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sustain the conclusion, viz., that it is fatal to evolution as interpreted by 
Mr. Darwin. The supposed progenitors of the horse were clearly separate 
and distinct beings, not lineally connected with predecessors or successors of 
any other form. We have no instance whatever of descent from species to 
species by “ insensibly fine gradations ” ; but we have everywhere proof of 
creation by plan and method, dimly shadowed forth in nature’s mirror — a 
divine evolution, hitherto, as to its modus operandif entirely beyond our 
present ken . 
Also the following communication from the Eev. J. Magnus Mello, M.A., 
F.G.S. 
The Bectory, Brampton St. Thomas, Chesterfield, Feh. 4th. 
I have read Mr. Callard’s paper, which you were good enough to SPud 
me, with considerable interest, and I venture to make a few remarks upon it. 
Everything turns upon one point, that is, the simultaneous and universal 
prevalence of the Glacial period over the entire globe. Could that be once 
firmly established, then it would indeed be fatal to the doctrine of evolution, 
at any rate, as regards the higher forms of animal and vegetable life. This 
is the great question which we are all anxious to have answered, not that I 
dread the consequences which some suppose are [involved in accepting 
evolution, if the doctrine is true. I have faith to believe that natural and 
revealed truth will ever prove to be one ; but before accepting evolution as 
absolutely proven, however fascinating the theory may be, and however good 
a working hypothesis it is, we are right in requiring, not guesses nor 
plausibilities, but absolute demonstration, as far as it is possible to have it. 
That there are almost innumerable facts in the natural world, which, if 
they do not actually prove, yet very strongly support many of the statements 
of the evolutionists, is undoubtedly the opinion of a very large number cf 
the ablest naturalists, and such evidence as that brought forward in Gaudry’s 
Enchainements da Monde Animal and the strange “convergence of all 
sciences, from physics to chemistry and physiology, towards some doctrine 
of evolution and development,” are facts too striking to be passed over 
without the most serious consideration. But the theory is as yet far from 
being so proven as some would make out. Before it can be pronounced 
true there are man}'- difficulties to be got rid of, apart from such supposed 
ones now discussed, which as yet seem almost insuperable. The true 
attitude of science is to accumulate her facts and wait patiently for the clue 
which will unravel the web of mystery by which we are surrounded. 
Was the Glacial period simultaneous and universal ? The answer to this 
question will not be found, as far as I can see, in the facts to which Mr. 
Callard calls attention, viz., that traces of former glaciation may now be 
discovered over enormous tracts in both hemispheres, and in both the old 
and new worlds. That such traces exist no geologist will deny ; but were 
all these areas under ice or sea at the same time, and did the intense cold 
universally prevail over every continent at one period ? The question must 
be answered rather by the astronomer or the physicist, I think, than the 
geologist ; the mere fact that once the greater part, or even the whole of 
Northern Europe, was clothed in an icy mantle, which would utterly destroy 
all terrestrial life, will not serve to discredit the evolutionist, unless it can 
be absolutely proved that the other parts of the continent were either 
themselves equally glaciated at the same time, or else so cut off from the 
ice- covered regions that migration would be an impossibility. If the 
physicist can tell us that we must certainly believe that the entire globe was 
involved at one and the same time in glacial conditions, then nothing more 
