statement of the evidence to be derived from plants in relation to theories of 

 evolution. There are, perhaps, one or two slips which I might correct, but 

 they are not of more importance than typographical errors, and are, at the 

 most, very slight. I think he has done well to insist on the permanence of 

 generic, and, perhaps, even of specific types ; because this is what really lies 

 at the root of the whole question. I have traced some species as far back as 

 the glacial period species that are now living on this globe, but which 

 belong not only to highly-organised plants, but to the lower cellular plants, 

 and about which there cannot be the slightest doubt. This, of course, demands 

 a very long time indeed for the development if they were developed of 

 the existent species ; but when we go back, as Mr. James has taken us, to 

 the origin of the various types of plant life, and see that the dicotyledonous 

 plants made their appearance, as far as we know and, of course, we cannot 

 argue beyond the extent of our knowledge in the upper cretaceous beds, 

 that they then suddenly presented themselves in a large number of 

 forms representing all the main sections of this division of the vegetable 

 kingdom, and that their remains can all be referred to existing generic 

 types, it seems to me to be utterly impossible that any explanation 

 can be given that can bear out the theory of evolution by genetic 

 descent. This remark is, I think, equally true with regard to the lower 

 divisions. I think Mr. James has put the position he has taken very 

 clearly in regard to the vascular cryptogams in the coal measures. That 

 those three forms, so widely separated from each other, even in those early 

 times, should have continued to exist and to maintain their differences of 

 character down to the present time, is, I think, a fact which is strongly 

 opposed to the evolution theory. I am, however, only expressing my general 

 belief in the strength of Mr. James's arguments. I might, perhaps, object to 

 the point he makes as to the synthetic types. For my own part, I am not 

 acquainted with a single synthetic type in the vegetable kingdom. I do not 

 know any plant that has been discovered in the rocks of the earth containing 

 a synthetic structure including the characters of several groups of plants, now 

 differentiated ; and I am sure that this is not the case with the cycads, which, 

 while they have .an anomalous appearance in relation to their allies, are a 

 distinctly-separate type of gymnosperms, with no affinity to the ferns on 

 the one hand, or to the palms on the other. They began life as a group in the 

 secondary strata, and fossils which have been referred by early observers to 

 tnis group of plants have been shown to be not stems of cycads but of 

 vascular cryptogams. They appeared to form a large portion of the flora of 

 the secondary period, and there were some types which have disappeared 

 entirely and are not found at the present day. I would only, before sitting 

 down, express my gratification at the clear way in which Mr. James has put 

 the question before this Institute, and my conviction that all the data we 

 have in connexion with fossil botany appear to me clearly to disprove, and 

 certainly in no way whatever to support, the hypothesis of evolution by 

 genetic descent. (Applause.) 



