504 Embedded Reptiles. By the President. 



In conclusion, with direct reference to the incident which gave 

 rise to the observations for which I am asking your kind attention 

 this afternoon — are we, then, reduced to the exclamation— " Par- 

 turiunt montes, nascetur ridicula Eana?" 



By no means ; for although we cannot admit the claims of our 

 frog to antiquity ; although, under as much common sense 

 criticism as we have oeen able to command, much of the imagi- 

 native, the improbable, the superstitious has been dissipated, 

 there still remains much that is curious, and not fully explained. 



If the men were right in the declaration that no channel of 

 communication existed when the frog was disclosed, then the 

 channel which certainly did exist at one time since the cavity 

 was formed, must have become stopped up since his entry, 

 perhaps by stalactitic incrustation, or by the accumulation of dsiris. 



In that case, although we may not with the discoverer at Bath- 

 gate fancifully "feel inspired with a kind of awe at being 

 brought into contact with a living being that has, in all proba- 

 bility breathed the same air as Noah, or disported in the same 

 limpid stream in which Adam bathed his sturdy limbs," still, we 

 may allow the possibility of the animal's having been there in a 

 torpid state for many years ; and that, connected with, other 

 ** secrets of his prison house " how he grew up, how he got food ; 

 the connection of the case with so many others of a similar nature, 

 but far more diflB.cult to explain ; the incidental scientific topics 

 which open out as we think over the affair, all that supplies 

 pregnant matter. 



But the occurrence will not be thrown away, if it does no more 

 than incite any of us to a more attentive observation of the mar- 

 vellous structure and curious habits of the AmpMhia, fish at one 

 period of their lives, and land animals at another, in which 

 family, in all their intricate organization, the evidence of Design 

 in Creation as an Expression of Mind, as opposed to Darwinian 

 substitutions, much the fashion of late, seems to stand so strongly 

 out in relief. 



I trust, therefore, that though our members may think that I 

 have dwelt upon my subject at inconvenient length, they will not 

 be of opinion that I have invested it with undue importance ; for, 

 as I have more than once remarked, it is one of much interest, 

 and calls for more complete and educated, and therefore, more 

 conclusive evidence before it can be entirely extricated from the 

 regions of the Mysterious. 



