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POOTPRINTS OF THE CREATOR

OR

: THE ASTEROLEPIS OF STROMNESS

By HUGH MILLER

AUTHOR OF ‘‘THE OLD RED SANDSTONE,” ETC. ETC.

WITH MEMOIR BY LOUIS AGASSIZ

Wineteenth Edition.

WILLIAM P. NIMMO, LONDON AND EDINBURGH. 1877.

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HUGH MILLER,

AUTHOR OF ‘‘CLD RED SANDSTONE” AND “ FOOT: PRINTS OF THE CREATOR.”

Tue geological works of Hugh Miller have excited the great- est interest, not only among scientific men, but also among _ general readers. There is in them a freshness of conception, a power of argumentation, a depth of thought, a purity of _ teeling, rarely met with in works of that cnaracter, which are well calculated to call forth sympathy, and to increase the popularity of a science which has already done so much to expand our views of the Plan of Creation. The scientific - illustrations published by Mr Miller are most happily com- bined with considerations of a higher order, reudexving both equally acceptable to the thinking reader. But whav is in a great degree peculiar to our author is the successful combi- nation of Christian doctrines with pure scientific truths. On that account his works deserve peculiar attention. His ge- neralizations have nothing of the vagueness which too often _ characterize the writings of those authors who have attempted _ to make the results of science subservient to the cause of re- hgion. Struck with the beauty of Mr Miller’s works, it has _ tor some time past been my wish to see them more exten- _ sively circulated in this country ; and I have obtained leave

lv. HUGH MILLER.

from the author to publish an American edition of his

“ Foot-prints of the Creator,” for which he has most liberally —

furnished the publishers with the admirable woodcuts of the —

original,

While preparing some additional chapters, and various notes illustrative of certain points alluded to incidentally in this work, it was deemed advisable to preface it with a short biographical notice of the author. I had already sketched such a paper, when I became acquainted with a full memoir of this remarkable man, containing most interesting details of his earlier life, written by that eminent historian of the

‘Martyrs of Science,” the great natural philosopher of Scot- —

land. It has occurred to me that, owing to the frequent

references which I could not avoid to my own researches, — I had better substitute this ample Biography for my short —

sketch, with such alterations and additions as the connection in which it is brought here would require. I therefore pro-

ceed to introduce our author with Sir David Brewster’s own

words :—

Of all the studies which relate to the material universe, there is none, perhaps, which appeals so powerfully to our sense, or which comes into such close and immediate contact with our wants and enjoyments, as that of Geology. In our hourly walks, whether on business or for pleasure, we tread

with heedless step upon the apparently uninteresting objects —

which it embraces; but could we rightly interrogate the rounded pebble at our feet, it would read us an exciting chapter on the history of primeval times, and would tell us of the convulsions by which it was wrenched from its parent rock, and of the floods by which it was abraded and trans- ported to its present humble locality. In our visit to the picturesque and the sublime in nature, we are brought into closer proximity to the more interesting phenomena of Geo- logy. In the precipices which protect our rock-girt shores,

HUGH MILLER. v.

which flank our mountain glens, or which variegate our low- land valleys, and in the shapeless fragments at their base, which the lichen colours, and round which the ivy twines, we see the remnants of uplifted and shattered beds, which once reposed in peace at the bottom of the ocean. Nor does the rounded boulder, which would have defied the lapidary’s wheel of the Giant Age, give forth a less oracular response from its grave of clay or from its lair of sand. Floated by ice from some Alpine summit, or hurried along in torrents | of mud and floods of water, it may have traversed a quarter | of the globe, amid the crash of falling forests, and the death shrieks of the noble animals which they sheltered. The mountain range, too, with its catacombs below, along which the earthquake transmits its terrific sounds, reminds us of the mighty power by which it was upheaved ; while the lofty peak, with its cap of ice, or its nostrils of fire, places in _ our view the tremendous agencies which have been at work beneath us.

