five floras or distinct sets of plants, and that each of these is partaken of by a portion of the opposite continent There are, first, a flora confined to toe west of Ireland, and imparted likewise to the north-west of Spain; second, a flora in the south-west promontory of England and of Ireland, extending across the Channel to the north-west coast of France ; third, one common to the south-east of Eng- land and north of France ; fourth, an Alpine flora developed n the Scottish and Welsh Highlands, and intimately related k> that of the Norwegian Alps ; fifth, a flora which prevails over a large part of England and Ireland, ' mingled wits other floras, and diminishing slightly as we proceed west- ward :' this bears intimate relation with the flora of Ger- many. Facts so remarkable would force the meanest faet- collector or species-demonstrator into generalization. The really ingenious man who lately brought them under notice (Professor Edward Forbes) could only surmise, a* their ex- planation, that the spaces now occupied by the intermedial* seas must have been dry land at the tune when these floras were created. In that case, either the original arrangement ef the floras, or the selection of land for submergence, must have been apposite to the case in a degree far from usual The necessity for a simpler cause is obvious, and it is found is the hypothesis of a spread of terreslrid vigstationfrem the sea into the lands adjacent. The community of farms ia tha vail- 848 LAMARCKIAN BIFOTEEEIE ■as regions opposed to each other merely indicate* a distinct marine creation in each of the oceanie areas respectively interposed, and which would naturally advance into the lands nearest to it, a* far a* circumstances of soil and climate were found agreeable." Such, regarding the origin of terrestrial vegetation, are the news of Maillet, Oken, and the author of the "Vestige*," They all agree in holding that the plants of the land existeo in their first condition as weeds of the sea. Let me request the reader at this stage, ere we pass on to tb* consideration of the experience-argument, to remark a few incidental, but by no mean* unimportant, consequence* of the belief. And, first, let him weigh for a moment the comparative demand* on his credulity of the theory by which Professor Forbes accounts for the various flora* of tha Brit- ish Islands, and that hypothesis of transmutation which the author of the " Vestiges " would ao fain put in it* place, as greatly more simple, and, of course, more in accordance with die principles of human belief. In order to the reception of the Professor'* theory, it is necessary to hold, in the first place, that toe creation of each species of plant took place, not by repetition of production in various widely-separated cen- tres, but in some single centre, from whieh the species prop- agated itself by seed, bud, or scion, across the special area which it is now found to occupy. And this, in the first in- stance, ia of course aa much an assumption as any of those assumed numbers or assumed lines with which, in algebra and the mathematics, it is neceaaary in so many calculation* to set out, to quest of some required number er line, which without the assistance of the assumed ones, we might de- spair ef ever finding. But the aaaumption ia in itself neither ■BBssEaral nor violent; there are varieu* very rssssitablu anal- OP TEE ORiaiE OF PLANTS. 848 agios whisk lead it support; the facts which seem least te harmonize with it are not wholly irreconcilable, and are besides, of a merely exceptional character; and, further, it has been adopted by botanists of the highest standing.* It * Th* following digest from Professor Balfour's way adsai rabl* "Manual of Botany," of what is held on this curious sub ject may be not unacceptable to the reader. " It is an interesting question to determine the mode in which the various species and tribes of plants were originally scattered over the globe. Vari- ous hypotheses have been advanced on the subject Iinnaras en- tertained the opinion that there was at first only one primitive centre of vegetation, from which plants were distributed over the globe. Some, avoiding all discussions aad difficulties, suppose that plants were produced at first in the localities where they are now seen vegetating. Others think that each species of plant originated in, and was diffused from, a single primitive centre; and that there were numerous such centres situated in different parts of the world, eaeh centre being the seat of a particular number of species. They thus admit great vegetable migrations, similar to those of the human raees. Those who adopt the latter view recognise in the distribu- tion of plants some of the last revolutions of our planet, and the action of numerous and varied forces, which imped* or favor the dissemination of vegetables in the present day. They endeavor to ascertain the primitive flora of countries, and to trace the vegetable migrations whieh have taken place. Daubeny says, that analogy favors the supposition that each species of plant was originally formed in some particular locality, whence it spread itself gradu ally over a certain area, rather than that the earth was st once, by the fiat of the Almighty, covered with vegetation in the manner we at present behold it. The human race rose from a single pair ; and the distribution of plants and animals over a certain definite area would seem to imply that the same was the general law. Am. ogy would lead us to believe that the extension of species over tin earth originally took place on the same plan on which it is con- ducted at present when a new island starts up in the midst of the ocean, produced either by a coral reef or a volcano. In these cases the whole surface is not at once overspread with plants, bui a gradual progress of vegetation is traced Arose th* eeeldentei iatro- 250 CONSEQUENCES » necessary to hold, in the second place, in order to the re caption of the theory, that the area of the earth's surface occupied by the British Islands and the neighboring coasts of the Continent once stood fifty fathoms higher, in relation to the existing sea-level, than it does now, — a belief which whatever its specific grounds or standing in this particular lase, is at least in strict accordance with the general geologi- cal phenomena of subsidence and elevation, and which, so far from outraging any experience founded on observation or testimony, runs in the same track with what is known of wide areas now in the course of sinking, like that on the Italian coast, in which the Bay of Baiae and the ruins of the temple of Serapis occur, or that in Asia, which includes the Run of Cutch ; or of what is known of areas in the course of rising, like part of the coast of Sweden, or part of the coast of South America, or in Asia along the western shores of Aracan. Whereas, in order to close with the simpler an- tagonistic belief of the author of the " Vestiges," it is neces- sary to hold, contrary to all experience, that dulce and hen- ware* became, through a very wonderful metamorphosis, cabbage and spinnage ; that kelp-weed and tangle bour- geoned into oaks and willows; and that slack, rope-weed, and green-raw,i shot up into mangel-wurzel, rye-grass, and clover. Simple, certainly ! An infidel on terms auch as these could with no propriety be regarded as an unbeliever. It is well taction of a siagl* seed, perhaps, of **ch species, wafted by winds or floated by currents The remarkable limitation of certain specie* te single spot* on the glob* seems to fsvor the supposition of specific centres." • Rkodomenia pahnatm mni Alans, meulenU. t Porphssra letmuiate Ohm-ma 4hm, and Fntsromorph* vmprsHs SF TEE LAMARCE3AN BTPOTHBBJB »»J mat the New Testament makes no such exti^rdiaary de- mands on human credulity. Let us remark further, at this stage, that, judging from tba generally received geological evidence in the case, very little time seems to be allowed by the author of the " Vestige* n for that miraculous process of transmutation through which the low algae of our sea-shores are neld to hare passed int< high orders of plants wh'ch constitute the prevailing British flora. The boulder clay, which rises so high along our hills, and which, as shown by its inferior position on the lower grounds, is decidedly the most ancient of the country's superficial de- posits, is yet so modern, geologically, that it contains only recent shells. It belongs to that cold, glacial, post-Tertiary period, in which what is now Britain existed as a few groupes of insulated hill-tops, bearing the semi-arctic vegetation of our fourth flora, — that true Celtic flora of the country which we now find, like the country's Celtic races of our own species, cooped up among the mountains. The fifth or Germanic flora must have been introduced, it is held, at s later period, when the climate had greatly meliorated. And if we are to hold that the plants of this last flora were devel- oped from sea-weed, not propagated across a continuity ef land from the original centre in Germany, or borne by cur- rents from the mouths of the Germanic rivers,— the theory of Mon. C. Martins, — then must we also hold that that de- velopment took place since the times of the boulder clay, and mat fueoids and conrervae became dicotyledonous and mono- cotyledonous plants during a brief period, in which the Pur- pura lapillus and Turritella terebra did not alter a single whorl, and the Cyprina islandica and Astarte borealis re- tained unchanged each minute projection of their hinges, and *erh nicer pecuharity of their muscular impressions Oreo- 862 CeNSB^WKsMHES Hon would be greatly leas wonderful than a sudden transwB Eative process such as this, restricted in its operation to groupes of English, Irish, and Manx plaus, identical with groupes in Germany, when all the various organisms around them, suck as our sea-shells, continued to be exactly what they had been for ago* before. A process of development from the lowest to th© highest forms, rigidly restricted to the flora of a coun- try, would be simply the miracle of Jonah's gourd several thousand times repeated. I must here indulge in a few remarks more, which, though they may seem of an incidental character, have a direct bear- ing on the general subject. The geologist infers, in all his reasonings founded on fossils, that a race or species has ex- isted from some one certain point in the scale to some other certain point, if he find it occurring at both points together. He infers on this principle, for instance, that the boulder clay, which contains only recent shells, belongs to the recent or po*t-Tertiary period; and that the Oolite and Lias, which contain no recent shells, represent a period whose existences have all become extinct. And all experience serves to show that his principle is a sound one. In creation there are many species linked together, from their degree of simih rity, by the generic tie ; but no perfect verisimilitude obtair > among them, unless hereditarily derived from the one, two, or more individuals, of contemporary origin, with which the race be- gan. True, there are some races that have spread over very wide circles, — the circle of the human family has become identical with that of the globe; and there are certain plants and animals that, from peculiar powers of adaptation to the varieties of soil and climate, — mayhap also from the tena- ekm* vitality of their seed*, and their facilities of transport by natural mesvoa, — ar* likewise diffused »ery widely. There OF TEE LANAECEIAN BTT0THES16. 