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certainly existed among the unknown extinct human apes of the miocene 
period.” Now, how could these “ unknown ” apes be the direct ancestors of 
man if they became extinct in the miocene period ? All attempts to prove 
that man lived in the miocene period have completely broken down, and 
the w'ork supposed to have been done by man — those chipped flints that 
were alluded to some time ago as presumed evidence of human handiwork 
— is now, by almost common consent, attributed either to dryopithicus 
—an anthropoid ape — or to natural causes. There is no proof of man having 
lived in the miocene period. Then, if these apes became extinct in the 
miocene, how, I ask, could they have been the direct human ancestors of man, 
who did not appear until the pleistocene period ? Mr. Hassell has very 
forcibly shown the unphilosophical position of supposing spontaneous 
generation to be the beginning of life, when experiments have now proved 
that spontaneous generation does not take place. Every hermetically- 
sealed tin of meat that is brought into this country from Australia is a 
protest against the doctrine of spontaneous generation, and the followers 
of Hutton, Playfair, and Lyell should be the last to believe in a physical 
law operating in the far past, which has no existence in the present. It is 
most unphilosophical, and altogether contrary to uniformitarian views 
which, at other times, they put forth. Again, it is strange that Dr. 
Haeckel should hold on to “bathybius,” after Professor Huxley, who 
invented him, has had to give him up. On page 276 there are one 
or two points I wish to notice. Mr. Hassell has supported the position 
I took in my last paper, namely, that there was a break in the continuity of 
life during the cretaceous period which is fatal to Dr. Darwin’s theory of 
evolution. Mr. Hassell quotes Professor Williamson, who says : — “ I may 
observe here, that in all probability, if we except some foraminiferous 
creatures of low organiza,tion, no one species of animal that lived previous to 
the close of the chalk age survived that period. Except one doubtful shell 
all these species, found in the mezozoic strata, became extinct. None of 
them are to be found in the tertiary strata.” If Professor Williamson is right 
the hypotheses of Darwin and Haeckel are wrong, for, according to both 
hypotheses, there must be no break, in the one till we reach the ascidian 
mollusc, nor in the other until we come to bathybius, who Professor Huxley 
had to renounce at Sheffield, as a naughty boy who could not be found when 
he was wanted. The author says, in the sixth paragraph : many pliocene 
mammals are found on the earth at the present time. He has kindly given 
me privately his authority for saying so. It is that of Sir Charles Lyell in 
his Antiquity of Man, and the evidence rests on certain forms of life found 
in the Cromer Forest beds ; it is important to call attention to this, as it 
has a bearing on the last paper read here; but Sir Charles Lyell, after 
stating this, found certain modern shells without any admixture of extinct 
species, which led him to say “I am in doubt, therefore, whether to class 
the forest beds and overlying strata as pliocene or to consider them as 
passage beds between the newer pliocene and past pliocene periods.” That, 
