1898] NOTES AND COMMENTS 291 



wrote a popular and chatty article on " How plants live and work " 

 in an esteemed contemporary devoted to siicli literature. That the 

 Duke should regard this seriously as ' descriptive science ' by ' an 

 advanced Darwinian ' seems to show a curious absence of the real 

 article from the bookshelves of the Athenaeum and Inverary Castle. 

 When we come to the real argument, we find but little. The case 

 against Darwinism may thus be summed up : ' Natural Selection ' 

 is a shocking bad metaphor, and the first ' Living Forms ' arose 

 from something that was not a ' common Parentage.' " Clearly, 

 then, the solution offered by the Darwinian theory is . . . worse 

 than inadequate." Not the Duke of Argyll himself can be ex- 

 pected to demolish the Darwinian explanation of evolution in an 

 hour's lecture, but even a local literary society might ask with 

 justice for more argument and less majuscular rhetoric. 



The History of Geology at Oxford 



In the last number of Science Progress Mr Sollas gives us the first fruits 

 of his appointment to the Geological Chair at Oxford. We hope it will 

 be followed by many harvests from the same inspiring pen. Mr 

 Sollas must accept it as a proof of our appreciation of his work 

 that we should raise a small polemic with him. The object of 

 his paper is to trace the connection of Oxford with the history 

 of geology, but Oxford has very little to do with a good deal of 

 it. The accoimt of Steno the Dane, which is interesting, is followed 

 by an amusing and freshly written notice of Plot, the queer and old- 

 world author of the Natural Histories of Oxfordshire and Stafford- 

 shire. We do not quite see how he represents the serious science 

 taught at Oxford at any date, nor has he any real claims to a 

 position in the history of modern science at all. Like Kircher, 

 he was a survivor from the Middle Ages, writing in a style which is 

 perfectly delightful for us to read. He takes us far away from 

 orthodox thought to the kind of scientific notions which perhaps in 

 our day sometimes floated through the brain of Charles Lamb. He 

 was no doubt an F.E.S. and much laughed at by his friends, but he 

 had as much in common with the little band of real men of science 

 who founded the Royal Society as he had with the committee which 

 tried Galileo. If we want to see what a really thoughtful man in 

 England had made out at this time in the shape of a geological 

 theory, we ought to turn to Martin Lister, whose work, and especi- 

 ally his paper in the Fhilosophiccd Transactions, is a remarkable 

 production, and is only casually referred to by Mr Sollas. Though 

 originally a Cambridge man, he was connected with Oxford, pre- 

 sented much to the Ashmolean Museum, and was made an M.D. of 

 the University in 1684. He is generally credited with having been 

 one of the first to suggest geological maps. 



