ORIGIN OP PLANTS. 219 



the coast of Sweden, or part of the coast of South America, 

 or in Asia along the western shores of Aracan. Whereas, 

 in order to close with the simpler antagonistic belief of the 

 author of the " Vestiges," it is necessary to hold, contrary to 

 all experience, that dulce and henware* became, through a 

 very wonderful metamorphosis, cabbage and spinnage ; that 

 kelp- weed and tangle bourgeoned into oaks and willows ; and 

 that slack, rope-weed, and green-raw,f shot up into mangel- 

 wurzel, rye-grass, and clover. Simple, certainly ! An infidel 

 on terms such as these could with no propriety be regarded 

 as an unbeliever. It is well that the New Testament makes 

 no such extraordinary demands on human credulity. 



Let us remark further, at this stage, that, judging from the 

 generally received geological evidence in the case, very little 

 time seems to be allowed by the author of the "Vestiges" 

 for that miraculous process of transmutation through which 

 the low algae of our sea-shores are held to have passed into the 

 high orders of plants which constitute the prevailing British 

 flora. The boulder clay, which rises so high along our hills, 

 and which, as shown by its inferior position on the lower 

 grounds, is decidedly the most ancient of the country's super- 

 ficial deposits, is yet so modern geologically, that it contains 

 only recent shells. It belongs to that cold, glacial, post-Ter- 

 tiary period, in which what is now Britain existed as a few 

 groupes of insulated hill-tops, bearing the semi-arctic vegeta- 

 tion of our fourth flora, — that true Celtic flora of the country 

 which we now find, like the country's Celtic races of our 

 own species, cooped up among the mountains. The fifth or 

 Germanic flora must have been introduced, it is held, at a 

 later period, when the climate had greatly meliorated. And 

 if we are to hold that the plants of this last flora were de- 

 veloped from sea-weed, not propagated across a continuity 



* Rhodymenia palmata and Alarla esculenta. 



+ Porphyra laciniata. Chorda filum, and Enteromorpha compresM. 