869 are plants, toe, such as the common nettle aad setae ef the ordinary grasses, which accompany civilised man all over the globe, he scarce knows how, and spring up unbidden when- ever he fixe* hi* habitation. He, besides, carries with him the common agricultural weeds: there are localities in the United States, says Sir Charles Lyell, where these exotics out- number the native plants; but these are exceptions to the prevailing economy of distribution; and the circles of specie* generally are comparatively limited and well defined. The mountains of the southern hemisphere have, like those of Switzerland and the Scotch Highland*, their forests of coniferous trees ; but they furnish no Swiss pines or Scotch firs; nor do the coasts of New Zealand or Van Dieman's Land supply the European shells or fish. True, there may be much to puzzle in the identity of what may be termed the exceptional plants, equally indigenous, apparently, in circle* widely sep- arated by space. It has been estimated that there exist about a hundred thousand vegetable specie*, and of these, thirty Antarctic forms have been recognized by Dr. Hooker as identical with European ones. Had Robinson Crusoe failed to remember that he had shaken the old corn-bag where he found the wheat and barley ears springing up on his island, he might have held that he had discovered a new centre of the European cerealia. And the process analogous to the shaking of the bag is frequently a process not to be remem bered. There are several minute lochana in the Hebridea and the west of Ireland in which there occurs a small plant of the cord-rush family, (Eriocaulon septangulars,) which, though common in America, is nowhere to be found on the European Continent It is the only British plant which be- long* to no other part of Europe. How waa it transpcrtod acres* the Atlantic r Entangled, mayhap, ia the farm ef a SS 364 CONSEQUENCES akgle seed, — fbr its seeds are exceedingly light and smaii — in the plumage of some water-fowl, free of both sea and take, it had been carried in the germ from the weed-skirted edge of some American swamp or mere, to some mossy lochan of Connaught or of Skye ; and one such seed trans ported by one such accident, unique in its occurrence it thousands of years, would be quite sufficient to puzzle all the botanists forever after. I have seen the seed of one of our Scotch grasses, that had been originally caught in the matted fleece of a sheep reared among the hills of Sutherland, and then wrought into a coarse, ill-dressed woollen cloth, carried about for months in a piece of underclothing. It might have gone over half the globe in that time, and, when cast away with the worn vestment, might have originated a new circle for its species in South America or New Holland. There are seeds specially contrived by the Great Designer to be carried far from their original habitats in the coats of animals, — a mode which admits of transport to much greater distances than the mode, also extensively operative, of consigning them for conveyance to their stomachs; and when we see the work in its effects, we are puzzled by the want of a record of an emigratory process, of which, in the circum- stance*), no record could possibly exist Unable to make out * case for the " shaking of the bag," we bethink us, in the emergency, of repetition of creation. But in circles separat- ed by time, not space, — by time, across whose dim gulfs no roysger sails, and no bird flies, and over which there are no mf*£s of transport from the point where a race once fails, te any other point in the future, — we find no repetition of specie* If the production of perfect duplicates or tripli- cate* in independent centres were a law of nature, our work* sf physic*] science could scarce fail to toll us of identical OF TEE LAMARCKIAN HYPOTHESIS. 868 species found occurring in widely-separated systems, — Scotch firs and larches, for instance, among the lignites of the Lias, or Cyprina islandica and Ostrea edulis among the shell* of the Mountain Limestone. But never yet has the geologist found in his systems or formations any such evidence as facts iuch as these might be legitimately held to furnish, of the independent de novo production of individual members of any single species. On the contrary, the evidence lies so en- tirely the other way, that he reasons on the existence of a family relation obtaining between all the members of each species, as one of his best established principles. If mem- bers of the same species may exist through de novo produc- tion, without hereditary relationship, so thoroughly, in con- sequence, does the fabric of geological reasoning fall to the ground, that we find ourselves incapacitated from regarding even the bed of common cockle or mussel shells, which we find lying a few feet from the surface on our raised beaches, as of the existing creation at all. Nay, even the human re- mains of our moors may have belonged, if our principle of relationship in each species be not a true one, to soma for- mer creation, cut off from that to which we ourselves belong by a wide period of death. All palaeontological reasoning is at an end forever, if identical species can originate in in- dependent centres, widely separated from each other by pe- riods of time; and if they fail to originate in periods sepa- rated by time, how or why in centres separated by space ? Let the reader remark further, the bearing of those facts from which this principle of geological reasoning has been derived, on the development hypothesis. We find species restricted to circles and periods; and though stragglers are occasionally found outside the circle in the existing state of things, never are they found beyond their period among a >/)»«ia*ENCab the remains of the past It was profoundly argued by Cu vier. that life could not possibly have had a chemical origin / " In fact," we find him remarking, " life exercising upon the elements which at every instant form part of the living body, and upon those which it attracts to it, an action contrary tc that which would be produced without it by the usual chem ical affinities, it is inconsistent to suppose that it can itself be produced by these affinities." And the phenomena of re stnetion to circle and period testify to the same effect. Noth ing, on the one hand, can be more various in charactor and aspect than the organized existences of the various circles and periods; nothing more invariable, on the other, than the results of chemical or electrical experiment And yet, to use almost the words of Cuvier, " we know of no other power in nature capable of reuniting previously separated molecules," than the electric and the chemical. To these agents, accord- ingly, all the assertors of the development hypothesis have had recourse for at least the origination of life. Air, water, earth existing as a saline mucus, and an active persistent electri- city, are the creative ingredients of Oken. The author of the " Vestiges" is rather leas explicit on the subject: he simply refers to the fact, that the " basis of all vegetable and animal substances consists of nucleated cells, —that is, of cells having granules within them;" and states that globules of a resem- bling character " can be produced in albumen by electrici- *y " and that though albumen itself has not yet been pro- duced by artificial means,—the only step in the process of creation which is wanting,—it is yet known to be a chemical composition, the mode of whose production may " be any day discovered in the laboratory." Further, he adopts, aa part of the foundation of his hypothesis, the pseudo-experi- ment ef Mr. Weekes, who holds that out of certain saline ef TEE UAMARCE1AN BTPOTEBSUS. 861 prep*u»ttons, acted upon by electricity, he can prodnee ear tam living BJiimalcuhi of the mite family ; — the vital and the organized out of the inorganic and the dead. In all Buck cases, electricity, or rather, according to Oken, galvanism, is regarded as the vitalizing principle. " Organism," says the German, u is galvanism residing in a thoroughly homogeno- us? mass. .... A galvanic pile pounded into atoms must become alive. In this manner nature brings forth or- ganic bodies." I have even heard it seriously aaked whether electricity be not God! Alas! could auch a god, limited in its capacity of action, like those " gods of the plains " in which the old Syrian trusted, have wrought, in the character of Creator, with a variety of result so endless, that in no geo- logic period has repetition taken place ? In all that purporta to be experiment on the development side of the question, we see nothing else save repetition. The Acarus Crossi of Mr. Weekes is not a new species, but the repetition of an old one, which has been long known as the Acarus horridus, s little bristle-covered creature of the mite family, that harbors in damp corners among the debris of outhouses, and the dust and dirt of neglected workshops and laboratories, Nay, even a change in the chemical portion of the experiment by which he believed the creature to be produced, failed to aecure va riety. A powerful electric current had been sent, in the first instance, through a solution of silicate of potash, and, after a time, the Acarus horridus crawled out of the fluid. The cur- rent was then sent through a solution of nitrate of copper, and after a due space, the Acarus horridus again creeped out A solution of ferro- /anate of potash was next subjected to the surrent, and yet again, and in greater numbers than on the two former occaaions, there appeared, as in virtue, it would —a—, ef to. extraordinary appetency, to be the aasae eves- 88* 858 CONSEQUENCES marring Acarus horridus. How, or in what form, the littls creature should have been introduced into the several experi- ments, it is not the part of those who question then* legiti aiacy to explain; it is enough for us to know, that Individ uals of the family to which the Acarus belongs are so re- markable for their powers of life, even in their fully developed state, as to resist, for a time, the application of boiling water, and to live long in alcohol. We know, further, that the germs of the lower animals are greatly more tenacious of vi- tality than the animals themselves; and that they may exist in their state of embryonism in the most unthought of and elusive forms; nay, — as the recent discoveries regarding al- terations of generation have conclusively shown, — that the germ which produced the parent may be wholly unlike the germ that produces its offspring, and yet identical with that which produced the parent's parent. Save on the theory of a quiescent vitality, maintained by seeds for centuries within a few inches of the earth's surface, we know not how a layer of shell, sand, or marl, spread over the bleak moors of Har- ris, should produce crops of white clover, where only heath had grown before ; nor how brakes of doddered furze burnt down on the slopes of the Cromarty Sutors should be so fre- quently succeeded by thickets of raspberry. We are not however to give up the unknown, — that illimitable province in which science discovers,—to be a wild region of dream, in which fantasy may invent. There are many dark places in the field of human knowledge which even the researches of ages may fail wholly to enlighten; but no one derives a right from that circumstance to people them with chimeras and phantoms. They belong to the philosophers of the future, — not to the visionaries of the present But while it is not oux ■art to explain how, in the experiments of Mr. Weekes, the EF THE LAMARCE1AE ETTOTEES1S 861 chain it 'if* from life has been maintained unbroken, ws can most conclusively show, that that world of organized existence of which we ourselves form part, is, and ever has been, a world, not of tame repetition, but of endless variety. h is palpably not a world of Acaxida of one species, nor yet of creatures developed from these, under those electric or chemical laws of which the grand characteristic is inva- riability of result. The vast variety of its existences speak not of the operation of unvarying laws, that represent, in their uniformity of result, the unchangeableness of the Di- vinity, but of creative acts, that exemplify the infinity of Hia resources. Let the reader yet further remark, if he has followed me through these preliminary observations, what is really m- volved in the hypothesis of the author of the " Vestiges," re- garding the various flora* common to the British islands and the Continent. If it was upon his scheme that England, Ire- land, and the mainland of Europe came to possess an identi- cal flora, production de novo and by repetition of the same species must have taken place in thousands of instances along the shores of each island and of the mainland. His hypothe- sis demands that the sea-weed on the coast of Ireland should have been developed, first through lower, and then higher rorma, into thousands of terrestrial plants, — that exactly the same process of development from sea-weed into tones- racial plants of the same species should have taken place on the .