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I never understood anything else, but what I want to know is, why 
cannot the same combinations produce the same effects agam really 
not see the point of the argument. The whole thmg amounts to this . that 
some of the old geological theories are exploded by recent discoveries, and I 
think Mr. Pattison has scarcely done justice to the recent discoveries m he 
Atlantic. I am not at all clear that it is a fair way of putting it to say, that 
“ the colder spaces in the Atlantic are less marked by organic life than the 
warm currents.” It is true that life is more prolific on the surface in warm 
places, but Dr. Carpenter removed that impression from my mind as to the 
marked difference. There may be a difference in some less degree, but not 
to the extent that one would suppose. You have the Arctic fauna and flora, 
so to speak, almost alongside the fauna and flora that belong to warmer 
regions, and I quite understood that they were almost as prolific the one as 
the other. I think that, as regards geology at present, it would be much 
better if we could wait till we have tabulated the new facts and placed t ern 
side bv side. I cannot accept this paper as a fair resume of the existing 
state of geological opinion or of geological science. If you were to take away 
the introduction and the concluding passages, which seem to have been 
inserted with reference to this Society, and were to read the paper as a state- 
ment of the present condition of geological opinion before The Geological 
Society, I do not think it would have many supporters. I do not gather 
that the paper accords with Huxley’s views, or with those of Mr. Hamiflon 
the former President of the Geological Society, and it is somewhat at ar 
with a great many of what I believe to be the facts of geology. I am sorry 
that I cannot do anything more than put forward, as it were, second-han 
opinions upon the subject ; but I think, when we have ^ued a c 
Journal of Transactions, and thrown down a challenge to the Scientific 
world, that if those positions which were taken up by Mr. Kuk and y 
Mr. Hopkins can be assailed and overthrown, it is almost a duty to attemp 
to overthrow them, and not quietly to ignore them. We ^ are not fitted 
to say that we know so much about the Atlantic sea-bed as Mr. Pattison 
assumes to do. We do not know what amount of accumulation is going on 
there-we have not the slightest idea. It may be twenty tunes as much “ 
Mr Pattison supposes : we know nothing of it. When Professor Hux ty 
delivered his Address in Sion College two years ago, he put the ’ G'obigermie 
down as among the dead animals, and he almost laughed at me when 
asked if they were not alive and breeding. But we now find that they are. 
I hope some one better qualified to continue this discusssion will now speak, 
but I wish to enter my protest against the statements and views ot tins 
paper being accepted in the face of those other statements which have 
already been recorded in our journals. (Cheers.). 
Mr. Bradlatoh.— There are one or two points in the paper read this 
eveniim— a paper of which a great proportion, however we may disagree wi 
the remainder, cannot be too widely admitted or too strongly ’ 
but there are one or two points entirely different from those i by Mn 
Reddle, which occur to my mind. On the 6th paragraph of the paper, 
