CONTINUED INFLUENCE OF EXPLODED VIEWS. 327 



not seem that he believes geologic " systems " to be uni- 

 versal, in the sense that their separations were in all places 

 contemporaneous ? Though he would, doubtless, disown 

 this as an article of faith, is not his thinking unconsciously 

 influenced by it ? Must we not say that though the onion- 

 coat hypothesis is dead, its spirit is traceable, under a trans- 

 cendental form, even in the conclusions of its antagonists ? 



Let us now consider another leading geological doc- 

 trine, introduced to us by the cases just mentioned. We 

 mean the doctrine that strata of the same age contain like 

 fossils ; and that, therefore, the age and relative position of 

 any stratum may be known by its fossils. While the the- 

 ory that strata of like mineral characters were everywhere 

 deposited simultaneously, has been ostensibly abandoned, 

 there has been accepted the theory that in each geologic 

 epoch similar plants and animals existed everywhere ; and 

 that, therefore, the epoch to which any formation belongs 

 may be known by the organic remains contained in the 

 formation. Though, perhaps, no leading geologist would 

 openly commit himself to an unqualified assertion of this 

 theory, yet it is tacitly assumed in current geological rea- 

 soning. 



This theory, however, is scarcciy more tenable than the 

 other. It cannot be concluded with any certainty, that 

 formations in which similar organic remains are found, were 

 of contemporaneous origin ; nor can it be safely concluded 

 that strata containing different organic remains are of dif- 

 ferent ages. To most readers these will be startling propo- 

 sitions ; but they are fully admitted by the highest author- 

 ities. Sir Charles Lyell confesses that the test of organic 

 remains must be used " under very much the same restric- 

 tions as the test of mineral composition." Sir Henry de la 

 Beche, who variously illustrates this truth, gives, as one 

 mstance, the great mcongruity there must be between the 