*oast of England, and again on the coasts of the Con- tinent generally, — and that identically the same vegetation ahou d have been originated in this way in at least three great eentres. And if planta of the same species could have had three distinct centres of organisation and development, why net three huaelrea, ar three thousand, or three hundred thou 388 sensBtoBExesa ■and ? Nor will it de to attempt eattaping from the difficulty by alleging that there is be groundwork in the case of at least a eommon marine vegetation to start from ; and that thus, ;f we have not properly the existence of the direct hereditary tie among the various individuals of each spec es, we may yet recognize at least a sort of collateral relationship among then-, derived from the relationship of their marine ancestry. For relationship, in even the primary stage, the author of the " Vestiges " virtually repudiates, by adopting, as one of the foundations of his hypothesis, with, of course, all the legitimate consequences, the experiments of Mr. Weekes. The animalcuUe-making process is instanced as representative of the first stage of being, — that in which dead inorganic matter assumes vitality; and it corresponds, in the zoological branch, to the production of a low marine vegetation in the phytological one. A certain semi-chemical, semi-e.ectrical process, originates, time after time, certain numerous low forms of life, identical in species, but con- nected by no tie of relationship : such is the presumed result of the Weekes experiment A certain further process of development matures low forms of life, thus originated, into higher species, also identical, and also wholly unconnected by the family tie: such are the consequences legitimately involved in that island-vegetation theory promulgated by the author of the " Vestiges." And be it remembered that Mr. Weekes' process, so far as it is simply electrical and chemical, is a process which is as capable of having been gone through in all times and all places, as that other process of strewing marl upon a moor, through which certain rustic experimenters have held that they produced white clover. It could have been gone through during the Carboniferous or the Siluriai. period { for all truly chemical and electrical experiments OF THE LAMARCXIAN arrPOTHEEIS. 881 would hav » resulted in manifestation* of the same phenonv ena then a* now; — an acid would have effervesced as freely with an alkali; and each fibre of an electrified feather — had feather* then exulted — would have stood out as decided* jj apart from all its neighbors. We must therefore hold, if we believe with the author of the *- Vestiges," first, from the Weekes experiment, that in all times, and in all places, every centre of a certain chemical and electric action would have become a new centre of creation to certain recent specie* of low, but not very low, organization; and, second, from his doctrine regarding the identity of the British and Continental floras, that in the course of subsequent development from these low forms, the process in each of many widely-sepa- rated centres, — widely separated both by space and time, — would be so nicely correspondent with the process in all the others, that the same higher recent forms would be ma- tured in all. And to doctrines such as these, the experience of all Geologists, all Phytologists, all Zoologists, is diametri- cally opposed. If these doctrines be true, their sciences arc false in their facts, and idle and ux founded in their principles 262 TEE TWO FLORAS THE TWO FLORAS, MARINE AND TBB1LBSTBIAL. BZARIlO OF THX EXPERIENCE ARaUNRNT. Is the reader acquainted with the graphic ver*e, and *CArc€ Less graphic prose, in which Crabbe describes the appear- ances presented by a terrestrial vegetation affected by the waters of the sea f In both passages, as in all his purely descriptive writings, there is a solidity of truthful observa- tion exhibited, which triumphs over their general homciineaa of vein. " On either side Is level fen, a prospect wild and wide, With dykes on either hand, by ocean self-supplied. Far on the right the distant sea is seen, And salt the springs that feed the marsh between; Beneath an ancient bridge the straitened flood Bolls through its sloping banks of slimy mud; Near it a sunken boat resists the tide, That frets and hurries to the opposing side; The rushes sharp, that on the borders grow, Bend their brown florets to the stream below, Impure in all its course, in all it* progress slow. Here a grave Flora scarcely deign* to bloom, Nor wears a rosy blush, nor sheds perfume. The few dull flowers that o'er the place are spread,. Partake the nature of their fenny bed 5 Her* on its wiry stem, in rigid bloom, Stows th* salt lavender, that lacks perfume j MARINE AND TERRESTRIAL. 863 Here tne a wart sallows creep, the septfoil harsh, And the soft slimy mallow of the marsh. Low on the ear the distant billows sound, And just in view appears their stony bound." " The ditches of a fen so near the ocean," says the poet, it he note which accompan.es this passage, " are lined with irregular patches of a coarse-stained laver; a muddy sedi- ment rests on the horse-tail and other perennial herbs which in part conceal the shallowness of the stream; a fat-leaved, pale-flowering scurvy-grass appears early in the year, and the razor-edged bullrush in the summer and autumn. The fen itself has a dark and saline herbage : there are rushes and arrow-head; and in a few patches the flakes of the cot- ton-grass are seen, but more commonly the sea-aster, the dull- est of that numerous and hardy genus; a thrift, blue in flower, but withering, and remaining withered till the winter scatters it; the salt-wort, both simple and shrubby; a few kinds of grass changed by the soil and atmosphere ; and low plants of two or three denominations, undistinguished in the general view of scenery; — such is the vegetation of the fen where it is at a small distance from the ocean." And such are the descriptions of Crabbe, at once a poet and a botanist. In referring to the blue tint exhibited in aalt-fens by the pink-colored flower of the thrift, (Static* Armeria,) he might have added, that the general green of the terrestrial vegetation likewise assumes, when subjected to those modified marine influences jnder which plants of the land can continue to live, a decided tinge of blue. It is further noticeable, that the general brown of at least the larger algae presents, as they creep upwards upon the beach to meet with these, a marked tinge of yellow. The prevailing brown of the one flora approximates towards yellow, — the prevailing 264 THE TWO FLORAS, green of the other towards blue; and thus, instead of mu- tually merging into some neutral tint, they assume at their line of meeting directly antagonistic hues. But what does experience say regarding the transmutative conversion of a marine into a terrestrial vegetation,—that experience on which the sceptic found so much? As I walked along the green edge of the Lake of Stennis, selvaged by the line of detached weeds with which a recent gale bad strewed its shores, and marked that for the first few miles the accumulation consisted of marine algaa, here and there mixed with tufts of stunted reeds or rushes, and that as I re- ceded from the sea it was the algae that became stunted and dwarfish, and that the reeds, aquatic grasses, and rushes, grown greatly more bulky in the mass, were also more fully developed individually, till at length the marine vegetation altogether disappeared, and the vegetable debris of the shore became purely lacustrine, — I asked myself whether here, if anywhere, a transition flora between lake and sea ought not to be found ? For many thousand years ere the tall gray obelisks of Stennis, whose forms 1 saw this morning reflected in the water, had been torn from the quarry, or laid down in mystic circle on their flat promontories, had this iake admitted the waters of the sea, and been salt in its lower reaches and fresh in its higher. And during this protracted period had its quiet, well-shattered bottom been exposed to no disturbing influences through which the delicate process of transmu- tation could have been marred or arrested. Here, then, if in any circumstances, ought we to have had in the broad, permanently brackish reaches, at least indications of a vege- tation intermediate in its nature between the monocotyle' dons of the lake and the algae of the sea; and yet not a vestige of such an intermediate vegetation could I find MARINE AND TBRRRSTRIAL. Among the up-piled debris ef the mixed floras, atari** and hcustrine. The lake possesses no such intermediate vege* tation. As the water freshens in its middle reaches, the algse become dwarfish and ill-developed; one species after another ceases to appear, as the habitat becomes wholly un- favorable to it, until at length we find, instead of the brown rootless, flewerless fueoids and confervas of the ocean, the green, rooted, flower-bearing flags, rushes, and aquatic grasses of the fresh water. Many thousands of years have failed to originate a single intermediate plant And such tested by a singularly extensive experience, is the genera evidence. There is scarce a chain-length of the shore* of Britain and Ireland that has not been a hundred and a hundred time* explored by the botanist, — keen to collect and prompt to regiater every rarity of the vegetable kingdom; but ha* he ever yet succeeded in transferring to his herbarium a single plant caught in the transition state ? Nay, are there any of the laws under which the vegetable kingdom exists better xnown than those laws which fix certain species of the alga* to certain zones of coast, in which each, according to the overly- ing depth of water and the nature of the bottom, finds the only habitat in which it can exist ? The rough-stemmed tangle (Laminaria digitata) can exist no higher on the shore than the low line of ebb during stream-tides; the smooth-stemmed tangle (Laminaria saccharina) flourishes along an inner belt, partially uncovered during the ebbs of the larger neaps; the forked and cracker kelp-weeds (Fucus serratus and Fucus nodosus) thrive in a zone still less deeply covered by water, and which even the lower neaps expose. And at least one ether species of kelp-weed, the Fucus vesiculosus, occurs in a asste higher still, though, as it creep* upwards on the rocky S3 W6 TEE TWO FLORAS, beach, it loses in characteristic bladders, and becomes aboil and narrow of frond. The thick brown tufts of Fucus canali- culatus, which in the lower and middle reaches of the Lake of Stonni* I found heaped up in great abundance along the shore*, al*o rises high on rocky beaches, — so high in some instances, that during neap-tides it remains uncovered by the water for days together. If, as is not uncommon, there be an escape of land springs along the beach, there may be found, where the fresh water oozes out through the sand and gravel, an upper terminal zone of the confervse, chiefly of a green color, mixed