162 REPOK'T— 1870. 



These data, and a consideration of the various species of marine animals which 

 •were found, are supposed to have had such material bearings on geological science, 

 that it would be a dereliction of my duty as an old geologist if I were not to 

 endeavour to disentangle the vmquestionably true, novel, and even startling facts 

 which these researches have made known, from one of those speculations which 

 the eminent leader of this expedition has connected with them, and which, if acqui- 

 esced in, might seriously affect the inductions and belief of practical geologists. 



Dr. W. Carpenter, in a lecture given in the Eoyal Institution, in summing up 

 his views as to the effects of the discoveries then made, thiis spoke: — "The facts 

 which I have brought before you, yet stiU more the speculations which I have 

 ventured to connect with them, may seem to unsettle much that has been generally 

 accredited to geological science, and thiis to diminish rather than to augment our 

 stock of positive knowledge ; but this is the necessary result of the introduction of 

 a neio idea into any department of scientific inquiry " *. 



To this statement I beg to demur. Sound practical geologists, whether they be 

 Uniformitarians, Catastrophists, or Evolutionists, like the great Naturalist who 

 now worthily presides over the British Association, are all agreed in the funda- 

 mental truths of this science as established by positive readings in the stone-books 

 of Nature. They are confident that undemable proofs exist of an enonnous 

 succession of deposits, which have been accumulated under the seas of former 

 periods, in each of which tlie physical geogi-aphy of our planet, and with it the 

 orders of animals and plants, were very dissimilar fi-om each other, and also differ 

 still more, as we examine backwards to the earlier deposits, fi-om those of the 

 present day. We believe, upon the evidences presented to us, and, irrespective of 

 all theory, that the vast accumulations under the seas of those periods have had 

 their relations to each other thoroughly and conclusively established by a clear 

 order of supei-position. We further believe that the deposits so relatively placed 

 contain, each of them, organic remains, which are, in great measiire, peculiar to 

 the one gi-eat group of sti'ata which they occupy. 



With these indisputable proofs of geological succession as established by clear 

 superposition of the formntions, and the distinctive fossil characters of each, I 

 necessarily dissent from the suggestions of Dr. Cai-penter and other naturalists, 

 that, inasmuch as the present deep-sea bottoms contain abimdance of Glohigerina;, 

 with such animals as Terehratulida, both of which differ little from the forma 

 found fossil in the chalk formation, it may be infeiTed in a broad sense that we are 

 still in the Cretaceous period. 



May we not, indeed, by a similar bold hypothesis, affirm that we still live in the 

 older Silm'ian period ? for, albeit no bony fishes then existed, many Glohigmnce 

 and creatures of the lowest organization have been found in these old rocks and 

 associated with TerehratnlidcB and Lhujxdcp, the generic forms of which still live. 



Revering, as I do, those great naturalists who have shown abmidant proofs of 

 the progress of creation, or, as others term it, of evolution, I hold to my opinion, 

 matured by a long experience, whilst I dissent from the inferences of my friends 

 Dr. W. Carpenter and Professor Wyville Thomson, that the recent discoveries may, 

 or can, unsettle much which has been accredited to what I call sound geological 

 history, as established on absolute observations and separated from all theory. 



The new ideas which have been introduced by the meritorious labours of 

 Carpenter and his associates do not, as he has suggested, diminish the amount of 

 positive knowledge ; on the contrary, they aug-ment it, though they do not 

 shake, in any way, the foimdations of geological science. I willingly grant, how- 

 ever, that these new discoveries overthrow the theoiy that defines the depths in 

 the sea at which certain groups of fossil animals must have lived. 



Whilst on this topic, I rejoice that, at this Meeting, we are to be furnished with 

 an excellent paper by my distinguished friend Captain Sherard Osborn, on the 

 whole subject of Ocean Deep-sea Sounding as earned out by the Admiralty, and in 

 which he will illustrate, by maps and sections, much of his own most energetic 

 operations in reference to submarine telegraphy. 



In connexion with the interesting subject of the geography of the ocean, I may 

 call your attention to a little work of great merit which has lately appeared, under 

 * Lecture delivered at the Weekly Meeting of the Royal Institution, April 9, 1869. 



