2G8 
uniformitarianism has been on the decline, and was indeed declining, 
before the death of Sir Charles Lyell. This theory is not held now 
even by Professor Prestwich, or any one else, without great modifications, 
so far as I am aware ; and most of the books on geology published nowadays, 
which have to deal with the present condition of the crust of the earth, 
speak of things which must have occurred under very different conditions 
to what the doctrines of uniformitarianism require. I tried to bring this 
before the society in two lectures, which I have already delivered here, 
and, therefore, I will not now enter into the matter any further. With 
regard to biology, I do not refer in my paper to the microscopic bactaria, 
&c., but to the testimony afforded by Barrande respecting the Silurian 
cephalopoda, which absolutely disproves the doctrine of evolution. In 
like manner Mr. Davidson, one of the most competent observers in Europe, 
in regard to the terebratulce ,* shows that they disprove evolution. He has 
given all the matured experience of an accomplished man for a whole life- 
time, to this very work, and, therefore, he is a competent authority. Then 
Dr. Carruthers, of the British Museum, our best palaeontological botanist, 
comes to the same conclusion, and so does Mr. Gwyn Jeffreys, the ac- 
knowledged chief of conchologists, who was the president of the Biological 
Section of the British Association at the Plymouth meeting. He shows that 
the contrary of evolution is taught by the forms of ancient and modern 
molluscous animals. I need not give any other authorities on this question. 
The meeting was then adjourned. 
* See vol. i. pp. 130 and 139. 
