403 Bibliographical Notices. 



geologists believe." It is upon this assumption, which has been by no 

 means generally accepted by geologists, that Professor Phillips, one 

 of the most accomplished of their number, joins issue with Mr. Dar- 

 win in the little work before us. '* With the exceptions of the two 

 great breaks at the close of the Palaeozoic and Mesozoic periods," 

 says Professor Phillips, " the series of strata is nearly, if not quite, 

 complete, the series of life almost equally so. Not, indeed, in one 

 small tract or in one section, but on a comparison of different tracts 

 and several sections. For example, the marine series of Devonian life 

 cannot be found in the districts of Wales or Scotland, but must be 

 collected in Devonshire, Bohemia, Russia, and America. When so 

 gathered, it fills very nearly, if not entirely, the whole interval be- 

 tween the Upper Silurian and the Carboniferous fauna. So, in 

 England, the marine intermediaries of the Oolitic and Cretaceous 

 ages are not given ; but the Neocomian strata supply the want. We 

 have no Meiocene strata in England, but their place is marked in 

 France and America. 



"Even the great breaks alluded to are bridged. The Permian 

 series of life contains some Mesozoic interpolations ; and the Lias 

 contains i-eliqitice of some Palaeozoic genera. The Upper Chalk of 

 Maestricht and the South of France extends towards the Tertiaries 

 the reign of the Upper Mesozoic beds. On the whole, it appears 

 that there exist ample materials for testing any hypothesis of the 

 sequence of life which includes the marine races." 



After reviewing the steps by which we might suppose that the 

 lower forms of animal life had been derived from a simple primordial 

 germ, and showing that, as far as our knowledge of animal forms 

 goes (and there is nothing else to which we can appeal), even " in 

 what seem to be the first and easiest steps we can imagine, nothing 

 but postulate upon postulate will bring us on our way," Professor 

 Phillips proceeds to examine the evidence afforded, either for or 

 against the doctrine of evolution, by the Mollusca, " the least incom- 

 plete series of forms, and undoubtedly the most favourable of all 

 the marine groups for the application of hypothesis." 



"The earliest known mollusk," he says, "is the Brachiopod Lin- 

 gula, which recurs in all the systems of strata, and is still living. It 

 gives no generic branches. The next earliest are the Dimyariau 

 genera Ctenodonta and CncuUella, which cannot be regarded as 

 descended from any conceivable Brachiopod, or accepted as pro- 

 genitors of Modiola, Orthonota, Cardiola, or Pleurorhynchus — still 

 less of their INIonomyarian companions, Amhonychia, Avicula, and 

 Pterinea. It is inconceivable that from these, or anything like 

 them, could be derived the Gasteropod EuoinjihaJi, Loxonemce, &c., 

 or that the Heteropod Bellerophon, the Pteropod Theca, or the 

 Cephalopod Orthoceras are consanguineous any one of them with 

 any other. All these great classes, then, are, according to the evi- 

 dence, equally aboriginal, though not of equal antiquity." From 

 these and similar considerations. Professor Phillips affirms "that the 

 later series of Cambro-Silurian life cannot possibly be derived from 

 the earlier series, according to the evidence preserved to us, but, on 