But it is not merely amid the powers of external nature that the once hidden things of the earth are presented to our view. Our temples and our palaces are formed from the rocks of a primeval age,—bearing the very ripple-marks of

_ a pre-Adamite ocean,—grooved by the passage of the once moving boulder, and embosoming the relics of ancient life, and the plants by which it was sustained. Our dwellings, too, are ornamented with the variegated limestones,—the

- indurated tombs of molluscous life,—and our apartments

heated with the carbon of primeval forests, and lighted with the gaseous element which it confines. The obelisk of gra- nite, and the colossal bronze which transmit to future ages the deeds of the hero and the sage, are equally the produc- tion of the earth’s prolific womb; and from the green bed of the ocean has been raised the pure and spotless marble, to’ mould the divine lineaments of beauty, and perpetuate the

TL HUGH MILLER.

_ expressions of intellectual power. From a remoter age, and a still greater depth, the primary and secondary rocks have yielded a rich tribute to the chaplet of rank and to the pro- cesses of art. :

Exhibiting, as it peculiarly does, almost all those objects of interest and research, Scotland has been diligently studied both by native and foreign observers ; and she has sent into the geological field a distinguished group of inquirers, who have performed a noble feat in exploring the general struc- ture of the earth, in deciphering its ancient monuments, and - in unlocking those storehouses of mineral wealth, from which civilized man derives the elements of that gigantic power which his otherwise feeble arm wields over nature.

The occurrence of shells on the highest mountains, and the remains of plants and animals, which the most superficial observer could not fail to notice in the rocks around him, have for centuries commanded the attention and exercised the ingenuity of every student of nature. But though sparks of geological truth were from time to time elicited by specu- lative minds, it was not till the end of the last century that its great lights broke forth, and that it took the form and character of one of the noblest of the sciences. Without undervaluing the labours of Werner, and other illustrious foreigners, or those of our southern countrymen, Mitchell and Smith, at the close of the last century, we may characterize the commencement of the present as the brightest period of geological discovery, and place its most active locality in the northern metropolis of our island. It was doubtless from the Royal Society of Edinburgh, as a centre, that a great geological impulse was propagated southward ; and it was by — the collision of the Wernerian and Huttonian views, the an- tagonist theories of water and of fire, that men of intellec- tual power were summoned from other studies, and that — grand truths, which fanaticism and intolerance had hitherto

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HUGH MILLER. ViL

abjured, rose triumphant over the ignorance and bigotry of the age. The Geological Society of London, which doubt- less sprung from the excitement in the Scottish metropolis, entered on the new field of research with a faltering step. The prejudices of the English mind had been marshalled with illiberal violence against the Huttonian doctrines. Infidelity and atheism were charged against their supporters ; and had there been a Protestant Inquisition in England at that period of general political exitement, the geologists of the north would have been immured in its deepest dungeons. Truth, however, marched apace ; and though her simple but majestic procession be often solemn and slow, and her vo- taries few and dejected, yet on this, as on every occasion, she _ triumphed over the most inveterate prepossessions, and finally took up her abode in those very halls and institutions where she had been persecuted and reviled. When their science _ had been thus acquitted of the charge of impiety and irreli- - gion, the members of the Geological Society left their humble

and timid position of being the collectors only of the mate- _ rials of future generalizations, and became at once the most successful observers of geological phenomena, and the boldest asserters of geological truth.

In this field of research, in which the physical as well as the intellectual frame of the philosopher is made tributary to science, two of our countrymen,—Sir Roderick Murchison and Sir Charles Lyell,—have been among our most active labourers. From the study of their native glens, these dis- _ tinguished travellers, like the Humboldts and the Von Buchs of the Continent, have passed into foreign lands, exploring the north and the south of Europe, and extending their labours to the eastern ranges of the Ural and the Timan, and to the Apallachians and the Alleghanies in the far west. But while ourtwo countrymen wereinterrogating thestrata of other lands, many able and active labourers had been at work in their own.

viii. HUGH MILLER.

