278 



REPEOPLING OF STREAMS WITH FISHES. 



[1858 



minutely nnalyzod, be found to resolve itself into more or less 

 clearly iiialerftuod olijectionsagainsl the two articles just tnention- 

 cd. Of course, truth must conquer, and before twenty years are 

 over, the woild's antiquity and the [larti ihty of the deluge will 

 be taught to children in schools with no more hesitation than is 

 now entertained about teaching tiie motion of the earth round 

 the s in. Strange to say, the tirst of these obno.xious doctrines 

 was treated as an open question by many divines hefore geologi- 

 cal disco\eiy brought facts to bear upon it. Almost exactly two 

 hundred yeai-s ago, one of the brightest and purest spirits among 

 the clergy of the Church of England, Dr. Henry More, published 

 his " Conjectural Essay of Interpreting the Mind of Moses."* 

 In this singular treatise he boldly maintained that the narrative 

 of the Creation contained in the commencing chapters of G-enesis, 

 professes on principle to describe the appearance ('as distinguish- 

 ed fiom the reality) of things to sense and obvious fancies, " ac- 

 commodating the outward cortex of Scripture to the most narrow 

 and slow apprehension of the vulgar," and offering " reasons of 

 sundry notable phenomena oF nature, bearing altogether a most 

 palable compliance with the most rude and ignorant conceits of 

 the vulgar."' Jn accordance with his somewhat eccentric ]ilan, 

 he makes Moses interpret his history, veree by vei'se, for the bene- 

 fit of the more enlin-htened. His " philosophic" interpretation of 

 the fourth vei'se of the second chapter of Genesis is very remark- 

 able : — " I (i. e., Moses) do not take upon me to define the time 

 wherem God made the heavens and the earth ; for he might do it 

 at once by his absolute oranipotenc}-, or he might, when he had 

 created all substance, as well material or immaterial, let them act 

 one upon the other, and in such periods of time, as the nature of 

 the production of the things themselves required." This curious 

 passage (and the volume containing it) seems to have escaped the 

 researches of Pye Smith and others who battled in contiovereies 

 about scriptural geology ; discussions, the only value of which is 

 their tendency to remove the prejudices or scruples of honest but 

 timid men who fear to confront their faith with scientific truth. 

 Such interpretation as this may prove to them how dangerous it 

 is to laj- an oveisti-ess on the apparent meaning of passages sus- 

 ceptible of various readings. On the view taken by More of the 

 meaning of the scriptural text cited, the most heretical of cosmog- 

 onists, Lamarckian transmutationists, spontaneous generationists, 

 and behevers in the doctrines the "Vestiges of Creation," might all 

 stoutly,and with equal reason, maintain that their peculiar tenets are 

 scriptural and orthodox. Let this be a warning to those who would 

 dogmaticall)' put dov.'n scientific speculations on religious grounds 

 alone. Let it also be a warning to geologists who are over-anx- 

 ious to reconcile the literal reading of the Sacied Writings with 

 the logical interjiretation of the facts revealed to them in the 

 course of scientific reseai'ch. We might extend the caution to 

 the best informed of writers upon scriptural geology, ami in that 

 categoiy we would place among the foremost Professor Hitchcock, 

 whose recent work, entitled " The Religion of Geology," is the 

 safest and best of an unsafe class. Far superior to Pye Smith in 

 practical acquaintance with his subject, he treats it in a more 

 masterly and convincing style, but the resulting conviction is more 

 in favour of the earnestness of the author than of the soundness of 

 his arguments. 



