CORRESPONDENCE. 



525 



Occasionally, I believe, there is an appearance of stratification in 

 these deposits. But this by no means contradicts the hypothesis 

 here offered. It might very well happen that a cave of this sort 

 ■would be frequented by different genera of beasts of prey in succes- 

 sion — the cave-bear, hyaena, and tiger — each of which might occupy 

 it exclusively for a lengthened period, and bring in different kinds of 

 soil, as it sought its prey in the marshes, the meadows, the woods, 

 or on the mountain-side. And, in M. Fontan's account, there seems 

 to be proof that something of this kind had happened, for he found 

 luamy sand in the upper cave, and a blackish earth in the lower, — a 

 distribution of material very well agreeing with the view here taken, 

 but not quite consisting with the notion of deposit by water ; as sand 

 and loam are usually heavier substances than black earth, and would 

 rather than the latter have been left on the lower level. 



I think, then, that the deposits of the open caverns may be as- 

 cribed for the most part to the carnivora frequenting them, which 

 must have brought in, adhering to their own feet and fur, and to those 

 of their prey, a prodigious quantity of earth and stones, which we 

 must needs believe would remain where they left it, mixed with the 

 fragments of the bones they gnawed, unless we are prepared to say 

 that the floods washed all that out first to make way for a similar 

 deposit brought from somewhere else. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 

 CREATION BY LAW. 



Sir, — I make no excuse for offering to the intelligent readers of the " Geolo- 

 gist" — a periodical in which the freest discussion has been invited and carried, 

 on respecting the " Origin of Species" — the remarks which a careful perusal 

 of the latest published works on the subject have led me to express. I allude 

 chiefly to Professor Owen's " Palaeontology," a second edition of which has 

 recently been given to an admiring world, and to the excellent little work by Mr. 

 David Page, which you noticed in the " Geologist" for September. 



In both these works there is a strong appeal made in favour of a " constantly 

 operating secondary law," by which the several species of animals have been 

 called into being. Prof. Owen's generalizations are as follows : — 



" Palaeontology has yielded most important facts to the highest range of 

 knowledge to which the human intellect aspires. It teaches that the globe 



