NOTES. 311 



* Vestiges,' and even favours the inference drawn from the 

 facts in favour of the development hypothesis. Mr Miller 

 cliiefly insists on two particulars. Adverting to the rarity of 

 land-plants below the Coal, he endeavours to account for it 

 by saying, — ' The fossil botanist, on taking leave of the lower 

 Carboniferous beds, quits the land, and sets out to sea ; and 

 it seems in no way surprising that the specimens which he 

 there adds to his herbarium should consist mainly of Fuca- 

 cese and Confervese. The development hypothesis can bor- 

 row no support from the simple fact, that while a high ter- 

 restrial vegetation grows upon dry land, only algge grow in 

 the sea.' Can Mr Miller seriously expect that we are to be 

 content with his quiet assumption that there was no dry land 

 before the Carboniferous era ? I refer him to very sufficient 

 authorities (Proofs, &c., No. 3) for a contrary opinion. The 

 fact is, that the long-continued existence of dry land through- 

 out the enormous ages represented by the Silurian and De- 

 vonian formations, without leaving us any certain evidence 

 of a land vegetation, is one of the preachings of Geology most 

 confounding to writers on Mr Miller's side of the question. 

 But then, — and this is the second particular, — ^he has dis- 

 covered a lignite which he supposes to be Araucarian, in 

 the Lower Old Red of Cromarty. This is the subject of 

 much fine writing. It is an *unfallen Adam,' — ^the * olive 

 leaf of Noah's dove,' — a whole forest scene is engendered by 

 it in the imagination of this prose poet.' * A true wood at; 

 the base of the Old Red Sandstone, or a true placoid in. the 

 limestones of Bala, very considerably beneath the base of the 

 Lower Silurian System, are untoward misplacements for the 

 purposes of the Lamarckian.^ Oh, luckless word and boot- 

 less boast ! The * true placoid' of the Bala limestones, which 

 turns out to be *a new genus of Asteroid zoophyte' (as 

 shown a few pages back), is indeed an untoward misplace- 

 ment for Mr Miller, and those who led him to believe that it 



