296 Mr. Toulmin Smith on the Formation 



mark, and it is unnecessary to travel to Algoa Bay, Torres Straits 

 or Wollongong in search of illustrations. Now it is well known 

 to all familiar with flints, that the latter are never found, and 

 have never been found, having the characteristics here described 

 by Mr. Bowerbank as attaching to recent sponges. It was said 

 of the old Greek philosophers, that, while one made laws for men 

 as they are, another made laws for men as they ought to be. So 

 Mr. Bowerbank, having by "anticipation^' determined that all 

 chalk flints have been sponges, proceeds to tell us how recent 

 sponges are found. Hence we may indeed infer his opinion, 

 that flints ought to be found the same j but, in the mean time, 

 the facts as to the actual mode in which flints are found are alto- 

 gether lost sight of. With the " habits of the Spongiadse," such 

 as described on page 253, and figured by Dr. Johnston and 

 others, every one is familiar ; but they have nothing to do with 

 the question before us, unless indeed it be to afford another 

 illustration of the utter fallacy of the sponge theory, by satisfying 

 us that there is no true analogy whatever between the flints and 

 any of the illustrations given or cited. Of that fact every one 

 having a moderate acquaintance with flints must be fully aware. 



The facts cited on page 254 again, being only adduced to 

 appear to meet a sentence which, in its original connexion, had 

 an exactly opposite meaning to that here given to it, are equally 

 beside the mark, as they are also equally inconsistent with any 

 of the observed phsenomena of flints. 



I have already shown that the whole discussion on the gelati- 

 nous state of the fluid is gratuitous ; but I must remark that 

 Mr. Bowerbank involves himself in several contradictions on this 

 point, first ridiculing the idea of one solution preserving any in- 

 tegrity within another* (page 260), and afterwards speaking 

 (page 262) of the " great prevalence in solution in water'' of this 

 very substance. Mr. Bowerbank cannot surely but have seen the 

 condition when mixed of fluids of different densities, as oil and 

 water, &c. &c. The specific gravity of the liquid silex is ob- 

 viously a very material point. But Mr. Bowerbank himself, in 

 his paper in the ' Geol. Trans.,' p. 183, several times mentions 

 the " gelatinous globules," so that his views must have under- 

 gone a material change in this respect. 



3. But all the material arguments used by me are left wholly 

 unnoticed by Mr. Bowerbank. This silence can leave but one 

 inference. It is proper, that the nature of the discussion may 

 be understood, to enumerate the principal arguments thus unan- 



• Dr. Turner expressly alludes to the " tendency of like molecules to get 

 together and adhere while intermixed with a mass of dissimilar matter ren- 

 dered liquid," and the fact is familiar. Mr. Bowerbank's observations 

 amount, if anything, to a denial of molecular attraction ! 