with the ribbon-like green laver, (Ulva latissima,) the purplish-brown laver, (Porphyra lad- niata,) and still more largely with the green silky Ente romorpha, (E. compressa.) * And then, decidedly within the line of the storm-beaches of winter,— not unfrequently in low sheltered bays, such as the Bay of Udale or of Nigg, where the ripple of every higher flood washes, — we may find the vegetation of the land — represented by the sen- tinels and picquets of its outposts — coming down, as if to meet with the higher-growing plants of the sea. In salt marshes the two vegetations may be seen, if I may so ex- press myself, dovetailed together at their edges, — at least one species of club-rush (Scirpus maritimus) and the common salt- wort and glasswort (Salsola kali and Salicornia procumbens) encroaching so far upon the sea as to mingle with a thinly- • " Dr. Neill mentions," says the Rev. Mr. Landsborough, in his eomplete and very interesting " History of British Sea-Weeds," * that on our shores algae generally occupy eones in the following order, be- ginning from deep water : — F. Filum; F. eaculentus and bulbosus , F. digitotus, saccharines, and lareus ; F. serratus and crispus; F. nodo- sus and vesiculosus; F. canaliculus, and, iast of all, F. pygmstus. whieh is satisfied if it be within reach of the spray." HARINB AND TERRESTEIAL Wl scattered and sorely-diminished fucus,—that bladderless va- riety of the Fucus vesiculosus to which I have already referred, and which may be detected in such localities, shooting fortf. its minute brown fronds from the pebbles. On rocky coasts, where springs of fresh water come trickling down along the fissures of the precipices, the observer may see a variety of Rhodomenia palmata — the fresh-water dulse of the Moray Frith — creeping upwards from the lower limits of produc- tion, till just where the common gray balanus ceases to grow. And there, short and thick, and of a bleached yel- low hue, it ceases also; but one of the commoner marine confervas, — the Conferva arcta, blent with a dwarfed En- teromorpha,— commencing a very little below where the dulse ends, and taking its place, clothes over the runnels with its covering of green for several feet higher: in some cases, where it is frequently washed by the upward dash of the waves, it rises above even the flood-line; and in some crevice of the rock beside it, often as low as its upper edge, we may detect stunted tufts of the sea-pink or of the scurvy- grass. But while there is thus a vegetation intermediate mi place between the land and the sea, we find, as if it had been selected purposely to confound the transmutation theory, ihat it is in no degree intermediate in character. For, while it is chiefly marine weeds of the lower division of the con- fervas that creep upwards from the sea to meet the vegeta- tion of the land, it is chiefly terrestrial plants of the higher division of tho dicotyledons that creep downwards from the land to meet the vegetation of the sea The saltworts, the glass-worts, the arenaria, the thrift, and the scurvy-grass, are all dicotyledonous plants. Nature draws a deeply-marked line of d'vision where the requirements of the transmutative hypothe*!* would demand the nicely graduated softness of a 36S ax Ail NO shaded one; and, addressing the strongly marked floras ar either hand, even more sternly than the waves themselves demands that to a certain definite bourne should they come, and no farther. But in what form, it may be asked, or with what limita tions, ought the Christian controversialist to avail himself, in this question, of the experience argument ? Much ought tc depend, I reply, on the position taken up by the opposite; ■ide. We find no direct reference made by the author of the " Vestiges " to the anti-miracle argument, first broached by Hume, in a purely metaphysical shape, in his well-known * Inquiry," and afterwards thrown into the algebraic form by La Place, in his Essai philosophique sur les Probabilites. But we do not detect its influences operative throughout the entire work. It is because of some felt impracticability on the par of its author, of attaining to the prevailing belief in the miracle of creation, that he has recourse, instead, to the. so-called law of development The law and the miracle are the altornatives placed before him ; and, rejecting the miracle, he closes with the law. Now, in such circumstances, he can have no more cause of complaint, if, presenting him with the experience argument of Hume and La Place, we demand that he square the evidence regarding the existence of his law strictly ac- cording to its requirements, than the soldier of an army that charged its field-pieces with rusty nails would have cause of complaint if he found himself wounded by a missile of a similar kind, sent against him by the artillery of the enemy You cannot, it might be fairly said, in addressing him, ac- quiesce in the miracle here, because, as a violation of the laws of natce, there are certain objections, founded on invariable experience, which bear direct against your belief h it Well, here are the obje:tions, in th* strongest form in which they OF TEE BXFEEIENCB ARftBMRNT fj$g save yet been *tated; and here ia your hypothesis respecting the development of marine algw into terreatrial plants. We sold that against that h pothesis the objection* bear at least aa directly as against any miracle whatever, — nay, tha. not only is it contrary to an invariable experience, but opposed also to all testimony. We regard it as a mere idle dream. Maillet dreamed it, —and Lamarck dreamed it, —apd Oken dreamed it; but none of them did more than merely dream it: its existence rests on exactly the same basis of evidence as tha. of Whang the miller's " monstrous pot of gold and diamonds," of which he dreamed three night* in •uccession, but which he never succeeded in finding. If we are in error a our estimate, here is the argument, and here the hypothesis ; give u*, in *upport of the hypothesis, the amount of evidence, founded on a solid experience, which the argument demands. But to leave the experience argument in exactly the state ki which it was left by Hume and La Place, would be doing aw real justice to our subject. It is in that state quite suffi- cient to establish the fact, that there can be no real escape from belief in acts of creation never witnessed by man, to processes of development never witnessed by man; seeing that a presumed law beyond the cognizance of experience must be as certainly rejected, on the principle of the argu- ment, as a presumed miracle beyond that cognizance. It places the presumed law and the presumed miracle on exactly the same level. But there is a palpable flaw in the anti-mira- cle argument. It does not prove that miracles may not have taken place, but that miracles, whether they have taken place or no, are not to be credited, and this simply because they are miracles, * e. violations of the established laws of nature. And if it be possible for events to take place which man, on eertain prmeiples, is imperatively required not to eredit, these 79 BBAEIHa prmeiples must of course serve merely to establish a discrep- ancy between the actual state of thing*, and what i* to be believed regarding it. And thus, instead of serving purpose* of truth, they are made to subserve purposes of error; for the existence of truth in the mind is neither more nor lesa .ban the existence of certain conceptions and beliefs, ade- quately representative of what actually is, or what really has taken place. I cannot better illustrate this direct tendency of the anti- miracle argument to destroy truth in the mind, by bringing the mental beliefs into a state of nonconformity with the pos- sible and actual, than by a quotation from La Place himself: ' We would not," he says, " give credit to a man who would ffirm that he saw a hundred dice thrown into the air, and that .hey all fell on the same faces. If we had ourselves been pectatora of such an event, we would not believe our own eyes till we had scrupulously examined all the circumstances, and assured ourselves that there was no trick or deception. After such an examination, we would not hesitate to admit it, notwithstanding its great improbability; and no on* would have recourse to an inversion of the laws of vision in order to account for it." Now, here is the principle broad- ly laid down, that it is impossible to communicate by the evidence of testimony, belief in an event which might happen, and which, if it happened, ought on certain condi tions to be credited. No one knew better than La Place himself, that the possibility of the event which he instanced could be represented with the utmost exactitude by figures The probability, in throwing a single die, that the ace wir be presented on its upper face, is as one in six, — six being the entire number of sides which the cube can possibly pre- sent and the side with tke ace being one of these ; — the BP TEE EXPERIENCE ARGUMENT. tTl probability that in throwing a pair of dice the aces of bote will be at once presented on their upper faces, is as one in thirty-six, as against the one sixth chance c»f the ace being presented by the one, there are also six chances that the ace of the other should not concur with it; — and in throwing thee dice, the probability that their three aces should be at once presented is, of course, on the same principle, as one in six times thirty-six, or, in other words, as one in two hundred and sixteen. And thus, in ascertaining the exact degree of probability of the hundred aces at once turning up, we have to go on multiplying by six, for each die we add to the num- ber, the product of the immediately previous calculation. Unquestionably, the number of chances against, thus balanced with the single chance for, would be very great; but its exist- ence as a definite number would establish, with all the force of arithmetical demonstration, the possibility of the event; and if an eternity were to be devoted to the throwing into the air of the hundred dice, it would occur an infinite number of times. And yet the principle of Hume and La Place forms, when adopted, an impassable gulf between this possibility and hu man belief. The possibility might be embodied, as we see, in an actual occurrence, — an occurrence witnessed by hun- dreds ; and yet the anti-miracle argument, as illustrated by La Place, would cut off all communication regarding it be- tween these hundreds of witnesses, nowever unexceptionable their character as such, and the rest of mankind. The prin- ciple, instead of giving us a right rule through which the beliefs in the mind are to be rendered correspondent with the reality of things, goes merely to establish a certain imperfec tion of transmission from one mind to another, in consequence of which, rea.ities in fact, if very extraordinary ones, could sot possibly be receivec as objects of belief, nor the mental sTTsj BBARn*S appreciation of things be rendered adequately concurrent with the state in which the things really existed. Nor is the case diflerent when, for a possibility which the arithmetician can represent by figures, we substitute the miracle proper. Neither Hume nor La Place ever attempted to show that miracles could not take place; they merely di- rected their argument against a belief in them. The wildest sceptic must admit, if in any degree a reasonable man, that there stay exist a God, and that that God may have given laws to nature. No demonstration of the non-existence of a Great First Cause has been ever yet attempted, nor, until the knowl- edge of some sceptic extends over all space, ever can be rationally attempted. Merely to doubt the fact of God's ex- istence, and to give reasons for the doubt, must till then form the highest achievements of scepticism. And the God who may thus exist, and who may have given laws to nature, may also have revealed