1085 



nor simultaneous, but that it was spread over thousands of years. 

 Our author will probably at this point invoke the waters of the 

 deluge, in order to drown this view of the case ; but if there be one 

 feature in the biblical history of that event more prominent than the 

 rest, it is the especial care taken by the Almighty that not a " spe- 

 cies " should perish ; so that naturalists are, as it were, cautioned, 

 on the very threshold of the inquiry, against the introduction of the 

 Bible in support of their speculations. Now, it must be patent to the 

 most ordinary capacity, either that the Megatherium, Pterodactylus, 

 and the entire coal series of vegetables actually exist at the present 

 moment, or that the Linnean hypothesis of the eternal duration of 

 species is altogether futile. 



We now arrive at the second division of the Editor's leader, that 

 which appears penned in express opposition to the views of Mr. 

 Knight ; and here we think the writer equally in error. 



There are certain plants, such, for instance, as the plum, the pear, 

 the apple, the bramble, the rose, &c., which accompany man in his 

 migrations, and adopt his home for their own. Most of these have 

 obtained his peculiar regard from the value of their fruit, and all 

 are subject to that deviation from typical and original character, 

 which results from domestication. In reproducing these plants from 

 seed, it is notorious that the descendant is not the exact image of the 

 parent. For instance, the stone of a greengage, the pip of a jar- 

 gonel or Ribstone pippin, the seed of a Rubus Grabowskii or a 

 Rosa Devoniensis, do not necessarily reproduce their kind : such a 

 fact might result, but there is no law by which it must result ; and 

 those who have studied the matter, and practically tested it, well 

 know that such a fact would be opposed to the ordinary result. 

 There is every human probability that six mature seeds of either of 

 these plants would produce plants not merely unlike the parent, but 

 unlike each other. The Bombi, or humble bees, are the great agents 

 in the creation of species of brambles ; in this work leaving our 

 valued collaborateurs, Lees, Babington, and Bell-Salter, far, far 

 behind : and to the same instrumentality we are probably indebted 

 for some of our choicest apples. How, then, is the likeness of the 

 parent to be perpetuated ? We answer, by taking an integral por- 

 tion of that parent, viz., a cutting or bud, growing it either in the 

 ground, or grafting it on another stock. By such a process, green- 

 gages and jargon els are indefinitely multiplied, until a seedling plant 

 may have thousands of detached members, in all respects the image of 

 itself. 



VOL. IV, 6 z 