Some of the older and steadier sciences, who having long ago 

 come to yeai-s of discretion, ought to have known and behaved 

 better, have been inclined now and then to disparage and trip up 

 their younger and more imjietuous sister, whose enthusiasm, haste, 

 and occasional levity, excited their ill-will. The enemies of 

 geology delighted in seeing' the slight put upon her by these 

 grave and ancient raaiilens, who used her very much as the 



proud sisters treated Cinderella. One cause of dishke arose from 

 the circumstance that the active advocates of geology were not 

 always trained workmen, but volunteers, who had assumed the 

 hammar without previous pj-eparation, or very much considera- 

 tion respecting its purpose or their own. To see good work done 

 by such undisciplined troops troubled the disciplinarians n:tich in 

 the manner that old soldiers become troubled when they find 

 militia-men fighting a good battle, or amateur tacticians develop- 

 ing excellent plans of wai-ftire. In truth, however, if a man had 

 wished to educate himself regularly into a geologist during the 

 earlier days of the science, there was no school — certainly none 

 in England — ^^■here he could be instructed in even the elements 

 of the subject. Things have been altered for the better since, 

 and there are now many opportunities of acquiring the funda- 

 mental knowledge desirable for those who would enter upon 

 geological research. In a few years a number of young men will 

 be engaged in occupations of which geology forms, or should 

 fonn, an element, better trained for their work than any of the 

 buildersup of the science were. The examination papers sub- 

 mitted during this spring to the students of the newly established 

 Government School of Mines would demand for answering a 

 long sitting of even the leading members of the geological Society, 

 and, (just possible, of course,) might not be answered after all. 



It was the tremendous pace at whicli some of the earl_Y geolo- 

 gists went, that threatened to kill their own, and called forth the 

 censures of the slower sciences. They thought nothing of sub- 

 mitting our planet to sudden extremes of heat and cold; shivering 

 it into small fragments as suddenly as a Prince Rupert's drop ; 

 doubling it into intricate contortions with the facility (a not un- 

 usual illustration) that a pocket-handkerchief or a sheet of paper 

 may be crum[)led ; melting it down, stirring it up, and kcejiing 

 a suflicient supply of internal heat to produce a hypertrojiical 

 climate during immeasuiable ages; killing oft' whole floras and 

 faunas at a moment's notice, and creating a new batch of beasts 

 and vegetables with equal ease and rapidity ; swamping the earth 

 with no end of univereal deluges ; investing it in all but unbound- 

 ed fluviatile formations ; or, wi'apping it in a chilling chr^'stalline 

 coat of solid ice. With them our unlucky planet was fast be- 

 coming — 



" A world of wonders, where rTealion seems 

 Nu more ihe work ot Nalure, but lier drejims;" 



and there is no surer proof of the good stuff of which geology is 

 made, than the awful trials to which she was submitted by her 

 over-zealous disciples. 



• •'ConJTiiir.i Ciilmlisljca; 

 minH ol Mo?i-<. n<i-iirrliiii in 

 Myilical, or Divinely Moral. 



or, R Conji'diirnl E-s.iy of inler|)relin(! Ihe 

 a ihree-lod Cabula— Lileral, Philosophical, 

 liundon: 1653. 



Repcopliiig of Streams with Fish s, or Piscicultuc. 



Commtmicat^d hy M. J. Klcktes to SiUiman^s Journal for tTtdt/, 



In my last communication I mentioned briefly the experiments 

 of M. Millet on the reproduction of fishes. I ha\ e said that, 

 thanks to the modest fisherman of the Yosges, Remy, fish is now 

 in fact a manufacture in France, — a fact most valualsle to our old 

 Europe, which has hardly the means of sustaining its inhabitants, 

 and whose streams have been depopulated of ihe good kinds of 

 fish, the spawn having been destroyed by manufactories along 

 the water-courecs, by steamboats, drainage works and inundations. 



A paper by M. Haxo, Secretary to the Societe d'Emulation 

 des Vosges, gives the history of this important invention, and re- 

 views the moans employed by Remy for populating with trout 

 the streams of his neighborhood. The fisherman observed the 

 time when the female deposited its eggs; he remarked that the 

 male then comes and spreads over it the fecundaling liquid ; and 

 as our observer could but imperfectly protect these eggs from the 

 various chances of destruction, he learned how to imitate nature, 