himself to man, and, in order to secure man's reasonable belief in the reality of the revelation, may have temporarily suspended in its operation some great natural law, and have thus shown himself to be its Author and Master. Such seems to be the philosophy of miracles; which are thus evidently not only not impossibilities, but even not improbabilities. Even were we to permit th* scepfo Vnse\f to fix the numbers representative of those several mays in the case, which I have just repeated, the chances against them, so to speak, would be less by many thousand times than he chances against the hundred dice of La Place's illustration all turning up aces. The existence of a Great First Cause is at least as probable — the sceptic himself being judge in the matter — as the non-existence of a Great Firsj Cause; and so the probability in this first stage of the ar- gument, instead of being, as in the case of the single die OP TEE EXPEEIENeE ABSTIBrjrBJT. **?» only ma to six, is aa one to me. Again, — ia sAoeruanes with an expectation so general among the human family as to form one of the great instincts of our nature,—an instinct to which every form of religion, true or false, bears evidence^ — it is in no degree less probable that this God should have revealed himself to man, than that he should not have re- vealed himself to man; and here the chances are again as one to one, — not, as in the second stage of the calculation •mi the dice, as one to thirty-six. Nor, in the third and last stage, is it less probable that God, in revealing himself to man should have given miraculous evidence of the truth of tha revelation, so that man " might believe in Him for His work's sake," than that He should not have done so; and here yet again the chances are as one to one, — not as one to two hun- dred and sixteen. No rational sceptic could fix the chances lower; nay, no rational sceptic, so far as the existence of a Great First Cause is concerned, would be inclined to fix them so low : and yet it is in order to annihilate all belief in a possibility against which the chances are so few as to be represented — scepticism itself being the actuary in the case — by three units, that Hume and La Place hare framed their argument. Miracles may have taken place, — the probabili- ties against them, stated in their most extreme and exag- gerated form, are by no means many or strong; but we are nevertheless not to believe that they did take place, simply because miracles they were. Now, the effect of the establish ment of a principle such as this would be simply, I reoeat, the destruction of the ability rf transmitting certain beliefs, how- ever w»*ll founded originally, from one set or generation of men to another. These beliefs the first set or generation might, on La Place's own principles, be compelled to enter- tain. The evidence of the senaes however wonderful toe 874 SEARING event which they certified, is not, he himself tells us, to be resisted. But the conviction which, on one set of principles, these men were on no account to resist, the men that came immediately after them were, on quite another set of prin- ciples, on no account to entertain. And thus the anti-miracle argument, instead of leading, as all true philosophy ought, to an exact correspondence between the realities of things and the convictions received hy the mind regarding them, palpably forms a bar to the reception of beliefs, adequate to the possi bilities of actual occurrence or event, and so constitutes an imperfection or flaw in the mental economy, instead of work- ing an improvement. And, in accordance with this view, we find that in the economy of minds of the very highest order this imperfection or flaw has had no place. Locke studied and wrote upon the subject of miracles proper, and exhibited in his u Discourse" all the profundity of his ex- traordinary mind; and yet Locke was a believer. Newton studied and wrote on the subject of miracles of another kind, — those of prophecy; and he also, as shown by his " Obser- vations on the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse," was a believer. Butler studied and wrote on the subject of miracles, chiefly in connection with " Miraculous Revela- tion ;" and he also was a believer. Chalmers studied and wrote on the subject of miracles in his " Evidences," after Hume, La Place, and Playfair had all promulgated their pe culiar views regarding it; and he also was a believer. Ana ai none o" the truly distinguished men of the present day, though all intimately acquainted with the anti-miracle argu- ment, is this flaw or imperfection found to exist: on the con- trary, Jiey all hold, as becomes the philosophic intellect and character, that whatever is possible may occur, and that what ever occur* ought, ©d the proper evidence, to be believed. OF TEE BXFR8IENCR AROT/MRNT. fTl But though the experience argument is of no real force and, as shown by the beliefs of the higher order of minds, of no real effect, when brought to bear against miracles sup- ported by the proper testimony, it is of great force and effect when brought to bear, not against miracles, but against some presumed law. It is experience, and experience only, that determines what is or is not law , and it is law, and law only, that constitutes the subject-matter of ordinary experience. Experience, in determining what is really miracle, does so simply through its positive knowledge of law: by knowing law, it knows also what would be a violation of it. And so miracle cannot possibly form the subject-matter of ex perience in the sense of Hume. For did miracle consti tute the subject-matter of experience, the law of which the miracle was a violation could not: most emphatically, in this ease, were there " no law " there could be " no transgress- ion ;" and so experience would be unable to recognize, no? only the existence of the law transgressed, but also of the miracle, in its charactor as such, which wee a transgression of the law. We deterrnine from experience that there exists a certain fixed law, known among men as the law of gravitation; and that in consequence of this law, if a human creature attempt standing upon the sea, he will sink into it; or if he attempt rising from the earth into the heavens he will remain fixed to the spot on which the attempt is made. Such, in these cases, would be the direct effects of this gravitation law; and any presumed law antagonistic in its character could not be other than a law contrary to that invariable experience by which the existence of the rea law in the case is determined. But certain it is — for the evi- dence regarding the facts cannot be resisted, and by the greater minds has not been resisted — that a man did ones 9T6 BBUEINa OF TEE EXTEEkEBWE AMUNBNT. walk upon the sea without sinking into H, and did once ascend from the earth into the sky; and these miracles ought not to be tested — and by earnest inquirers alter truth really never have been tested—by any experience of the uniformity of the law of which they were professed trans- gression*, seeing it was essentially and obviously necessary that, in order to serve the great moral purpose which God intended by them, the law which they violated should have been a uniform law, and that they should have been palpable violations of it But while the experience argument is thus of no value when directed against well-attested miracle, it is, as I have said, all-potent when directed against presumed law. Of law we know nothing, I repeat, except what expe- rience tolls us. A miracle contrary to experience in the sense of Hume is simply a miracle ; a presumed law contrary to experience is no law at all. For it is from experience, and experience only, that we know any thing of natural law. The argument of Hume and La Place is perfect, as auch, when directed against the development visions of the Lsonarckian 1KB BBVELePBfENT STPOTEBSIS HI REERVO 3¥* THE DEVELOPMENT HYPOTHESIS IN ITS EMBRYONIC STATE. OLDBB THAN ITS ALLEGED FOUNDATIONS. When Maillet first promulgated his hypothesis, many of the departments of natural history existed as mere regions of fable and romance; and, in addressing himself to the Musca- dins of Paris, in a popular work as wild and amusing as a fairy tale, he could safely take the liberty, and he did take it very freely, of exaggerating the marvellous, and adding fresh fictions to the untrue. And in preparing them for his theory of the metamorphoses of a marine into a terrestrial vegeta- tion, he set himself, in accordance with his general character, to show that really the transmutation did not amount to much. " I know you have resided a long time," his Indian Philosopher ia made to say, " at Marseilles. Now, you can dear me witness, that the fishermen there daily find in their nets, and among their fish, plants of a hundred kinds, with their fruits still upon them; and though these fruits are not m large and so well nourished as those of our earth, yet the species of these plants is in no other respect dubious. They there find clusters of white and black grapes, peach- trees, pear-trees, prune-trees, apple-tree*, and all sort* of towers. When in that city, I saw, in the oabinet of a cunoos •4 *TO TEE DEVELOPMENT HTFOTERSIS gentleman, a prodigious number of those sea-productions of different qualities, especially of rose-trees, which had theii roses very red when they came out of the sea. I was there presented with a cluster of black sea-grapes. It was at the time of the vintage, and there were two grapes perfectly ripe." Now, all this, and much more of the same nature, ad- dressed to the Parisians of the reign of Louis the Fifteenth, passed, I doubt not, wonderfully well; but it will not do now, when almost every young girl, whether in town or country, is a botanist, and works on the algae have become popular. Since Maillet wrote, Hume promulgated his argument on Miracles, and La Place his doctrine of Probabilities. There can be no doubt that these have exerted a wholesome influence on the laws of evidence; and by these laws, as restricted and amended, — laws to which, both in science and religion, we ourselves conform, — we insist on trying the Lamarckian hypothesis, and in condemning it, — should it be found to have neither standing in experience nor support from testimony, — as a mere feverish dream, incoherent in its parts and base less in, its fabric. Give, we ask, but one well-attested in stance of transmutation from the algae to even the lower forms of terrestrial vegetation common on our sea-coasts, and we will keep the question open, in expectation of more. It will not do to tell us — as Cuvier was told, when he ap- pealed to the fact, determined by the mummy birds and rep- tiles of Egypt, of the fixity of species in all, even the slightest particulars, for at least three thousand years— that immensely extended periods of time are necessary to effect specific changes, and that human observation has not been spread over a period sufficiently ample to furnish the required data re- garding them. The apology is simply a confession that, ia Of ITS EMBBTONIC STATE. in these ages of the severe inductive philosophy, you have been dreaming your dream, cut off, as if by the state of sleep, from all the tangibilities of the real waking-day world, and that you have not a vestige of testimony with which to support youi ingenious vagaries. But on another account do we refuse to sustain the excuse. It is not true that human observation has not been spread over a period sufficiently extended to furnish the necessary data for testing the development hypothesis. In one special walk, — that which bears on the supposed transmutation ef algas into terrestrial plants, — human observation has been spread over what is strictly analogous to millions of years. For extent of space in this matter is exactly corre- spondent with duration of time. No man, in this late period of the world's