CORRESPO^'DE^XE. 



Natural Selection and Lamarckism : A Correction. 



On page 337, line 17, I would ask the reader to substitute the word "evident " 

 for the word "admitted," as I find I was in error in supposing that " it is admitted " 

 that Natural Selection would evolve a general or widely-diffased sense of touch. 

 Mr. Spencer's views on the matter are more extreme and exclusive than I gathered 

 from his article. In the latest number of the Contcmporayy Revien', he denies that 

 either general or special sensitiveness of the skin results from Natural Selection. 

 I am sorry that I misinterpreted his view on this point ; but I fail to understand 

 how a great philosopher can accept Natural Selection as a factor of evolution and 

 yet suppose that it would play no important part in developing a sense so necessary 

 for safety and survival as that of touch. Wm. Platt Ball. 



Mr. Hick and Calamostachys. 



In a paper which appears in the number of Natural Science for May 

 (vol. ii., pp. 354-359), Mr. Hick has, if I mistake not, brought before the public for 

 the third time his views respecting the structure and affinities of Calamostachys 

 Binneyana. I am not disposed to enter upon what, to be of any value, must be a 

 prolonged and detailed controversy ; but were I to allow this paper to be circulated 

 unnoticed by me, such a course might be equivalent to an admission that I had 

 made serious blunders, which Mr. Hick had not only corrected, but that his evidence 

 furnishes what he claims to be "a complete solution of the difficulty thus pre- 

 sented." This claim I must definitely decline to recognise. I fear that the diffi- 

 culties in the way of obtaining this solution are greater than Mr. Hick realises. 



For several months my friend. Dr. Scott, and I have been working together, at 

 the Joddrell Laboratory at the Kew Gardens, re-investigating the entire subject of 

 the Carboniferous Calamarias, including under that comprehensive term the two 

 genera Calamitcs and Calamostachys, having as material for our investigation such a 

 collection of sections of these objects as has no existence outside my cabinets. We 

 hope to place before the Royal Society the results of these minute and careful 

 studies, elaborately illustrated, before the close of the present year. This memoir 

 will be our true answer to Mr. Hick's statements. Meanwhile, that gentleman must 

 excuse me if I decline to recognise the accuracy of a considerable number of state- 

 ments contained in his paper, or admit that he has settled the controverted questions 

 so conclusively as he claims to have done. W. C. Williamson. 



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