Among the eminent students of the structure of the earth, Mr Hugh Miller holds a lofty place, not merely from the dis- covery of new and undescribed organisms in the Old Red

Sandstone, but from the accuracy and beauty of his deserip- —

tions, the purity and elegance of his composition, and the high tone of philosophy and religion which distinguishes all

his writings. Mr Miller is one of the few individuals in the ©

history of Scottish science who have raised themselves above the labours of an humble profession, by the force of their

genius and the excellence of their character, to a compara-

tively high place in the social scale. Mr Telford, like Mr Miller, followed the profession of a stone-mason, before his

industry and self-tuition qualified him for the higher func- |

tions of an architect and an engineer. And Mr Watt and Mr Rennie rose to wealth and fame without the aid of a university education. But, distinguished as these individuals were, none of them possessed those qualities of mind which

Mr Miller has exhibited in his writings ; and, with the ex- —

ception of Burns, the uneducated genius which has done ho-

nour to Scotland during the last century has never displayed —

that mental refinement, and classical taste, and intellectual

energy, which mark all the writings of our author. We wish —

that we could have gratified our readers with an authentic,

and even detailed narrative of the previous history of so re- — markable a writer, and of the steps by which his knowledge — was acquired, and the difficulties which he encountered in —

its pursuit ; but though this is not, to any great extent, in

our power, we shall at least be able, chiefly from Mr Miller’s ©

own writings, to follow him throughout his geological career. Mr Miller was born at Cromarty, of humble but respectable

parents, whose history would have possessed no inconsiderable -

interest, even if it had not derived one of a higher kind from the genius and fortunes of their child. By the paternal side he was descended from a race of seafaring people, whose fa-

HUGH MILLER. ix,

mily burying-ground, if we judge from the past, seems to be the sea. Under its green waves his father sleeps ; his grand- father, his two granduncles, one of whom sailed round the world with Anson, lie also there; and the same extensive cemetery contains the relics of several of his more distant re- latives. His father was but an infant of scarcely a year old at the death of our author’s grandfather, and had to com- mence life as a poor ship-boy ; but such was the energy of his mind, that, when little turned of thirty, he had become the master and owner of a fine large sloop, and had built himself a good house, which entitled his son to the franchise on the passing of the Reform Bill. Having, unfortunately, lost his sloop in a storm, he had to begin the world anew, and he soon became master and owner of another, and would have thriven, had he lived ; but the hereditary fate was too strong for him; and when our author was a little boy of five summers, his father’s fine new sloop foundered at sea in a terrible tempest, and he and his crew were never more heard of. Mr Miller had two sisters younger than himself, both _ of whom died ere they attained to womanhood. His mother experienced the usual difficulties which a widow has to en- counter in the decent education of her family ; but she strug- gled honestly and successfully, and ultimately found her re- ward in the character and fame of her son. It is from this excellent woman that Mr Miller has inherited those senti- ments and feelings which have given energy to his talents as the defender of revealed truth, and the champion of the Church of his fathers. She was the great-grand-daughter of a venerable man, still well known to tradition in the north of Scotland as Donald Roy of Nigg,—a sort of northern Peden, who is described in the history of our Church as the single individual who, at the age of eighty, when the Presby- tery of the district had assembled in the empty church for the purpose of inducting an obnoxious presentee, had the courage

x. HUGH MILLER.

to protest against the intrusion, and to declare “ that the blood of the people of Nigg would be required at their hands, if they settled a man to the walls of that church.” Tradition has represented him as a seer of visions, and a prophesier of pro- phecies ; but whatever credit may be given to stories of this kind, which have been told also of Knox, Welsh, and Ruther- ford, this ancient champion of Non-Intrusion was a man of genuine piety, and the savour of his ennobling beliefs and his strict morals has survived in his family for generations, If the child of such parents did not receive the best education

