NOTES. 313 



author thought himself entitled to hold that enormous ages of 

 dry land, without any appearance of land vegetation, proved — 

 what 1 — that sea-weed grew on the land, where it gradually 

 assumed the characters of land plants? Well, if he pleased 

 to think so, he was at liberty to do it so long as there was 

 no proof to the contrary. But what shall we say of the sen- 

 tence following ? — " 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 ?" Where does Mr 

 Miller make this assertion % Not, surely, by assuming that 

 remains of deep-sea formations do exist before that era, in 

 which no land-plants are to be found. That is unquestionable. 

 And it is to such that the passage alluded to, " The Fossil 

 Botanist," &c., refers; while in close proximity to it occur 

 the most express assertions of the existence likewise of dry 

 land, which it was, in fact, one main end of this chapter to 

 prove. How, for example, does the author of the "Ves- 

 tiges" reconcile this alleged assumption of Mr Miller's that 

 there was no dry land till the Carboniferous period, with 

 the paragraph he himself quotes immediately after, in which 

 Mr Miller is said to have proclaimed the discovery of a highly 

 organized tree of the Old Bed, — an Araucarian ; which dis- 

 covery he, the author of the " Vestiges," sets himself to dis- 

 prove or disparage 1 Where was this tree to grow? In the 

 sea? How, then, does the same author say, — **A whole 

 forest scene is engendered by it in the imagination of this 

 prose poet ?" Was that in the sea too ! It suited the pur- 

 pose of the author of the " Vestiges" to suppose that Mr 

 Miller made an assumption which he could not possibly 

 make, in order that he might be shown to be in the wrong ; 

 but the strongest possible evidence of that dry land which the 

 theory of the author of the " Vestiges" requires, it does not 

 suit him to admit, because, although he must have the dry 

 land there must be no trees growing out of it, — only sea- 



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