3 1 4 NOTES. 



weeds undergoing the singular process of transmutation. Tak- 

 ing as a basis the breaking down of certain evidence, founded, 

 not on Mr Miller's own observations, but on those of the 

 most trustworthy geologis'ts, — a contingency to which, before 

 time has confirmed discovery, a science like Geology must be 

 always liable, — he takes occasion, by way of inference, to 

 doubt that which Mr Miller had himself discovered, and the 

 accuracy of which discovery he had submitted to every possible 

 test " Taught by this misadventure ... I claim a 

 right to pause before admitting this lignite, lest it also should 

 prove to be a misplacement." Then the quotation from the 

 " Foot-prints" stops exactly where fair play required that it 

 ought not. Why omit the conclusion of the passage ? "A 

 nodule that lay immediately beside it contained a well-pre- 

 served specimen of the Coccosteus Decipiens ; and in the 

 nodule in which the lignite itself is contained^ the practised 

 eye may detect a scattered group of scales of Diplacanthus, 

 — a scarce less characteristic organism of the (same) forma- 

 tion." " Mr Miller's mistakes have at least the merit of being 

 ingenuous," says the author of the " Vestiges." Are his own 

 always equally so 1 And is this passage a specimen of his 

 general style of reasoning ? — L. M. 



