INAUGURAL ADDRKSS. 
9 
The wider the climatic range, the greater the variability, so 
that for studying specific limitations of organic beings we here are 
placed in a more advantageous position, than those on whom the 
first elaboi-ation of Faunas and Floras devolved in the home- 
countries. AVhen a phyto-pala;ontologist of first rank and life-long 
experience, such as Goeppert, doubted whether fi-om that bi-anch 
of knowledge much support could as yet be obtained for the 
ascendance-doctrine, w-e are cautioned also so far, not to be over- 
hasty in construing ideas and evolving theories with a view of 
universal applications. The opposite views on organic develop- 
ment, defended respectively by two such eminent among earliei" 
naturalists, as Cuvier and St. Hilaire, deserve profound considera- 
tion even now-a-days. AVe are anywhere and anyhow only at the 
threshold of the temple of truth, and might thus remain conscious 
of some of the last humble wctrds of even a Kewton ! 
The dictum, supposed to be reliable, “ natura non facit saltiisP 
is not universally applicable, not even in paheontology, as demon- 
strated by the thi’ee well-marked stages of the American horse. 
()ne of the sublimest of poets, not foreign to natm-al science, must 
have been persuaded of a Godly operation in nature, when he 
wrote — 
“ AVoM erkundbar is das Wirken, 
Unerforsohlich bleibt die Kraft I” 
The w'orld would lose many of its charms to intellectual beholders, 
if observers sink too much into materialistic explanations and 
•speculative reasonings. AVe all admire the .sagacity, displayed by 
great leaders in biology, to trace the building rap of organic frames, 
ami to follow uj) observingly what is manifest in respective cycles 
of vitality ; but can w'e adopt with the evidence attained all the 
conclusions drawn therefrom ? Let us deprecate extending theories 
beyond w^hat is w’arranted by trustworthy observations ; let us 
avoid hazarding opinions unsupported by facts ; and above all let 
us distinguish between what is within human grasj) and what 
must ever be concealed to the eyes of mortal beings ! 
The question has sometimes been raised, what is a billion ? but 
an answer of calculative correctness has Imt seldom been given, 
though in some thoughtlessness that enormity of numeric value 
may be often enough rashly applied. Thus w'e hear spoken of 
more than a billion tons of coal deposits in the Chinese province 
of Shansi ; and as the search through carboniferous ai’eas has in 
this colony also just passed into a momentous stage, it wmuld be 
w^ell to remember, that in 1884 the actual output of coal came to a 
total of 409 million tons, two-hfths of this from Britain. From a 
naturalist’s point of view, some fractional approach to the solution of 
such questions might be andved at perhaps, when the prodigiosity 
of nature’s displays is considered in estimating, on the basis of some 
calculation, the total number of spore-caselets on the fronds of 
our hill-ferntree {Alsophila australis) at 400 millions and that of 
