CORRESPONDENCE. 
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-diffused 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 Contemporary Review, 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. PratrT BALL. 
Mr. Hick AND CALAMOSTACHYS. 
In a paper which appears in the number of NatTurat 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 Ca/amostachys 
Binneyana. 1am not disposed to enter upon what, to be of any value, must bea 
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 Calamariz, including under that comprehensive term the two 
genera Calamites 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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