334 MEMOIR OF DR. HARVEY. 



species" were created, and what they were like, I trow not. 

 That they were vastly fewer than the forms we now call species, 

 I think probable, but also that they were vastly more numerous 

 than Darwin would have us believe. 



The imperfection of geological record may be argued both 

 ways, either as Darwin does, or we may say — if all things that 

 ever lived had been all fossilized and could all be found, then 

 we should trace back existing species and genera through all 

 times to the beginning, and the supposed succession of new types 

 revealed by geology would disappear! Monstrously absurd, 

 perhaps, but not worse than Darwin's supposition ; for if we trace 

 Chiton, Lingula, Anodon, and many other existing genera down 

 to Silurian, and find the living species scarcely divaricated from 

 the oldest fossil, and if we consider that a very few years ago 

 scarcely a fossil Chiton was known, yet now there are forty — 

 going down to Silurian may we not argue that, if all Siluria 

 were laid bare, a vast number more of similarly undivaricated 

 genera and species would turn up ? To what " lower deep " 

 below the lowest deep must we dive to find the four or five 

 originals from which Darwin assumes that everything diva- 

 ricated, if natural selection from the Silurian period to the 

 present day has made nothing out of a Chiton but a Chiton? 

 And so of other genera ? The whole question is removed out of 

 court. Evidence ceases at Siluria, where Chiton, Lingula, and 

 Anodon differed as widely from each other as they do in the 

 year now shining. 



To Mrs. Alfred Gatty. 



Trinity College, Dublin, Thursday, May, 1860. 



As your last letter is dated only " Tuesday," and my present 

 one is Thursday, how can it be proved in after ages that I am 

 not answering you as soon as I got your letter ? In truth, I 

 know not whether it be a week or a fortnight that I am behind- 

 hand. We hope not the latter. I am busy as usual, and as 

 unusual, with a double set of daily lectures in hand, and a 

 triplet impending next week, besides writing up " Flora Capensis " 

 for a hungry printer. I want to get Cape Leguminosse off hand 

 before vacation, and to enable me to close I must work every 

 available hour. 