history, attains to the age of five hundred years; and as some of our larger English oaks have been known to increase in bulk of trunk and extent of bough for five centuries together, no man can possibly have seen the same huge oak pass, according to Cowper, through its va- rious stages of " treeship," — "First a seedling hid in grass; Then twig; then sapling; and, ss century rolls Slow after century, a giant bulk, Of girth enormous, with moss-cushioned root Upheaved above the soil, and side* embossed With prominent wens globose." But though no man lives throughout five hundred years of time, he can trace, by passing in some of the English forests through five hundred yards of space, the history of the oak in all its stages of growth, as correctly as if he did live throughout the five hundred years. Oaks, in the space of a tew hundred yards, may be seen in every stage of growth, from tha newly bunt acorn, that presents to the light its •80 TEE DEVELOPMENT EVTOTKESIS two fleshy Sobw, with the first tender rudiment* ef a leaflet Between, up to the giant of the forest, in the hollow of who*e trunk the red deer may shelter, and find ample room for the broad spread cf his antlers. The fact of the development of the oak, from the minute two-lobed seedling of a week's growth up to the gigantic tree of five centuries, is as capable of being demonstrated by observation spread over five hun- dred yards of space, as by observation spread over five hun- dred years of time. And be it remembered, that the sea coasts of the world are several hundred thousand miles in ex- tent. Europe ia by far the smallest of the earth'* four large divisions, and it is bounded, in proportion to its size, by a greater extent of land than any of the others. And yet the sea-coasts of Europe alone, including those of its islands, exceed twenty-five thousand miles. We have results before us, in this extent of space, identical with those of many hun- dred thousand years of time; and if terrestrial plants were as certainly developments of the low plants of the sea as the huge oak is a development of the immature seedling, just sprung from the acorn, so vast a stretch of sea-coast could not fail to present us with the intermediate vegetation in all its stages. But the sea-coasts fail to exhibit even a vestige of the intermediate vegetation. Experience spread over an ex tent of space analogous to millions of years of time, does not furnish, in this department, a single fact corroborative of the development theory, but, on the contrary, many hun> dreds of facts that bear directly against it. The author of the " Vestiges " is evidently a practised and tasteful writer, and hia work abounds in ingenious combi- nations of thought; but tho*e power* of abstract reflection on whose vigorous exercise the origination of argument de- pends, nature seems to lave denied him. There are *w« Of ITS aKBBxOKte STATE. 381 thing* ia especial which his work wants, — eriginal eHerea- fcto* and abstract thought, — the power of seeing for himself and of reasoning tot nimself; and what we find instead ia simply a vivid appreciation of the images of things, as these images exist in other minds, and a vigorous perception of the various shades of resemblance which obtain among them. There is a large amount of analogical power exhibited; but that baai* of truth which correct observation can alone furnish, and that ability of nicely distmguishing differences by which the faculty of discerning similarity must be forever regu- lated and governed, are wanting, in what, in a mind of fine general texture and quality, must be regarded a* an extraor- dinary degree. And hence an ingenious but very unsolid erork,__full of images transferred, not from the scientific field, but from the field of scientific mind, and charged with glittering but vague resemblances, stamped in the mint of fancy ; which, were they to be used as mere counters in some light literary game of story-telling or character-sketching, would be in no respect out of place, but which, when passed current as the proper coin of philosophic argument, are really frauds on the popular understandingo There are, however not a few instances in the " Vestiges" and its " Sequel," in which that defect of reflective power to which I refer rather enhances than diminishes the difficulty of reply, by presenting to the controversialist mere intangible clouds with which to grapple ; that yet, through the existence of a certain super- stition in the popular mmd, as predisposed to accept as true whatever takes the form of science, as its predecessor the eld superstition was mclined a century ago to reject science itself, are at least auited to *uiind and bewilder Of this kind of difficulty, th* following passage, in which the author of the work cashier* the Creator as such, and mbstitotes. ra*ts«d, e 282 TEE DEVELOPMENT HYPOTHESIS mere animai-manufacturing piece of ciock-work, which bean the name of natural law,* furnishes us with a remarkable in stance. " Admitting," he remarks, " that we see not now any such * We are supplied with a curious example of that ever-return- ing cycle of speculation in which the human mind operates, by not only the introduction of the principle of Epicurus into the " Vestiges," but also by the unconscious employment of even his very arguments, slightly modified by the floating semi-scientifio notions of the time. The following passages, taken, the one from the modern work, the other from Fenelon's life of the old Greek philosopher, are not unworthy of being studied, as curiously illus- trative of the cycle of thought. Epicurus, I must however, first remind the reader, in the words of his biographer, "supposed that men, and all other animals, were originally produced by the ground. According to him, the primitive earth was fat and nitrous; and the sun, gradually warming it, soon covered it with herbage and shrubs: there also began to arise on the surface of the ground a great number of small tumors like mushrooms, which having in a certain time come to maturity, the Bkin burst and there came forth little animals, which, gradually retiring from the place where they were produced, began to respire." And there can be little doubt, that had the microscope been a discovery of early Greece, the passage here would have told us, not of mushroom-like tumors, but of monads. Save that the element of microscopic fact is awant- Lng in the one and present in the other, the following are strictly parallel lines of argument: — " To the natural objection that " In the first place, there is no the earth does not now produce reason to suppose that though men, lions, and dogs, Epicurus life had been imparted by natu- replies that the fecundity of the ral means, after the first cool- earth is now exhausted. In ad- ing of the surface to a suitable vanced age a woman ceases to temperament it would continue bear children; a piece of land thereafter to be capable of being never before cultivated produces imparted in like manner. The much more during the few first great work of the peopling of years than it does afterwards; this globe with living species ia and when a forest is once cut mainly a fact accomplished: the down, the soil never produces highest known species came as IN ITS EMBBTONTC STATE. fact as the production of new species, we at least know, that while such facts were occurring upon earth, there were associ- Ated phenomena in progress of a character perfectly ordinary For example, when the earth received its first fishes, sandstone and limestone were forming in the manner exemplified a few years ago in the ingenious experiments of Sir James Hall; ba saltic columns rose for the future wonder of man, according to the principle which Dr. Gregory Watt showed in operation before the eyes of our fathers; and hollows in the igneous rocks were filled with crystals, precisely as they could now trees equal to those which have been rooted up. Those which are afterwards planted become dwarfish, and are perpetually degenerating. We are, however, he argues, by no means certain but there may be at present rab- bits, hares, foxes, bears, and other animals, produced by the earth in their perfect state. The reason why we are backward in admitting it is, that it happens in retired places, and never fails under our view; and, never see- ing rats but such as have been produced by other rats, we adopt the opinion that the earth never \ reduced any." (Finilon's Lives •* the Ancient Philosophers.) a crowning effort thousands of years ago. The work being thus to all appearance finished, we are not necessarily to expect that the origination of life and of species should be conspicuously exemplified in the present day. We are rather to expect that the vital phenomena presented to our eyes should mainly, if not entirely, be limited to a regular and unvarying succession of races by the ordinary means of generation. This, however, ia no more an argument against a time when phenomena of tht first kini prevailed, than it would be a proof against th* fact of a mature man having once been a growing youth, that he is now seen growing no longer. * * • Secondly, it is far from being certain that the primitive imparting of life and form to inorganic elements is not a fact of our times. (Fes- times of Creation.) 994 TEE DEVELOPMENT ETP«TEB8te be by virtue ef electric action, aa shown within the last few years by Crosse and Becquerel. The seas obeyed the im- pulse of gentle breezes, and rippled their sandy bottoms, as aeaa of the preaent day are doing; the treea grew as now, by favor of sun and wind, thriving in good seasons and "lining in bad: this while the animals above fishes were yet jo be created. The movements of the sea, the meteorologi- cal agencies, the disposition which we see in the generality of plants to thrive when heat and moisture were moot abun- dant, were kept up in silent serenity, as matters of simply natural order, throughout the whole of the ages which saw reptiles enter in their various forms upon the sea and land It was about the time of the first mammal* that the fores! of the Dirt-Bed was sinking in natural ruin amidst the sea ■ludge, as forests of the Plantagenets have been doing foi several centuries upon the coast of England. In short aU the common operations of the physical world were going on in their usual simplicity, obeying that order which we still see governing them; while the supposed extraordinary cause* were in requisition for the development of the animal and vegetable kingdoms. There surely hence arises a strong pre- sumption against any such cause*. It become* much more likely that the latter phenomena were evolved in the manner of law al*o, and that we only dream of extraordinary causes here, a* men once dreamt of a special action of Deity in every change of wind and the results of each season, merely because they did not know the laws by which the events in question were evolved." How, let ua suppose, would David Hume — the greatest thinker of which infidelity can boast — have greeted the auxiliary who could have brought him such an argument a* a $eatiHk*tiiea te the eause ? m ITS EMBRYONIC STATE, m& stated it," the philosopher might have said, ** amounts simply to this: — Creation by direct act is a miracle ; whereas all that exists is propagated and maintained by natural law. Nat- ural law* — to vary the illustration — were in full operation at the period when the Author of the Christian religion was, it is said, engaged in working his miracles. When, according to our opponents, he walked upon the surface of tne sea, Peter, through the operation of the natural law of gravitation, was sinking into h; when he withered, by a word, the barren fig-tree, there were ether trees on the Mount thriving in conformity with the vegetative laws, under the influence of sun and shower ; when he raised the dead Lazarus, there were corpse* in the neighboring