August i, 1885.] The Australasian Scientific Magazine. 21 
theory of Evolution. For, if we admit, what has been conclusively estab- 
lished by direct experiment “ that plants would grow more luxuriantly in an 
atmosphere somewhat richer in carbonic acid than the existing one, we may 
see how upon this condition depends a principle of conservation, which 
must for ever retain the air at its present constitution, no matter how 
animal life may vary.” 
SCIENCE AND RELIGION. 
BY 
ROBERT THOMSON, F.I.A. 
In this short article I do not intend to dive into the arcana of scientific 
•discoveries of past ages, nor to penetrate the mysteries evolved in this 
latter part of the nineteenth century; whereby time is rendered nearly into 
an instant, space on our globe is nearly obliterated, the powers of the 
elements are made subservient to our daily ends. We convey in little more 
than the twinkling of an eye our thoughts from hemisphere to hemisphere. 
We put a girdle round the earth in forty minutes. We converse in well- 
recognised tones with friends miles and miles away. Mr. Porcus, of Chicago, 
chats with his agent, Mr. Nauticus, in New York, on the state of the markets in 
all the Continents. Presto ! Nauticus receives a cargo which speedily crosses 
the Atlantic, and is soon converted into the bone and muscle of the 
indomitable Briton. 
You want to light your chamber. Directly you control Jove’s 
thunder-bolts, and make him your humble menial. You use the 
sun and get a perfect picture unblurred by the prentice hand of 
man. You transform the water into gases, and make them your patient 
servitors. You transmute almost everything existing on the face of the 
earth for the exigencies of your daily life. But Vulcan is one of the gods we 
have not wholly subdued; although we may have been bringing even him to 
his bearings a little. Where no gold, no tin, no silver, no antimony, none 
other of the metals now essential to our daily life were supposed to lurk, they 
are now crushed out in volumes as fabulous as the “ One Thousand and 
•One Arabian Nights.” 
Yet still, I have no doubt that, many “ tailings ” now abandoned 
will tell a tale of wealth which would make the mouth of Croesus himself 
to water, in not very distant years to come. 
While fifty years ago Australasia was mainly dependent on the old country 
for supplies of the necessaries of life, its sheep were increasing from the few 
imported by the Macarthurs and one or two others at freight prices, which 
