S8 5 .] 
Analyses of Books. 
361 
The Neanderthal Skull on Evolution. In an Address supposed 
to be delivered A.D, 2085. By the Rev. Bourchier Wrey 
Saville, M.A. London : Longmans and Co. 
This is, in very truth, a singular production. The common 
arguments against Evolution, as they are accepted and retailed 
by men who are not naturalists, are here reproduced in the form 
ot an address supposed to be delivered in St. James’s Hall, 
Piccadilly, two centuries hence. What opinions may be held in 
the year A.D. 2085 and what may be uttered in St. James’s Hall, 
it that noted locality has not in the meantime been improved 
oft the face of the earth by the dynamitards, we cannot venture 
to predict. But in view of the faCt that the evidence in favour 
of Evolution is becoming stronger from year to year, it is not 
rash to assume that before two more centuries have passed, the 
doCtrine of mechanical creation will be, as it is fast becoming, 
a mere matter of history. We shall return to it when we return 
to pre-Daltonian chemistry and pre-Copernican astronomy. 
Mr. Saville speaks of Charles Darwin with great courtesy, 
though decidedly underrating his intellectual powers and the 
value and significance of his results. But whilst repeatedly 
vindicating our great naturalist from the charge of Atheism, 
he does not hesitate to quote from a Mr. Noel the following 
passage : — “ The positive evidence of Scripture is against 
Evolution, whilst on the other side we have purely and simply a 
theory, whose whole strength depends on the foregone con- 
clusion, that miracles must, if possible, be exterminated.” This 
Mr. Noel must have his interesting side ! 
In the very preface we find (xx.) a glaring mis-statement. 
The author states that there are upwards of 20,000 species of 
animals in creation (had he said 200,000 he would have been 
still below the truth), and all experience shows that in every in- 
stance when crossing species has been attempted, in place of 
there being any improvement, or the transmutation of one 
species into another, sterility has been the invariable result.” 
This is simply not the faCt. We know that the domestic cattle 
and the bison of North America (familiarly called buffaloes) 
belong, not merely to distind species, but to distind genera. 
Yet they are capable of fruitful intercourse and the progeny is 
not sterile, as it has been conclusively proved on the large scale. 
Were it not that the hybrids, like the bison, yield less milk than 
the common cow and are more given to stray, they would have 
become common farm-animals. (See Mr. J. A. Allen’s “ History 
of the American Bison.”) 
Among birds cases of fruitful hybrids, if not more common, 
have been more frequently observed. If Mr. Saville had taken 
the trouble to refer to Mr. Seebohm’s interesting work, “ Siberia 
in Asia,” he would have learned that inter-breeding between the 
VOL. VII. (THIRD SERIES). 2 C 
