BY THE PRESIDENT. 61 



existence, at great depths in the ocean, of living animals, in some 

 cases identical with, in others veiy similar to, those which are 

 found fossilised in the White Chalk. The Rev. J. C. Clutterhuck 

 tells me he had some of tlie Atlantic mud given him, brought up 

 by the Challenger. He analysed it and found it identical in com- 

 position with the Lower Chalk of Hertfordshire. Now the Glo- 

 higerina, and other animals which are now making chalk at the 

 bottom of the Atlantic for future ages, must derive the lime from 

 the water, and the lime of the ocean is supplied by the lime in the 

 rivers. 



The streams of Hertfordshire take tons of lime daily to the sea 

 to make chalk. Each cubic foot of water from the river Gade at 

 Watford, it is calculated, contains 100 grains of chalk. Now 

 when the Atlantic becomes dry land, which it may do in a few 

 years — solar years, — the future natives of the Atlantic may specu- 

 late on the age of their chalk as we do of our chalk, and say how 

 old it is, little di'eaming that some of the chalk existed previously 

 as chalk in Hertfordshire, as we do not dream of our chalk having 

 existed in some previous formation. Most of our geological forma- 

 tions are sedimentary, and the matter of which they are composed 

 must have existed before ; and besides this, to each sedimentary 

 stratum there must have been a dry land stratum which is not 

 represented. This may be called an ante-period. Therefore if 

 astronomy and geology combined enable us to estimate the age of 

 the crust of the earth, they can never give us any evidence of the 

 age of the matter of which the earth is composed. 



I cannot bring forward the doctrine of evolution in proof of my 

 theory that the plan of nature is perpetual circular motion, be- 

 cause the doctrines of Darwin are not yet quite accepted ; yet as 

 they are believed in by some of our most profound thinkers, and 

 by men most able to form an opinion, I think Darwinism will be 

 taken for granted in the not very distant future, in the same way 

 as we now take for granted Newton's theory of gravitation and the 

 undulatory theory of light. Haeckel says that in the future, 

 Darwin's statue — he is a member of our Society — will be raised 

 higher in the temple of fame than that of Newton ; that whereas 

 Newton introduced order into the world of matter, Darwin has 

 introduced order into the world of life — a much more difficult 

 undertaking. Darwinism would only half support my theory, for 

 if the higher animals are evolved from the lower, it would only 

 account for half a circle. To accord with my theory, we must 

 suppose that there is not only a doctrine of evolution, but that 

 there is also, if I may coin a word, a doctrine of devolution — not 



