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the peoples. There is one other point in the paper which I fear may tend to 
weaken what is otherwise a strong array of arguments, and that is what Mr. 
Mitchell argues in reference to the under-currents of the ocean. Without 
denying that there may he, or that there are ascertained to he, under-currents 
in some parts of the ocean, still, so far as I understand the results of recent 
investigations, I believe they have mostly tended to prove that all is still and 
quiet at great depths below the surface of the seas. (Cries of “ No, no.”) I am 
not disputing that there may he disturbances, sometimes, and in some places ; 
hut surely in laying down the Atlantic cable it was found that currents did 
not exist below the surface, as had been expected. Of course there may be 
exceptions, such as might be produced by submarine volcanoes and other 
disturbing causes ; and this consideration of such occurrences may, I think, 
also aid us in the solution of the problem as to the supply of pabulum neces- 
sary for the foraminifera of the chalk. In my reply to Professor Huxley I 
alluded to the due supply of carbonate of lime as a necessity in accounting 
for the chalk formation ; but then I supposed that this might have been sup- 
plied to a greater extent at the Creation, when the dry land was first sepa- 
rated from the seas, and also at the time of the Flood, when “ the fountains 
of the great deep were broken up,” and when an immense amount of car- 
bonate of lime might probably be thrown into the sea. We ought at any 
rate to look to some such source, rather than to the quantity that is now being 
brought into the sea in a settled state of things merely by the present placid 
flow of the rivers. We ought not to suppose that things have always gone 
on just as they have been in our own general experience, quietly and system- 
atically ; we should rather disregard that experience when we consider even 
such a series of disturbances as we have heard of during the last few years, 
especially in the West Indies, and elsewhere in the tropics, — I mean the con- 
vulsive tornadoes and cyclones and earthquakes, which may remind us of 
those greater convulsions whose records are written in history, and the effects 
of which are surely to be found in many of the geological formations we 
examine. Take also the case of the Falls of Niagara. It was said by Sir 
C. Lyell that the wearing away of so many feet of rock by the action of the 
falls must have consumed a period of 37,000 years or more ; but even in our 
own day it is said there are some extraordinary changes going on in the 
channel of the river, and probably the Falls of Niagara may sooner or later be 
perfectly changed in character or even come to an end. I must also here 
observe that Sir Charles Lyell’s theory as to the wearing of the channel by 
these falls does not account for their beginning at all, — for the rugged dislo- 
cation of their channel and formation of the rocks over which they fall ; just 
as Professor Huxley’s argument did not account in the least for the forma- 
tion of the river and the beginning of the deposits of the Nile. Therefore 
we ought to be very cautious in adopting conclusions based exclusively upon 
what is taking place now, in our own puny experience, or what may be 
brought within our own paltry range of observation. (Hear, hear.) 
Mr. Pattison, F.G.S. — There are two great sources of the Nile, one inva- 
riable and the other variable, — at least, so Sir Samuel Baker tells us. The 
