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Notices of Books. 
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a careful and sober-minded inquirer he could not have failed to 
find the superabundant refutation of what he calls his “ argu- 
ments ” and his “ suggestions.” He cannot see that “ because a 
puddle in a rainstorm will cut runlets in the soft sand in an hour 
or two, it must follow that rain or running water will cut glens 
and valleys, or even sever high mountains, granted millions of 
years.” Minds less filled with prejudices find in this no difficulty. 
The author ignores the fadt that geologists only take up the his- 
tory of the earth when no longer a nebular or an igneous mass. 
Consequently when Prof. Huxley speaks of a very remote period 
when the earth was passing through physical and chemical con- 
ditions which it can no more see again than a man can recall his 
infancy,” he does not of necessity contradict Lyell when the latter 
declares that “ the forces now operating upon earth are the same 
in kind and in degree as those which in the remotest times pro- 
duced geological (but not pre-geological) changes.” 
“ Verifier ” asks — “ If Nature were still carrying on operations 
by which the globe was made and fashioned, only on a diminished 
scale, are we not in the first place entitled to expedt to catch her 
in the adt of producing some of those elementary substances 
which enter into the composition of the earth’s crust ; not of 
depositing but of creating the metals and simple minerals, gold, 
silver, tin, quicksilver, iron, the diamond, emerald, &c. ? In no 
instance has any such discovery been made.” This is obviously 
an adaptation of the well-known anti-Darwinian argument, that 
no one has ever seen an animal or plant in the adl of evolution. 
This objedtion is obviously of very little value, but as applied by 
“ Verifier ” it is even more unreasonable than in its original use. 
The transformations of organic beings might naturally be expedted 
to take place on the surface of the earth, and if of a nature to 
attradt attention might conceivably be noticed by man. But if 
elementary substances are being now created there is a very strong- 
probability that the operation would take place underground, 
where no human eye could possibly witness. Again, is it not 
probable that all the materials of which our reputed elements 
consist have been used up in the produdtion of such elements ? 
It will be quite time enough to ask why we never witness the 
creation of gold when our chemists have detedled a something 
out of which it could be created. Further still, supposing that 
tin or iron were in some place being adtually created and not 
deposited, how could we assure ourselves that such was the fadl ? 
Suppose “ Verifier ” is standing by the side of a rock and sees a 
deposit of any metal forming upon its surface, and that with suf- 
ficient speed to be noticed, is he aware of the precautions neces- 
sary to prove that this is not a mere case of deposition ? He 
tells us that “ the sand and mud washed down into the Mediter- 
ranean by the Rhone in the days of Hannibal remain to this day 
incoherent sand and mud.” How does he know this ? and, pain- 
ful as the question may sound to him, what is it to the purpose if 
