158 AN EPISCOPAL TRILOGY IV 



with him concerning the observations which had 

 been made by Mr. Murray upon coral-reefs, and 

 the speculations which had been founded upon 

 those observations. I found that Mr. Darwin had 

 very carefully considered the whole subject, and 

 that while, on the one hand, he did not regard the 

 actual facts recorded by Mr. Murray as absolutely 

 inconsistent with his own theory of subsidence, 

 on the other hand, he did not believe that they 

 necessitated or supported the hypothesis advanced 

 by Mr. Murray. Mr. Darwin's attitude, as I under- 

 stood it, towards Mr. Murray's objections to the 

 theory of subsidence was exactly similar to that 

 maintained by him with respect to Professor 

 Semper's criticism, which was of a very similar 

 character; and his position with regard to the 

 whole question was almost identical with that 

 subsequently so clearly defined by Professor Dana 

 in his well-known articles published in the 

 " American Journal of Science" for 1885. 



It is difficult to imagine how any one, ac- 

 quainted with the scientific literature of the last 

 seven years, could possibly suggest that Mr. 

 Murray's memoir published in 1880 had failed to 

 secure a due amount of attention. Mr. Murray, 

 by his position in the " Challenger " office, occupied 

 an exceptionally favourable position for making 

 his views widely known; and he had, moreover, 

 the singular good fortune to secure from the first 

 the advocacy of so able and brilliant a writer as 