tombs passing, through the natural putrefactive fermentation, into a state of utter de- composition. In fine, at the time when he was engaged, as Beid and Campbell believe, in working miracles in vio- lation of law, the laws of which these were a violation actually existed, and were every where actively operative; er, to employ your own words, when the New Testa- ment miracle* were, it ia alleged, in the act of being wrought, * all the common operations of the physical world were going on in their usual aimplicity, obeying that order which we still see governing them.' Such is the portion of your statement already made, what next ? " " It is surely very unlikely," replies the auxiliary, u that in such a com- plex mass of phenomena there should have been two totally distinct mode* of the exercise of the Divine power, — the mode by miracle and the mode by law." " Unlikely I" re- join* the philosopher; u on what grounds ? " '* O, just un- likely," says the auxiliary; — " unlikely that God should be at mce operating on matter through the agency of natural laws, ef whieh sum knows musk, and through the agency of ntiracu B8&* TEE DEVELOPMENT HTPOTEES1S lous acts, of the nature of which man knows nothing. But 1 have not thought out the subject any further: you have, in the statement already made, my entire argument." " Ay, I see,' the author of the " Essay on Miracles " would probably have remarkei ; u you deem it unlikely that Deity should not only work in part, as ha has always done, by means of which men —clever fellows like you and me —think they know a greaj leal but that he should also work in part, as he has alwayt done, by means of which they know nothing at all. Admirably reasoned out! You are, I make no doubt, a sound, zealous unbeliever in your private capacity, and your argument may have great weight with your own mind, and be, in conse- quence, worthy of encouragement in a small way; but allow me to suggest that, for the sake if the general cause, it should be kept out of reach of the enemy. There are in the Churches Militant on both sides of the Tweed shrewd com- batants, who have nearly as much wit as ourselves." I think 1 understand the reference of the author of the " Vestigesn to the dream " of a special action of Deity in every change of wind and the results of each season." Taken with what immediately goes before, it means something considerably different from those fancies of the " untutored Indian," who according to the poet, " Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind." There is a school of infidelity, tolerably wel. known in the capital of Scotland as by far the most superficial which oui country has yet seen, that measures mind with a tape-line rod the callipers, and, albeit not Christian, laudably exem plifies, in a loudly expressed "^sns'-d for science, the Christian grace of loving its enemy. L Uie belief in a special Prov- idence, who watches over and orders all things, and without whose permission there falleth not even a " sparrow to the IE ITS EMBEYONIC STATE. 28? ground," the apostles of this school set wholly aside, substi- tuting, instead, a belief in the indiscriaunating operation of natural laws; as if, with the broad fiVif before them that even man can work out his will merely I r knowing and di- recting these laws, the God by whom t'rsry were instituted ■hould lack either the power or the wisi-: tee development hyfotbesis But how very different the nature and history of the da veicpment hypothesis, and the charactor of the intellects with whom it originated, or by whom it ha* beer since ing impunity for themselves," they would succeed in securing only disappointment for their pains ; — "THE rAB-ADAXITB BASTE. •' 7b the Editor of the Scottish Press. u Sra, — I occasionally observe articles in your neighbor and tontemporary the Witness, characteristically headed ' Rambles of a Geologist,' wherein the writer with great seal once more ' slays the slain' heresies of the 'Vestiges of Creation.' This writer (of the «Rambles,' I mean) nevertheless, and at the same time, an r ounces his own tenets to be much of the same sort, as applied t< mere dead matter, that those of the ' Vestiges' are with regard to living organisms. He maintains that the world, during the last million of years, has been of itself rising or developing, without the interposition of a miracle, from chaos into its present state; and, of course, aa it is still, as a world, confessedly far below the acme of physical perfection, that it must be just now on its pas- sage, self-progressing, towards that point, which terminus it may reach in another million of years hence. [!! ! ] The author of the ' Vestiges,' as quoted by the author of the «Rambles,' in the last number of the Witness, complains that the latter and his allies are not at all so liberal to him as, from their present circumstances f»nd position, he had a right to expect. He (the author of the «Vestiges') reminds his opponents that they have themselves only lately emerged from the antiquated scriptural notions that oui world was the direct and almost immediate construction of its Oeator, — as much so, in fact, as any of its organised tenants, ~ and that it wan then created in a state of physical excellence, the highest possible, to render it a suitable habitation for these ten- ants, and all this only about six or seven thousand years ago. — to the new light of their present physico-Lamarchian views; aad he asks, and certainly not without reason, why should thest men, so circumstanced, be so anxious to stop hi™ in his attempt to move one step further forward in the very direction they them selves have made the last move ? — that is, in his estdaavar to ex OLBEE TEAM 1X8 ALLEGED FOBttBATIOBS. 2&1 adopted! In the first place, it existed as a wild dream ere Geology had any being as a science. It was an antecedent, not a consequent, -— a starting assumption, not a result No tend their own principles of self-development from mere matter to living creatures. Now, Sir, I confess myself to be one of those (and possibly you may have more readers similarly constituted) whe not only cannot see any great difference between merely physi- cal and organic development,[! !] but who would be inclined to allow the latter, absurd as it is, the advantage in point of likelihood. [! !! ] The author of the ' Rambles,' however, in the face of this, assures us that his views of physical self-development and long chronology belong to the inductive sciences. Now, I could at this stage of his rambles have wished very much that, instead of merely say- ing so, he had given his demortstration. He refers, indeed, to several great men, who, he says, are of his opinion. Most that these men have writtesi on the question at issue I have seen, but it appeared far from demonstrative, and some of them, I know, had not fully made up their mind on the point [!!!] Perhaps the author of the ' Rambles' could favor us with the inductive pro- cess that converted himself; and, as the attainment of truth, aad not victory, is my object, I promise either to acquiesce in or ration- ally refute it[f] Till then I hold by my antiquated tenets, that our world, nay, the whole material universe, was created about six or seven thousand years ago, and that in a state of physical excellence of which we have in our present fallen world only the 'vestiges of creation.' I conclude by mentioning that this view I have held now for nearly thirty years, and, amidst all the vicissi- tudes of the philosophical world during that period, I have nevci seen cause to change, it Of course, with this view I was, during the interval referred to, a constant opponent of the once famous, though now exploded, nebular hypothesis of La Place; and I yet expect to see physical development and long chronology wither also on this earth, now that thbib boot (the said hypothesis) has been •radicated from the sxt.[! !!] — I am, Sir, your most obedient ser- vant "PartauTiiEs." I am afraid there is little hope of converting a man who has held so stoutly by his notions " for nearly thirty years; " especial- qr as, during thai period, he has been acquainting himself with tax BEVSLOFMEET EYPOTHBSI& sna will e*BRtoad that Maillet was a giMtogist. Geeiogy has no place among the science* in the age in which he lived and ovea ae aasae. Aad yet there is a translation of hia what writers «a«h a* Dr*. Chalmers, Baehland, and Pye Smith have written «a tha other side. But for th* demonstration which he asks, ss I have eonducted it, I beg leave to refer him to the seventeenth ehaptcr of my little work, "First Impressions of England aad its P*ople." I am, however, inclined to suspect that he is one of a class whose objections are destined to be re- moved rather by th* operation of the law* of matter than of those ef mind. F - it is a comfortable consideration, that in this controversy th* g< .;iats have the laws ef matter on their side; —■ " the stars in their courses fight against Sisera." Their opponents now, like the opponents of the astronomer in the ages gone by, are, in most instances, men who have been studying the matter " fti nearly thirty years." When they study it for a few years longer they disappear; and the men of the same east and calibre who suc- ceed them ue exactly the men who throw themselves most con- fidently into the arms of th* enemy, and look down upon their poo* silent predecessors with th* loftiest commiseration. It is, however, not uninstructive to remark how thoroughly, in some instances, the weaker friends and the wilier enemies of Revelation are at one in their ocnclusion* respecting natural phenomena. The corre- spondent of the Scottish Press merely regard* th* views of the author of the " Vestiges " ss possessing " the advantage, in point of likeli- hood," over those of the geologists his antagonists: his ally the Dean of York goes greatly farther, and stands up as stoutly for the transmutation of species ss Lamarck himself. Descanting, in his New System ef Geology, on th* various forma cf trilobites, ammo- nites, belemaites, ho. Dean Cookburn says, — " These creatures appear to have possessed the power of secreting from the stone beneath them a limy covering for their backs, and perhaps, fed partly on the same solid material. Supposing, now that the first trilobites were destroyed by the Llandeilo Slates, «ome spawn at these creatures would arise- above these flags, and, ■iter a time, weuld be warmed into existence. These molluscs, (I!] then, aavinff a Better material from which to attract their food and covering, wanM probably expand to a slightly different form, man with a mmo earfrmsrv* mantle *hnr> whet bekraged *» th* OLBBB TBAH &V5 ALLSEED F^BEMTJl^flJlK. 299 TeUiamed new lying bate nte, beariBg iato 1710, in whieh I find very nearly the wame account givea of the arigni ef parent species. Th* same wvuld b* still more th* mm with a ners feneration, fed upon a net? deposit tram soma deeper voles*©, sueh as th* Caradoc or Wenloek I&aestons, in which hm« mere aad more predominates. New, if any sne will examine the varioaa prist* ei trilobite* in Sir R. Murohiem'a valuable work, he will tad but very trifling difference* ia any of sham, [I I] and those oifferenoas only in the stony covering of thek backs. I knew two brothets once much alike: the one beeam* a curate with a large family; the ether a Lendon alderman, If the skins of these tw* paehydermata had been preserved in a fossil state, there would have been less resemblance between them than between an Asaphue tyrannus and uxAsaphus taudatvA * * * A careful and laborious investi- gation has discovered, as in the ttilobites, a difference in the am- monites ef different strata; but such differences, as ia th* former ease, sxist only in the form of the external shell, and may be ex- j med in the same manner. [!!] * • • As to the seaphites, baeulitea, belemnitea, and all the other ites which learned ingenu- ity has so named, you find them in various strata th* same in all important particulars, but also differing slightly in their outward "trverings, as might be expected from the different eireumstances --*n may be the work of his Sabbath day. That 432 BEARING OF FINAL CAESBB elevatory process through successive acts of creation which engaged Him during myriads of ages, was of an ordinary week-day character; but when the term of hia moral gov- ernment began, the elevatory process proper to it assumed the Divine character of the Sabbath. This special view ap- pears to lend peculiar emphasis to the reason embodied in the commandment. The collation of the passage with the geologic record seems, as if by a species of re-translation, to make it enunciate as its injunction, " Keep this day, not merely as a day of memorial related to a past fact, but also as a day of cooperation with God in the work of elevation in relation both to a present fact and a future purpose. God keeps his Sabbath," it says," in order that He may save; keep yours also, in order that ye may be saved.'