x.] GEOLOGICAL CONTEMPORANEITY. 177 



extension and impulse given to botany, zoology, and comparative 

 anatomy, by the investigation of fossil remains. Indeed, the 

 mass of biological facts has been so greatly increased, and the 

 range of biological speculation has been so vastly widened, by the 

 researches of the geologist and palaeontologist, that it is to be 

 feared there are naturalists in existence who look upon geology 

 as Brindley regarded rivers. &quot; Rivers,&quot; said the great engineer, 

 &quot; were made to feed canals ; &quot; and geology, some seem to think, 

 was solely created to advance comparative anatomy. 



Were such a thought justifiable, it could hardly expect to be 

 received with favour by this assembly. But it is not justifiable. 

 Your favourite science has her own great aims independent of all 

 others ; and if, notwithstanding her steady devotion to her own 

 progress, she can scatter such rich alms among her sisters, it 

 should be remembered that her charity is of the sort that 

 does not impoverish, but &quot; blesseth him that gives and him 

 that takes.&quot; 



Regard the matter as we will, however, the facts remain. 

 Nearly 40,000 species of animals and plants have been added to 

 the Systema Naturae by - palaeontological research. This is a 

 living population equivalent to that of a new continent in mere 

 number ; equivalent to that of a new hemisphere, if we take into 

 account the small population of insects as yet found fossil, and 

 the large proportion and peculiar organization of many of the 

 Vertebrata. 



But, beyond this, it is perhaps not too much to say that, 

 except for the necessity of interpreting palaeontological facts, the 

 laws of distribution would have received less careful study ; while 

 few comparative anatomists (and those not of the first order) 

 would have been induced by mere love of detail, as such, to study 

 the minutiae of osteology, were it not that in such minutiae lie the 

 only keys to the most interesting riddles offered by the extinct 

 animal world. 



These assuredly are great and solid gains. Surely it is matter 

 for no small congratulation that in half a century (for palaeon 

 tology, though it dawned earlier, came into full day only with 



N 



