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but individuals whicli have survived ; I would rather speak of the 
permanence of existing species under, to my mind, strangely diverse 
circumstances. It has been noticed by a well-known and most 
reliable entomologist, IMr. Barrett (whose researches have deeply 
interested many of us), that especially at Brandon, he found cer- 
tain plants, as also several Lejjidoptera, which have ever been 
considered as sea-side s])ecies. Have not both these survived since 
the time when the sea-beach was over Brandon ? 
How is it that Cochlnitria, which is e.ssentially a .salt-water jdant, 
.still lives on the top ol llclvellyn? I had this forced on my 
mind very strongly during the past summer, whilst walking through 
South lyrol ; and whether my surmise is correct or not, tlie 
idea is, at least, wortli a thought. I found at the foot of the 
Dolomite Alountains, which are, as you cxre probably aware, mostly 
foimed of magnesian limestone, and which is full of marine fossil 
shells, many of our well-known littoral species of plants, as for 
instance, IUppophac rhamnoUlcs (Sea-buckthorn), 'Tamarixl: 
ojjiciualis (Sea- tamarisk), Staficc unncrea (Sea-thrift), Stlone 
marithna (Sea-campion), Sea-sandwort, and others. Take the 
coast at Cromer ami you will fmd these now. I say then, is it not 
worth a thought, that amidst all the changes and upheavals of 
these 15,000 feet of limestone, that these plants may have escaped 
the tens of thousands of years of change ; and arc there in all 
theii brightness and beauty, as when they, perchance, enlivened the 
shores of that primeval sea, whose inhabitants are now fossilized 
in the structure of those mountains. AVe arc apt, far too apt, to 
form an opinion, and then force everything into that idea. T feel 
I am bound to accept one of two beliefs : either that all things were 
created as they now arc ; or else that matter, by its potentiality, 
formed a life which has progressed so that the highest forms liave 
been developed from the lower. I cannot throw aside the former, 
old fashioned though it may appear, but hold firmly to a belief in 
creation, rather than in development. But we pin our beliefs on 
\ ery small evidence. A fragment of bone, two and a half inches 
long, is exhumed, and forthwith a new species is pronounced ; and 
very speedily depicted with horns and hoofs complete. 
