166 Dr. Wallich on the Origin of the 



make no apology for giving here a rather lengthy extract from 

 it " (Mr. Sollas's paper, ' Annals,' Dec. 1880, p. 452). 



Both the above extracts from my paper are so incorrectly 

 given, and mutilated by the omission of the context, as to 

 materially alter their pm'port, at the very time that 

 Mr. SoUas informs his readers that " THE FIEST explanation 

 may best be given in Dr. Wallich'' s own words ^^^ and prefaces 

 his first quotation by saying that I was " speaking of the irre- 

 gulur nodules^'' in order to make it appear that 1 was then 

 describing some part of my hypothesis. I was neither 

 describing any part of my hypothesis, offering an explanation 

 of any supposition, nor directly or indirectly making any allusion 

 to the question of the nodules. I had been impugning a 

 statement by Sir Charles Lyell, made under a misapprehension 

 of certain facts which I was relating concerning the very 

 insignificant part played by the Diatom ace^ in supplying the 

 silica of the flints, and was repeating generally what I had 

 been at great pains in proving, for the first time, by detailed 

 evidence, that " the comparatively bulky siliceous framework 

 and spicule-system of the deep-sea vitreous sponges must 

 constitute the main source of supply of the material for the 

 flints." Speaking of this^ I continued as follows : — " Indeed, 

 it is far from improbable that the true flints are produced 

 solely in the areas occupied by the sponge-beds, the flints 

 becoming (elsewhere) more cherty and devoid of those 

 characteristic amcebiform outlines which, according to my 

 hypothesis, are dependent " &c. (see my paper, p. 79). 

 Therefore, to cite this passage as an '' explanation " of my 

 hypothesis, more particularly as it was not described by 

 Mr. Sollas either before or afterwards, was a mere abuse of 

 words, if not of facts ! 



In the second of the above extracts Mr. Sollas pursues the 

 same course of destroying the purport of the passage by sup- 

 pressing the context. Such a method of supplying the 

 ipsissima verba of a writer might, in skilful hands, be so 

 applied as to warrant the impression that the best hypothesis 

 that ever was constructed was not worth the ink it was 

 written with. In the present case, so finely had Mr. Sollas 

 drawn the line as to deprive the sentence he quotes of a 

 definitely expressed limitation, by omitting the word " But," 

 with which it commences. 



The following is the paragraph from which the extract is 

 taken: — "That the predisposition of silica, itself in reality 

 a colloid, to form colloidal combinations with albuminous and 

 other materials was known long before deep-sea exploration 