which his native town could afford, it was not their fault, nor

that of his teacher. The fetters of a gymnasium are not easily worn by the adventurous youth who has sought and found his pleasures among the hills and on the waters. They ~-chafe the young and active limb that has grown vigorous under the blue sky, and never known repose but at midnight. The young philosopher of Cromarty was a member of this restless community ; and he had been the hero of adventures and accidents among rocks and woods, which are still remem- bered in his native town. The parish school was therefore not the scene of his enjoyments ; and while he was a truant, and, with reverence be it spoken, a dunce, while under its jurisdiction, he was busy in the fields and on the sea-shore in collecting those stores of knowledge which he was born to dis- pense among his fellow-men. He escaped, however, from school, with the knowledge of reading, writing, and a little arithmetic, and with the credit of uniting a great memory with a little scholarship. Unlike his illustrious predecessor, Cuvier, he had studied Natural History in the fields and among the mountains ere he had sought for it in books; while the French philosopher had become a learned natu- ralist before he had even looked upon the world of Nature. This singular contrast it is not difficult to explain. Witha sickly constitution and a delicate frame, the youthful Cuvier

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HUGH MILLER. xi,

wanted that physical activity which the observation of Na- ture demands. Our Scottish geologist, on the contrary, in vigorous health, and with an iron frame, rushed to the rocks ‘and the sea-shore in search of the instruction which was not provided for him at school, and which he could find no books

to supply. After receiving this measure of education, Mr Miller set

out in February 1821 with a heavy heart, as he himself con- fesses, “to make his first acquaintance with a life of labour and restraint ;”—

intangibilities of romance, and of dreaming when broad awake ; and, wo- ful change! I was now going to work at what Burns has instanced in his ‘ Twa Dogs’ as one of the most disagreeable of all employments,—to work in a quarry. Bating the passing uneasiness occasioned by a few gloomy anticipations, the portion of my life which had already gone by had been happy beyond the common lot. I had been a wanderer among rocks and woods,—a reader of curious books, when I could get them,— a gleaner of old traditionary stories ; and now I was going to exchange all my day-dreams and all my amusements for the kind of life in which men toil every day that they may be enabled to eat, and eat every day that they may be enabled to toil, The quarry in which I wrought lay on the southern shore of a noble inland bay, or frith rather (the Bay of Cromarty), with a little clear stream on the one side, and a thick fir wood on the other. It had been opened in the Old Red Sandstone of the district, and was overtopped by a huge bank of diluvial clay, and which rose over it in some places to the height of nearly thirty feet.”"— Old Red Sandstone, p. 4.

| : “‘T was but a slim, loose-jointed boy at the time, fond of the pretty | :

After removing the loose fragments below, picks, and wedges, and levers were applied in vain by our author and his brother workmen to tear up and remove the huge strata beneath. Blasting by gunpowder became necessary. A mass of the diluvial clay came tumbling down, “bearing with it two dead birds, that in a recent storm had crept into one of the deeper fissures, to die in the shelter.” While admiring the pretty cock goldfinch, and the light-blue and grayish- yellow woodpecker, and moralizing on their fate, the work-

xil. HUGH MILLER.

men were ordered to lay aside their tools ; and thus ended the first day’s labour of our young geologist. The sun was then sinking behind the thick fir wood behind him, and the long dark shadows of the trees stretching to the shore. Notwith- standing his blistered hands, and the fatigue which blistered them, he found himself next morning as light of heart as his

-fellow-labourers, and able to enjoy the magnificent scenery

around him, which he thus so beautifully describes :—

‘There had been a smart frost during the night, and the rime lay white on the grass as we passed onwards through the fields ; but the sun rose in a clear atmosphere, and the day mellowed as it advanced into one of those delightful days of early spring which give so pleasing an earnest of whatever is mild and genial in the better half of the year. All the workmen rested at mid-day, and I went to enjoy my half hour alone on

-a mossy knoll in the neighbouring wood, which commands through the

trees a wide prospect of the bay and the opposite shore. There was not a wrinkle on the water, nor a cloud in the sky ; and the branches were as moveless in the calm as if they had been traced on canvas. From a wooded promontory that stretched half-way across the frith there as- cended a thin column of smoke. It rose straight on the line of a plum- met for more than a thousand yards ; and then, as reaching a thinner stratum of air, spread out equally on every side, like the fcliage of a stately tree. Ben Wevis rose to the west, white with the yet unwasted snows of winter, and as sharply defined in the clear atmosphere as if all its sunny slopes and blue retiring hollows had been chiselled in marble. A line of snow ran along the opposite hills ; all above was white, and all below was purple.”—-Old Red Sandstone, pp. 6, 7.

