Claypole on ^Darwin and Geology. 213 
his theory was however in the minds of not a few geologists a 
serious difficulty. The subsidence of so large an area of the 
surface of the earth as was required could not be admitted with- 
out serious misgiving. There wa§ no evidence sufficient to 
prove it, nor was there at that time any weighty objection 
against it. The difficulty was not unfelt, though for many 
years it was unexpressed. It lay dormant, so to speak. 
Within recent years however there has grown up a school of 
geologists or geological physicists who are disposed to carry the 
uniformitai-ian theory into the continental history of the earth. 
They maintain that the division into land and water is one of 
the original lines of geographical development which, with 
minor changes especially around the borders, has remained unal- 
tered to the present time. To geologists of this school — Stabil- 
itarians, as they may well be called — the fundamental postulate 
of Darwin was especially obnoxious, as it involved the practical 
disappearance of a continent and the formation of an ocean 
within quite geological times. • Yet as nothing better was sug- 
gested the theory held its ground, strengthened as it had been 
by the powerful influence of Lyell, who adopted and defended 
it in the edition of the "Principles" published in 1S53. 
After the return of the "Challenger" from her voyage of 
discovery in the southern seas, Mr. John Murray, one of the 
naturalists who went out in her brought forward in 18S0 a dif- 
ferent theory, free from the fundamental objection above point- 
ed out, which seems to be gaining favor among geologists. It 
has recently been the subject of a somewhat acrimonious skir- 
mish in the columns of " Nature. "- 
Mr. Murray after an examination of coral islands in the East 
Indies and Indian ocean, fails, as others before him had done, 
to find any evidence of the subsidence required by the theory of 
Darwin. On the contrary both he and they find in many cases 
abundant evidence of elevation, Recollecting also that in no 
1 It is true that Darwin carefully guarded against being supposed to 
favor the previous existence of a continent in the Pacific area (see Life, 
p. 435) but th^ amount of subsidence required by his theory is so great 
that it would actually exceed that needed for some of the creations of 
the school of geologists here alluded to. 
2 Nature, 1S87. "A conspiracy of silence." 