* It serves, besides, to throw light on the prominence of the Sabbatical command, in a digest of law of which no part or tittle can pass away until the fulfilment of all things. During the pres- ent dynasty of probation and trial, that special work of both God and man on which the charactor of the future dynasty ' depends, is the Sabbath-day work of saving and being saved.* • Th* common objection to that special view which regards tba day*, of creation ss immensely protracted periods of time, furnishes s specimen, if not of reasoning in a circle, at least of reasoning from a mere assumption. It first takes for granted, that the Sabbath day during which God rested was a day of but twenty-four hours; and then argues, from the supposition, that in order to keep up the proper Hon between the six previous working days and th* seventh day ot rest, which the reason annexed to the fourth commandment demands these previous lays must also have been day* of twenty-four bours each. It would, I have begun to suspect square better with the ascertained facts, sad be at least equally in accordance with Scripture te «***r** the pr*o**et aad argue that, sosenm God's washing day* ON eEOLOGIO BISTORT? 333 It is in this dynasty of the future that euan's moral and intellectual faculties will receive their Ml development The expectation of any very great advass^ in the prescat were uamansely protracted periods, Am Sabbath laust also be an im- mensely protracted period. The reason attached to the law of the Sabbath seems to be simply a reason of proportion; — th* objection to whieh I rate Is an objection palpably founded on considerations of proportion. Aad eertainly, were the reason to be divested of pro- portion, It would be divested also of its distinctive character aa a reason; Ware it to run as follows, it could not be at all understood: — M Six day* ahalt thou labor, Ac, but on the seventh day shslt thou do no labor, Aa. ; for in six immensely protracted periods of many thousand years each did the Lord make the heavens and earth, &o^ and then rested during a brief day of twenty-four hours; therefore th* Lord blessed the brief day of twenty-four hours, and hallowed it" This, I repeat, would not be reason. All, however, that seems r ecessary to tha integrity of the reason, u: its character as such, is, that the proportion of six parts to seven should be maintained. God's period* may be periods expressed algebraically by letters symbolical of unknown quantity, and man's periods by letters symbolical of quantities wall known; but if God's Sabbath be equal to one of his six working days, and man's Sabbath equal to one of Aw six working days, the integrity of proportion is maintained. When I see the pal- pable absurdity of such a reading of the reason as the one given above, I can sea no absurdity whatever in the reading which I sub- join t — " Six periods (ow-g—qna—a=a) shalt thou labor, &e^ but os the seventh period (5=a) shalt thou do no labor, Ac; for in six svr> ods (x n.ri .nun r=^x) the Lord made heaven and earth, Ac, and rested th* seventh period, (y-nz,-) therefore the Lord blessed tha seventh period, and hallowed it." The reason, in its character ss resses, of proportion, survives here in all its integrity. Man, when ia his tra&llsn estate, bore the image of God, but it must have,been miniature image at best; — the proportion of man's week to that e. his Maker may, for aught that appears, be mathematically just in its proportions, and yet be a miniature image too, — th* mer* scale of a asap, on which inches represent geographical degrees. All those weak day* aad Sabbath day* of man which have ocas* aad got* stoat 334 noNCLDSIOM. scene of things — great, at least, when measured by man*a large capacity of conceiving of the good and fair — seem* to be, like all human hope when restricted to time, an expec- tation doomed to disappointment. There are certain limit* within which the race improves; — civilization is better than the want of it, and the taught superior to the untaught man, There is a change, too, effected in the moral nature, through that Spirit which, by working belief in the heart, brings its aspirations into harmony with the realities of the unseen world, tha.. in at least its relation to the future state, cannot be esti- mated too highly. But conception can travel very far beyond even its best effects in their merely secular bearing; nay, it e peculiarly its nature to show the men most truly the sub- jects of it, how miserably they fall short of the high standard of conduct and feeling which it erects, and to teach them. more emphatically than by words, that their degree of happi- ness must of necessity be as low as their moral attainments are humble. Further, — man, though he has been increasing in knowledge ever since his appearance on earth, has not been improving in faculty;—a shrewd fact, which they who expect most from the future of this world would do well to consider. The ancient masters of mind were in no respect inferior in calibre to their predecessors. We have not yet shot ahead of the old Greeks in either the perception of the beautiful, or in the ability of producing it; there has been no approvement in the inventive faculty since the Iliad was written, some three thousand years ago; nor has taste become sum first wtered T4* v At* scene of being, with all which shall yet some and go, until the resurreoiSJew of the dead terminates th* wort si " ademption, may oe included, and prcbabJy ere included, in tb «** AAbbath day ef God. OONOLTJSIOH. 33fi more exquisite, or the perception of the harmony of numbers more nice, since the age of the Mneid. Science i* cumu- lative in its character; and so its votanes in modern times stand on a higher pedestal than their predecessors. But though nature produced a Newton some two centuries ago, as she produced a Goliath of Gath at an earlier period, the modern philosophers, as a class, do not exceed m actual stat- ure the worse informed ancients, — the Euclids, Archimedeses, and Aristotles. We would be without excuse if, with the Ba- con, Milton, and Shakspeare of these latter ages of the world full before us, we recurred to the obsolete belief that the hu- man race is deteriorating; but then, on the other hand, we have certain evidence, that since genius first began uncon- sciously to register in ite works ita own bulk and proportions, there has been no increase in the mass or improvement in the quality of individual mind. As for the dream that there is to be some extraordinary elevation of the general platform of the race achieved by means of education, it is simply the hallucination of the age, — the world's present alchemicaJ axpedient for converting farthings into guineas, sheerly by dint of scouring. Not but that education is good ; it exercises. and, in the ordinary mind, developes, faculty. But it will noi anticipate the terminal dynasty. Yet further,— man's aver age capacity of happiness seems to be as limited and as inca- pable of increase as his average reach of intellect: it is a mediocre capacity at best; nor is it greater by a shade now, in these days of power-looms and portable manures, than in the times of the old patriarchs. So long, too, as the law of increase continues, man must be subject to the law of death, with its stern attendants, suffering and sorrow ; for the twe laws go necessarily together; and so long as death reigns, human creature*, in even the best of times, will continue us OOMGLCSUON ^uu this scene of being, without professing much mturtactjo* at what they have found either in it or themselves. ? will nc ioubt be a less miserable world than it is now, when the good come, as there is reason to hope they one day shall, to be a majority; but it will be felt to be an inferior sort of work even then, and be even fuller than now of wishes and long- ings for a better. Let it improve as it may, it will be a scene rjf probation and trial till the end. And so Faith, undeceived by the mirage of the midway desert, whatever form or name, political or religious, the phantasmagoria may bear, must con- tinue to look beyond its unsolid and tremulous glitter,—ita bare rocks exaggerated by the vapor into air-drawn castles, and its stunted bushes magnified into goodly trees, — and, fixing her gaze upon the re-creation yet future, — the terminal dy- nasty yet unbegun, —she must be content to enter upon hei final rest—for she will not enter upon it earlier—M at return ' « Of Him, the Woman's Seed, Last in the clouds, from heaven to be revealed In glory of the Father, to dissolve Satan with his perverted world, then raise From the conflagrant mass, purged and refined, New heavens, new earth, ages of endless date, Founded in righteousness, and peace, and love, To bring forth fruits, —joy and eternal bliss." But it may be judged that I am trespassing on a field into which I have no right to enter. Save, however, for its cioae proximity with that in which the geologist expatiates as prop- erly his own, this little volume would never have been writ- ten. It is the fact that man must believingly cooperate with God in the work of preparation for the final dynasty, or exist throughout ita never-ending cycles as a lost and degraded creature, that alone renders the development hypothesi* CONCLUSION. «r "crmidable. But inculcating that the elevatory process is en* sf the natural law, not of moral endeavor, — by teaching, in- ferentially at least, that in the better state of things which ia ■.vjr-iing there is to be an identity of race with that of the ex sting dynasty, but no identity of individual consciousness, — that, on the contrary, the life after death which we are to '.nh^nt is to be merely a horrid life of wriggling impurities, arigmated in the putrefactive mucus, — and that thus the men who now live possess no real stake in the kingdom of the future, — it is its direct tendency, so far as its influence ex- tends, to render the required cooperation with God an impos- sibility. Fbr that cooperation cannot exist without belief a* its basis. The hypothesis involves a misreading of the geologic record, which not merely affects its meaning in relation to the mind, and thus, in a question of science, substitutes error for truth, but which also threatens to affect the record itself m relation to the destiny of every individual perverted and ted astray./ It threatens to write down among the degraded ■jmJ tile lost, ixen who, under the influence of an unshaken taiia, might have risen at the dawn of the terminal period, to enjoy the fulness of eternity among the glorified and the gpoed. NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE NLH D1Q5Q454 3 Uickens as» Rosa N. Carey _^ ^a Oreen. A Tale of the ..v^ne and Limerick. Honty -x«t» H Origin of Species. Darwin Vublishcrs, 395-399 Broadway, New York. NLM010504543