COEEESPOyDE^'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 
earher 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 " Geneotheonomy," 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'Omalius d'Halloy, Owen, Isidore Geoffroy St. Hilaire, Dr. 
Freke, Herbert Spencer, iSTaudin, Keyserling, 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 giiaiacum, on the shoulders of the deity Cliibclia- 
cum, who, 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.;|; Such theories are fast dis- 
appearing in the minds of those who, with Comte, " substitute the study of 
laws for that of causes, the ?ioto for the tvhy." 
I am, Sir, yoiir obedient servant, 
MiCBOLESTES. 
JMonogra'phy of the Geological Survey. 
Dear Sir, — "Will you be kind enough to inform me, through your Maga- 
zine, if the plate.=5 to Mofiograph I. of the Memoirs of the Geological Sur- 
vey are issued or likely to be issued soon ? The Monograph itself (on 
Pterygotus) is published without a word of notice as to ^\\Qn 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 about 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, ' Oiigin of Species,' 3rd edition, 1861, p. xiii. : " Historical 
Sketch of the receut Progress of Opinion on the Origin of Species." 
t BoUaert, ' Antiquities and Ethnology of South America.' 
X Pouchet, ' Pluralite des Races Humaiues.' 
YOL. Y. 2 E 
