140 FAMOUS SCOTS 



the vegetation of the coal-measures had been ' magni- 

 ficent immaturities ' of the vegetable kingdom. But the 

 quarry of Craigleith, near Edinburgh, alone would refute 

 it, not to speak of the coal-fields of Dalkeith and Fal- 

 kirk with their araucarians and pines. While Brongniart 

 had denied to the Lower ' Old Red ' anything higher 

 than a lichen or a moss, ' the ship carpenter might have 

 hopefully taken axe in hand, to explore the woods for 

 some such stately pine as the one described by Milton : 



" Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast 

 Of some great ammiral." ' 



It might be thought, however, that to the geological 

 argument from development some consolation might 

 be left from the general fact of the lower producing 

 the higher. Yet even here the Lamarckian theory 

 fails. Fishes were earlier than the beasts of the field 

 and man. But we are still a long way from any proof 

 that ' the peopling of the earth was one of a natural 

 kind, requiring time ' ; or that the predecessors of man 

 were his progenitors. So far as geology is concerned, 

 superposition is not parental relation, so that there is 

 no necessity for the lower producing the higher. Nor 

 has transmutation of marine into terrestrial vegetation 

 been proved. This had been the mainstay of the 

 Lamarckian hypothesis, and had been adopted from the 

 brilliant but fancifully written Telliamed (an anagram, by 

 the way, of the author's name) of De Maillet by both 

 Oken and Chambers, who had found in the Delphinidce 



