LyelVs Principles of Geology. 183 



formations surely presents no difficulty. Besides, as count- 

 less ages are required to the completion of development by 

 progression, it follows that no catastrophe can have been 

 universal. We can trace back more than one-third of the age 

 of our globe, and we know that plants and animals were as 

 perfect then as they are now. 



On all questions of this sort, which fundamentally depend 

 on an author's notions of the perfection of a Supreme Being, 

 or cause, the arguments of Mr. Babbage on the perfection 

 of a designer of a machine may be made to bear with advan- 

 tage. By an All-seeing, Omniscient, Omnipotent Being, 

 every contingency must have been seen and provided against 

 at the creation. 



3rd. — On Botanical Geography. 



Linnaeus' Cosmogony is chiefly noticed because alluded to 

 by Sir W. Hooker in Murray's Geography as ingenious, if 

 not correct. It is quite contrary to all analogy, for in no 

 given island of any given extent could there be found such a 

 discrepancy in forms as exists between the plants of old and 

 new Continents, for in no island could there be an equal amount 

 of effective barrier. The very largest islands known are in- 

 habited by a consonant vegetation. We find in Australia, 

 the fifth Continent, an Australian, not a mixed vegetation. 



DeCandolle's divisions of temperature may be omitted, 

 there is no proof of a powerful summer giving the capability 

 of supporting great winter cold, at least in the sense used by 

 D. C. None of his instances are deduced from indigenous 

 plants, and so far as Hooker's version goes, he appears to 

 lose sight of the fact that each plant is adapted to its parti- 

 cular climate. 



In Mirbel's remarks on the great power of accommodation 

 to different climates possessed by the vine, no specific data 

 are given ; the mean summer heats of the very distant places 

 of culture he adduces, may present similarities to a consi- 



