44 
Malthusian and Darwinite lines of reasoning there ought to be 
some special agencies provided for the purpose of hindering the 
pollen doing the work for which it has been created. 
Which, I would ask, is the preferable mode of looking at all this ? 
To start with the fact of a generous bountiful arrangement for the 
continuance of life in its varied forms, and then to check it all by 
an arrangement in which 
Nature, red in tooth and claw 
With ravine 
does her utmost to nullify it; or to take the fact of the risks to 
which all forms of life are subject, and then to look back to the 
same bountiful provisions by which the full powers of evil are 
averted? In the one case apparent cruelty is evoked to interfere 
with a beneficent arrangement; in the other the destructive 
agencies are foiled. Ido not enter now at all upon the question 
of apparent cruelty in nature, as evidenced by destructive agencies, 
why they are here, or whether the cruelty is real, or kindness in, 
disguise, Iam taking facts asthey are, and propounding a method 
of looking at them different to that which so many Darwinians put 
before us. And here I leave them. 
I wish in conclusion to remind you once again that I have not 
been arguing at all against the Darwinian Theory, which as I have 
said may be true or false, regardless of Malthusianism; but only 
against an incorrect method of arguing which is very common, and 
which when detected, shows discredit on a theory which may be 
otherwise sound. 
At the close of the reading, a few remarks were made by the Rev. 
A. H, Duke, the Rev. Mr. Bamber, Mr. Smurthwaite, and others, 
and the meeting closed with a vote of thanks to Mr. Ullyett. 
Saturpay, June 26TH, 1886. 
Members went by train to the Warren, but the attendance was 
small. 
The following paper, well illustrated by diagrams and specimens, 
was read by G. C. Walton, Esq., F.L.S., on 
SOME OF THE COMMON OBJECTS OF OUR SHORE. 
Certainly the most conspicuous objects of our shore are the large 
olive-brown seaweeds called kelpweeds, and these, though they 
lack the delicacy and beauty of many of the red species, yet claim 
our attention on account of their value. Before the adoption of the 
modern chemical process, carbonate of soda was extracted from 
