ItEA^IEAV. 



435 



'many thousand centuries,' wliicli 1)rinf^s us almost to the yorjues of the 

 Hindoos. Now, alihoiioh I have no quarrel with any 0])inion3 relating to 

 the antiquity of the <^1()1)(\ yet there are a descri])tion of persons very nu- 

 merous and very rcsiicclahic in ('\ ('i'y point hut their [)ardonahlc supersti- 

 tions, who \^ ill dislil<e any nit'iilion <j1' a sp(icific period that ascends b(!yond 

 6000 years : I would, therefore, w ith submission, qualify the expression by 

 many thousand years, instead of centuries' Hunter would not modify 

 his statements, and he \^ithdrew the paper." 



An edition of this paper "\^■^s Inni'iedly ])rint(>d l)y the Council of the 

 lioyal College of Surgeons in December, 1859: the more important pas- 

 sages are inserted in the work before us, in which Professor Owen says — 



"Some may wish that the \a orld had never known that Hunter thought so 

 ditlerently on some su])j(M'ls from w hat they believed, and would have de- 

 sircul, him to think, IjuL he has chosen to leave a record of his thoughts, 

 and, under the circumstances in which that record has conie into my hands, 

 1 have felt myself bound to add it to the common intellectual property of 

 mankind." 



The great geological ]U'inciple, the coevality of the fossils with the 

 mineral strata in which they are found, which some geologists have de- 

 nied, was formally asserted by Hunter. He said — 



"Finding upon land more parts of marine than terrestrial animals pre- 

 served, and at considerable depth, it naturally leads to the idea of sea- 

 animals at least having undergone this process at the bottom of the sea; 

 and if so, then as that [stratum] in w hich they are found is now land, and 

 as we find parts of land-animals and vegetables preserved nearly in the 

 same manner, it leads us into a more extensive investigation of the per- 

 manency of the situation of the waters ; and in this inquiry we shall find 

 that wherever an extraneous fossil is enclosed or imbedded, the surround- 

 ing native matrix was accumulated, disposed, or formed into that mass at 

 the same time." 



Professor Owen remarks on this — 



"I do not find this proposition so definitely laid down in geological 

 writers prior to Hunter; although it was evidently appreciated in a certain 

 degree, and with reference to particular strata, by some of Hunter's pre- 

 decessors. 



" The exceptions to the rule arise from the formation of one stratum out 

 of the ruins of a preceding fossiliferous stratum, when the fossils of that 

 olde r stratum bccunic, ((i^^cthcr with their matrix, a part of the newer one, 

 with which, however, those fossils are far from being coeval in respect of 

 the period when they actually became fossil. Petrified bones of Plesio- 

 saurus, e.g., have been transmitted to me, together with unpetrified bones 

 of the beaver, from the comparatively recent ' till ' of Cambridgeshire, the 

 ])!csiosaurian remains having been washed out of the subjacent gault, when 

 tlie sea finally retired from the uprising land. Such ' derivative ' fossils 

 were nevertheless actually enclosed or imbedded in the newer tertiary 

 matrix when it ' was disposed or formed into the mass,' now called ' till.' 

 Tiie exceptions of such derivative fossils are, however, comparatively rare, 

 and do not aflcct the conclusions, as to the relative age of a stratum, afforded 

 by its obviously and much n)ore abundant proper organic remains." 



" We find," Hunter procecjds to say, " the remains of sea-aninuils in 

 every kind of substance exce])ting granite. A\ e find wood, bones of sea- 

 animals, bones of land-animals, in I'reestone, gravel, clay, marl, loam, and 

 peat." 



Professor ()w(mi rcMiiarks — 



" With regard to the alterations of climate whirh Hunter ^ledm-ctl fnun 



