Bibliographical Notices. 399 



content to avow that I humbly followed in the wake of those 

 high authorities whose works I had now and then the opportu- 

 nities of consulting, as, for instance, Edward Forbes, Huxley, 

 Ansted, PhiUips, and many other illustrious writers whose pub- 

 lished opinions are far too well known to render it necessary for 

 me to show that they, at all events, demanded everything in the 

 way of confirmatory evidence, before yielding that credence 

 which must all along have been accorded by Mr. Jeffreys, if 

 founded, as it would appear to be, on the bare statements to 

 which he is so anxious to do '^justice." 



I have expressly stated, in my published " Notes," that my 

 chief aim, in tendering my services when the North Atlantic 

 Expeditions were projected last season, was to " determine the 

 depths to which animal life extends in the sea, together with the 

 limits and conditions essential to its maintenance." How far I 

 have been successful in my labours, it is not for me to decide. 

 I would only remark, in conclusion, that the mere hauling up a 

 creature from the sea-bottom, apart from the elucidation of the 

 attendant biological phenomena, is too purely a mechanical feat 

 to elicit any higher credit than will some day attach to the first 

 observer of the "great sea-serpent," should such a monster 

 prove, after all that has been said pro and con., to be something 

 more than a myth. 



I remain. Gentlemen, 



Your very obedient Servant, 



G. C. Wallich. 



17 Carapden Hill Road, Kensington, 

 April 15, 1861. 



BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 



Life on the Earth ; its Origin and Succession. By John Phillips, 

 M.A., LL.D., F.R.S. &c. Cambridge: M'Millan, 1860. 12mo. 



One of the most astonishing circumstances in the present day is 

 the acceptance which the theory put forward by Mr. Darwin in his 

 work on the ' Origin of Species ' has met with from several of the 

 leading naturalists of this country. That a book having the name of 

 Charles Darwin on its title-page would be extensively read, is a 

 matter of course ; but that, without containing the smallest tittle 

 of new evidence on the subject of the evolution of one species from 

 another, it should have been regarded as establishing that theory, 

 may well excite our surprise. 



"When we compare Mr. Darwin's hypothesis with those of his 

 predecessors, which have been sometimes treated as irreligious, some- 

 times as. simply ridiculous, we find that its main difference from 

 them (looking at both in a broad light) consists in the exclusion by 



