288 
THE GEOLOGIST. 
" dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every 
living thing that moveth upon the earth." The only argument, as far as I know, 
against this view is that there are races of men, as the Zulu Cafires, who seem 
to have no more sense of right and wrong than the beasts, and no ielief in or 
knowledge of a God. 
As for Mr. Grindley's indignation at the " humility" of those " who would link 
themselves with brutes," I feel no more disgraced in supposing that our present 
bodies are the noblest result of creation's work, perfected through countless 
ages, and through countless forms, than in the fact that our actual bodies, in 
which we are now living, are formed of the food we eat, which, in its turn, must 
shortly before have existed only as inorganic elements^as, in fact, " the dust of 
the ground." 
With regard to the last paragraph, I stated in my paper that there is nothing 
like a total absence of intermediate forms in the geological record ; and if Mr. 
Grindley does not mean them by his " species in a transition state," I do not 
know what he does mean. I do not remember where Sir C. LyeU " proves the 
theory that all the great classes of organic life were created at once," and I do not 
think that he is likely ever to have attempted to do so ; but I have never seen 
the third edition of his " Principles." In the ninth chapter of the ninth edition, 
he shows that, owing to the great imperfection of the geological record, " we 
must not too hastily infer that the highest class of vertebrated animals did not 
exist in remoter ages," and also that we ought to be on our guard against " taking 
for granted that the date of creation of any family of animals or plants in past 
time coincides with the age of the oldest stratified rock in which the geologist 
has detected its remains," and I suppose it is to this that Mr. Grindley refers. In 
my paper I said that I thought the geological argument was in favour of Mr. 
Darwin's theory, because all known fossils are intermediate to Hving forms — that 
is to say, they faU naturally into the modem classification, and help to fill up the 
gaps in it, and beCause, as a general rule, the older a form is, the more it diSers 
from Hving ones. I cannot, therefore, imagine what made Mr. Grindley think 
that my conclusions were opposite to those of Sii' C. LyeU, or that they were 
drawn from the same facts ; but as he says that he only received his copy of the 
" Geologist" on the morning that he wrote his letter, I dare say he read it rather 
hastily. 
I do not wish to take up more of your space than I can help, or I would make 
some remarks on the numerous inconsistencies and absurdities in Mr. Grindley's 
letter ; such as " theories which now-a-days take the place of facts." Compare 
" to bring forward a number of isolated statements is simply absurd" with " this 
single statement is weighty enough to decide the whole question." ..." If it cannot 
trace the sequence of the development of the mammal into man." ..." But if they 
cannot point to the possession of a moral nature beyond the pale of humanity, 
then I contend that their whole theory fails," &c., &c. But as none of these bear 
directly on the question at issue, I leave them for the amusement of your 
readers. 
Yours truly, 
Staflf CoHege, June 7. F. W. Hutton. 
DEER'S HORNS IN BRIXHAIVI CAVERN. 
Dear Sir, — The important communication which appeared in the last (June) 
number of the " Geologist," from yom* correspondent Mr. Drake, contains the 
following passage, which seems to require a httle attention, namely : " The 
arrow-head found entangled in the horns of the stag by Mr. PengeUy, at Brixham, 
was vast in importance." I cannot understand how the idea of an " arrow-head" 
being found so "entangled" has got abroad. A similar passage occurs in Pro- 
fessor Ansted's " Geological Gossip," and is possibly the original of Mr. Drake's. 
