310 Reviews—Medlicott’s Southern Himalayan Ranges. 
~ and those which do so are by the theory supposed to possess some 
slight modification of structure or endowment giving them a supe- 
riority over their less favoured brethren who have failed in the 
struggle. The transmission, by the survivors, of the slight modifica- 
tion to which they owe their continued existence, ‘together with the 
other characters of the species, is all that is claimed by the Theory. 
The modification is ‘accidental,’ not by hazard, but as the result of 
some slight, unknown cause operating on the variability of the 
species. It is this unconsciousness of the change which distinguishes 
Darwin’s Theory from that of Lamarck, who ascribed to the animal 
an active share, through volition, in inducing the modification. 
In showing that Darwinism is not original, M. Fée has not clearly 
stated the difference between this and preceding theories; he has 
further adopted an unsound criticism against which we would pro- 
test as one frequently ungenerous in its results. He finds in Restif 
de la Bretonne, 1781, an anticipation of the doctrines of 1859. On 
his own showing, this anticipation amounts only to a belief in a single 
progenitor in the animal and vegetable kingdoms respectively, whose 
descendants have differed under the influences of soil and tempera- 
ture. But this belief was, by his own confession, ‘ hatched in a head 
purely literary,’ by one ‘who only wanted a little more reason to 
become a man of great eminence.’ ‘To dignify such random state- 
ments by the name of a system, and to regard them as anticipations 
of views which were only acquired by long careful and extended 
observation, and were beyond the reach of intuition (the very science, 
Geology, which alone gave them substance, being of subsequent 
birth), is an easy weapon of depreciation, but is alike unjust to the 
merits of the earlier and later thinker. 
Memorrs OF THE GEOLOGICAL SuRVEY OF INpIA, Vot. III. Part 2. 
‘On THE GEOLOGICAL STRUCTURE AND RELATIONS OF THE SOUTH- 
ERN PORTION OF THE HIMALAYAN RANGES, BETWEEN THE RIVERS 
GANGES AND Raver.’ By H. B. Meptiicort, B.A., F.G.S., of the 
Geological Survey of India. 8vo. 1864. 
HIS Memoir is of interest, not only to Indian geologists, from its 
adding to their knowledge of the geological structure of an import- 
ant part of their adopted country, but also to those who have no per- 
sonal knowledge of India, from the author’s remarks on the general 
structure of bills (not only in the chapter on that subject, but broadly 
scattered throughout), and his Appendix on the various theories of 
the formation of mountains. It treats of an area of about 7,000 square 
miles, containing some of the oldest of the ‘ hill-stations,’ and belong- 
ing to the ‘ Hastern Himalaya ;’ a tract which consists of ‘ three well- 
marked regions :—the range of peaks; then a broad band of hills, 
commonly spoken of as the Lower or Outer Himalaya; and outside 
(south) . . . a narrow fringing band of much lower hills (Sub- 
Himalaya), . . . of which the Sivalik hills are the type’ The second 
of these well shows the denudation-type of hill, having irregular 
ridges and river-courses ‘ transverse to the general direction of the 
— 
