IN EVOLUTION FROM A GEOLOGICAL POINT OF VIEW. 189 
long pistils with shorter stamens. Now, if natural selection be a 
true doctrine, we should expect to change the plants of the forest 
by taking the pollen from a long stamen and putting it into a long 
pistil; whereas you do not produce a change by taking the pollen 
from a long stamen and putting it into a short pistil or, again, 
from a short pistil and putting it into a long stamen. 
Rev. Joun Tuckwetu.—lI should like to know if there is any 
well authenticated case of the appearance of new forms of life 
within the human period, and also whether there is anything 
like evolution that may be going on at the present time ? 
If there is no satisfactory evidence of evolution taking place 
at the present time, such as we are asked to believe took place in 
past ages, then it seems to me to lead to this thought that if there 
has been a force at work in the production of new forms of life: 
in the pre-human period, which is not in operation now, we are 
not in a position to judge, and that any argument based on what 
is going on now is only misleading and fallacious. 
The AvtHor.—I am afraid I am not in a position to say what 
is going on at the present time. I have been dealing with the 
Devonian period all my life; but as faras we know from natural 
history I do not think there is any such case. 
Professor Hutu.—-There is no such case known. 
The AvurHor.—My simple point is that we need stronger 
evidence to prove evolution. There are so many difficulties 
against it, that I cannot see how it is possible unless it was by 
God’s creating and God’s guiding all through. Iam looking at 
it now not from a Christian, but a scientific point of view; there- 
fore I cannot point you to a satisfactory scientific solution of the 
question until we take into account not only the works, but the 
plan and purpose of the Worker. 
[The vote of thanks having been duly put and carried the 
proceedings terminated. | 
COMMUNICATION RECEIVED. 
The Institute is to be congratulated on a paper dealing with 
evolution conceived in a thoroughly scientific and open-minded 
spirit. 
The difficulties presented by what the author terms “ extreme 
