IO 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



the surface cannot be explained by any forces now 

 known to be in operation on the earth's surface, and 

 call in the aid of " debacles " (a word now as obsolete 

 as the view which it embodies), or huge gushes of 

 water, set in motion by the convulsions which pro- 

 duced the dislocations of the earth's crust known as 

 faults. The difficulties which prevented the accept- 

 ance of the uniformitarian theory seem to be, first, an 

 inadequate conception of the extent of past time (we 

 find it maintained that valleys could not have been 

 carved out by the erosive power of streams, since we 

 find ancient British and Roman fortifications attesting 

 by their perfect preservation that the form of the sur- 

 face has remained unaltered since the time of their 

 construction fifteen centuries ago) ; and, secondly, the 

 phenomena then known as "diluvial." The glacial 

 theory had not then arisen to throw a flood of light 

 upon the origin of such phenomena as perched blocks 

 and transported boulders, carried far from their native 

 mountains, yet lying in the midst of fine clay. 



In natural history we find the natural system 



minister of Flisk, N.B. I knew him at the time 

 only by two or three articles in the supplement to the 

 " Encyclopedia Britannica," which, if they be not fair 

 specimens of a Scotch D.D.'s usual quantum of Greek, 

 will at least remain a monument of his talent for 

 writing on animals that he not only never saw, but 

 would not even now know if he saw them. In addi- 

 tion to these truly novel specimens of entomological 

 knowledge, I knew him also by a subsequent compila- 

 tion called with much modesty ' The Philosophy of 

 Zoology,' the first volume of which contains nothing 

 new but some miserable plates, and the second little 

 original except some names which have been framed 

 in a proper independent spirit and with a noble 

 contempt of Priscian. Thus we have Trochusidce, 

 Gordiitsidce, Ciciudcladcv, cum multis aliis in dee of 

 similar calibre. Having tivo D's tacked to the end of 

 his own name, the worthy minister doubtless thinks 

 that he has a right to clap one to the tail of anything." 

 The following example is given of the dichotomous 

 system : — 



Scotch 



f i Breeched 



i Dominies ( i Of Flisk ( i D.D. ( i Fleming 



»{ 2 Not D.D. 

 2 Not of Flisk. 

 2 Not Dominies. 

 V 2 Not Breeched. 

 2 Not Scotch. 



i i John. 

 2 Not Fleming \ 2 Not John. 



beginning to make headway against the overwhelm- 

 ing authority of Linnceus, an authority which it was 

 looked upon as something little short of blasphemy 

 to gainsay. We have heard of an entomologist who 

 went through his cabinet and destroyed every speci- 

 men which he could not find described by Linnceus. 

 So the medieval physicians declared that they would 

 rather do wrong with Galen than do right with any 

 one else. A Mr. Roscoe, who speaks in a tone of 

 authority, declares that, whatever may be the merits of 

 Jussieu as a botanist, it is sufficiently clear that they 

 are not exemplified in the superiority of his arrange- 

 ment as a nomenclature for the vegetable kingdom. 

 " We are compelled to conclude that as a nomen- 

 clature and series of plants it is greatly inferior to that 

 of Linnaeus ; and that however excellent it may be in 

 some respects, it will never supplant in general use 

 that long established work." 



Another system which has not been equally for- 

 tunate in standing the test of time is the dichotomous 

 system of the Rev. Dr. Fleming. A paper entitled 

 " The Dying Struggle of the Dichotomous System " 

 contains a criticism of that system, or rather of its 

 author, in comparison with which the debate chronicled 

 in the first chapter of the transactions of the Pick- 

 wick Club is amenity itself. The opening sentences 

 will give a fair idea of its tone : — " Some years have 

 now elapsed since a gentleman, the sable hue of 

 whose vesture, if not the smile on his countenance, 

 betokened that he should be at peace with all men, 

 came up from the North to London, and announced 

 himself to me as the ReY. John Fleming, D.D., 



The author of this satire is W. S. MacLeay. When 

 Scot meets Scot then comes the tug of war. How- 

 ever, time brings its revenges, and if the worthy 

 D.D.'s dichotomous system has failed to obtain recog- 

 nition, his assailant's own pet "quinary system" has 

 followed, or perhaps preceded, it into the limbo of 

 exploded vanities. We may congratulate ourselves 

 that scientific discussions are not now conducted in 

 such a tone. Very different in style are some plea- 

 santly written papers by Professor Schultes of Landshut, 

 Bavaria, " On the Cultivation of Botany in England." 

 The professor, in visiting England, was struck with 

 the deep, full verdure of English vegetation. He had 

 often heard and passed censures on the intense 

 colours of the figures in English botany, but now 

 perceived that the complaint was unfounded, the 

 prevailing hue of vegetation being even of a deeper 

 tone than there represented. He observed nothing in 

 the flora of the roadsides which struck him as being 

 different from that of Germany except Ulex eiiropans 

 and "a species of Rtibus, which, though called by all 

 the botanists of this country R. fruticosus, is not the 

 plant which bears that name on the continent, of 

 which the corollas are always pale red." What a 

 charming picture of simplicity ! the critical botanists 

 or " splitters " had not yet tried their hands upon this 

 prickly genus. 



The professor is justly indignant because Sir J. E. 

 Smith, the president of the Linnean Society, and the 

 most eminent botanist in England, was formally in- 

 hibited by the vice-chancellor of the university from 

 delivering lectures on botany at Cambridge, because 



