116"' Rev. W. D. Conybeare on the Phenomena of Geology. 



secular variation be fully adequate to account for the pheno- 

 mena. 



[To be continued.] 



P.S. I most reluctantly enter into anything which may re- 

 semble a personal controversy with Mr. Lyell ; and therefore 

 regret that, in a note to one of my communications, I may seem 

 to have provoked it ; but it is best, perhaps, frankly to state 

 the case. On comparing his second chapter with the passage re- 

 ferred to in my Outlines, I did not doubt that it had been imme- 

 diately suggested from that source, and I felt, foolishly perhaps, 

 hurt at the absence of acknowledgement. All the passages per- 

 haps may have been quoted by others before in scattered parts of 

 different works; but that they had been brought together ex- 

 pressly with the purpose of illustrating the attention which the 

 ancients had given to geological phenomena, before I, and 

 subsequently Mr. Lyell, had so collected them, I am still ig- 

 norant. That I am not desirous to claim originality for second- 

 hand quotations, will, I think, sufficiently appear from the note 

 in my Outlines referred to., where I have expressly acknow- 

 ledged my obligations to Prichard's Egyptian Mythology, 

 instead of citing directly the passages from Lipsius and Cen- 

 sorinus, which I might readily have done. It was in fact our 

 common citations from Prichard's work which most strongly 

 persuaded me that Mr. Lyell had copied from me. That two 

 independent authors should apply exactly in the same manner, 

 and in the same connection, to geological subjects, the same 

 extracts from a work on a subject by no means of universal 

 interest, and altogether alien to geology (the argument of 

 Prichard relating entirely to mythological cosmogony), ap- 

 peared to me extremely improbable ; and I think those who 

 examine the phaenomena of the case cannot consider my sus- 

 picion unnatural. At the same time if Mr. Lyell will state in 

 express words (which he does not appear to me to have done 

 in his late notice) that the coincidence was really accidental, 

 I shall be most happy to apologize for having used the ex- 

 pression ironically ; on the other hand, if he was in any de- 

 gree led to the materials of his chapter from my previous 

 statements, I trust he will feel that an acknowledgement would 

 have been more friendly. 



There are only two points incidentally introduced on which 

 I have to observe : first, with regard to my quotation from 

 Strabo. I am inexpressibly surprised that Mr. Lyell should 

 consider it as altogether unconnected with the passage to 

 which he has referred. Strabo concludes the general argu- 

 ment, which Mr. Lyell has so ably condensed, by alleging 



certain 



