COEEESPO^'DE^'CE. 



305 



negro unmistakably show the most decided approach to the monkey 

 genus." The same author goes on to say, " "Without doubt, man in his 

 earlier periods approached in his whole character nearer to animals than 

 he does in his present condition ; and the oldest excavated human skulls 

 indicate rough, undeveloped, and animal-like forms." 



Such conditions as these, agitating and seething in the minds of patient 

 observers and reflective thinkers in France and Germany, are being forced 

 upon the minds of Englishmen. Our best thinkers now refrain from 

 offering any theological or metaphysical explanation of geological facts. 



I trust that Professor King, whose valuable tables of strata as recently 

 published in the ' Geologist ' have had so beneficial an effect on science, 

 may be ultimately led to reject the unphilosophical theory of " autotheo- 

 geny." 



The doctrine of " Geneotheonom}^," or the " Derivative " hypothesis of 

 animal causation, is now fast converting the minds of all palaeontologists. 

 Amongst its supporters can be numbered* Lamarck, Geoffroy St. Hilaire, 

 Grant, Matthew, Rafinesque, Haldeman, the author of the ' Vestiges of 

 Creation,' D'Oraalius d'Halloy, Owen, Isidore Geoffroy St. Hilaii-e, Dr. 

 Freke, Herbert Spencer, ]N"audin, Keyserliiig, Schauffhausen, Baden 

 Powell, Wallace, Huxley, and Hooker. To these may be now possibly 

 added those of Lyell, Fawcett, Lubbock, Mackie, Salter, Rupert 

 Jones, Blake, Biichner, Schvarcz, Knox, Burke, Hutton, King, and many 

 others. 



To accept, in 1862, the doctrine of the origin of species by creative fiat 

 out of inorganic matter, is as unphilosophical as to believe in the theory 

 of earthquakes given out by the Muyscas of Xew Granada, that the earth 

 is supported by pillars of guaiacum, on the shoulders of the deity Chibcha- 

 cum, wiio, being tired, shifts the weight from one shoulder to another ;t or 

 to the Egyptian theory, that the earth, during earthquakes, is tossed from 

 one horn to another of a gigantic cow.l Such theories are fast dis- 

 appearing in the minds of those who, with Comte, " substitute the study of 

 laws for that of causes, the Jioio for the tohy.'' 



I am, Sir, your obedient servant, 



MiCSOLESTES. 



HlonograpJiy of the Geological Survey. 



Dear Sir,— W'ill you be kind enough to inform me, through your Maga- 

 zine, if the plates to Monograph I. of the Memoirs of the Geological Sur- 

 vey are issued or likely to be issued soon? The Monograph itself (on 

 Pcerygotus) is published without a word of notice as to when the plates 

 are to be published, although they are referred to in the body of the paper. 



It seems to me there is a great want of energy aboat the Government 

 Geological Survey in the matter of the publication of their Decades and 

 Monographs. On the covers of the work alluded to it is constantly an- 

 nounced that Other Decades are in the press ;" whilst years elapse be- 

 tween the publication of two small Decades. Were the undertaking car- 



* List from Darwin, ' Origin of Species/ 3rd edition, 1861, p. siii. : " Historical 

 Sketcli of the recent Progress of Opiaion on the Origin of Species." 

 t Bollaert, ' Antiquities and Ethnology of South America.' 

 X Pouchet, ' Pluralite des Kaces Humaiues.' 



TOL. Y. 2 E 



