30 ;) 
i lr AVolhuitoa— a most accurate observer— speaking of tlie land shells of 
• that nearly all the s])ecies (upwards of one hundred) are found 
m a ossil state, and tlicy liave not altered, apparently, so much as a 
imncture or a granule during the enormous period which has elapsed— 
!i period in whicli there is every reason to believe that the various physical 
conjitions ol the whole region have most materially changed. Similar 
0 scrvations have been made in England. The shells of Helix hortensis 
am nemorahs (by some regarded only as ‘races’), and the shells of the 
1 e Jlelix costata and //. pulchella, found in the newer Pleiocene 
tnow called Pleistocene) deposits, are just as distinct as those now living in 
^ ® ^'*"tiy. Another minute land-snail — Helix labyrinthica — now living 
m the United States, is undistinguishablo from fossil specimens found in 
the London clay at llonllo ' " • 
u cl loview ol Ljells ‘ Aiiti([uity ol Man’ ( 1 8G3), he observes, in 
rclorcnce to the subject treated by the “ Historian of Geology : ” 
‘‘ Upon any hypothesis it is tolerably certain that the ‘ cradle of our race 
n "o i‘° occasional 
' 1 ^’ 'll perfect paradise. But on the tropical se.a-coast man 
still inds .all the necessaries of life without Labour, and still e.vists in a 
condition winch it it is not that of ‘nature,’ approaches as nearly as possible 
to the state of the brute creation.” 
parents need not have been s.avages, .although unacqu.aintcd 
ti modern arts; for steam-engines and philosophical instruments are the 
pUHluce of a complex civilisation .and artificial wants in the world’s old age— 
hmgs not needed in the luime. They m.ark a particular ph.ase in the 
c cselopment of the human faculties, rather than an advatice on all that 
in* ® '^*■6. If the last century has witnessed great improvements 
nm. ■‘*»''gcry, .ami mechanical inventions-.almost always m.ade 
piiica 3 \\e must not forget that we owe to former times our best 
models in sculpture and poetry, our highest stylo of architecture, systems of 
logic and met.aphysics, .algebra, geometry, and the elements of our bo.asted 
jinisprudence. I\ill anyone dare to say that if the spirit of Pericles luad 
.wvivcd in Athens until now-if the Moors still flourished in Sp.ain, or the 
o St.an .age h.ad never known decline at Rome-that those people would 
ok^in'rrt ’’•-‘ve 
1 r? o 'T” 1 ndcroscopes, theodolites or rifled 
Lrnnw, f *>6 iwlitc, refined, religious, or whatever best 
becomes humanity, without thc.se things.” 
Speaking lurthcr on the .subject of man’.s origin, in criticizing^ 
lluxloy’s ‘Kvulonce ns to Jinn’s I'lnce in Xaturo,’ lie points out 
• Review of Reeve’s ‘Elements of Conchology’ (isfiO). 