In raising from its bed the large mass of strata which the gunpowder had loosened, on the surface of the solid stone, our young quarrier descried the ridged and furrowed ripple- marks which the tide leaves upon every sandy shore, and he wondered what had become of the waves that had thus fret- ted the solid rock, and of what element they had been com- posed. His admiration was equally excited by a circular de- pression in the sandstone, “ broken and flawed in every di- rection, as if it had been the bottom of a pool recently dried up, which had shrunk and split in the hardening.” And be-

* ———

HUGH MILLER. Xl,

fore the day closed, a series of large stones had rolled down from the clay, “all rounded and water-worn, as if they had been tossed in the sea or the bed of a river for hundreds of years.” Was the clay which enclosed them created on the rock upon which it lay? No workman ever manufactures a half-worn article !—were the ejaculations of the geologist at his alphabet.

Our author and his companions were soon removed to an easier wrought quarry, and one more pregnant with interest, which had been opened “in a lofty wall of cliffs that over- hangs the northern shore of the Moray Frith.” Here the geology of the district exhibited itself in section.

*¢ We see in one place the primary rock, with its veins of granite and quartz,—its dizzy precipices of gneiss, and its huge masses of hornblende ; we find the secondary rock in another, with its bed of sandstone and shale,—its spars, its clays, and its nodular limestones. We discover the still little known but highly interesting fossils of the Old Red Sandstone in one deposition ; we find the beautifully preserved shells and lignites of the lias in another. There are the remains of two several creations at once before us. The shore, too, is heaped with rolled fragments of al- most every variety of rock,—basalts, ironstones, hypersthenes, porphy- ries, bituminous shales, and micaceous schists. In short, the young geo- logist, had he all Europe before him, could hardly choose for himself a better field. I had, however, no one to tell me so at the time, for geo- logy had not yet travelled so far north ; and so, without guide or voca- bulary, I had to grope my way as I best might, and find out all its wonders for myself. But so slow was the process, and so much was I a seeker in the dark, that the facts contained in these few sentences were the patient gatherings of years.”—Old Red Sandstone, pp. 9, 10.

In this rich field of inquiry our author encountered, al- most daily, new objects of wonder and instruction. .. In one nodular mass of limestone he found the beautiful ammonite, like one of the finely sculptured volutes of an Ionic capital. Within others, fish-scales and bivalve shells ; and in the centre of another he detected a piece of decayed wood. Upon quit- ting the quarry for the building upon which the workmen were to be employed, the workwen received half a holiday, and

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Xiv HUGH MILLER.

our young philosopher devoted this valuable interval to search for certain curiously-shaped stones, which one of the quarriers told him resembled the heads of boarding-pikes, and which, under the name of thunder-bolts, were held to be a sovereign remedy for cattle that had been bewitched. On the shore two miles off, where he expected these remarkable bodies, he found deposits quite different either from the sandstone cliffs or the primary rocks further to the west. They consisted of “ thin strata of limestone, alternating with thicker beds of ablackslaty substance,” which burned with a bright flame and a bitumi- nousodour. Though only the eighth part of an inch thick, each layer contained thousands of fossils peculiar to the Lias,— scallops and gryphites, ammonites, twigs and leaves of plants, cones of pine, pieces of charcoal, and scales of fishes,—the impressions being of a chalky whiteness, contrasting strik- ingly with their black bituminous lair, Among these frag- ments of animal and vegetable life, he at last detected his thunder-bolt in the form of a belemnite, the remains of a, kind of cuttle-fish long since extinct.

In the exercise of his profession, which “ was a wander- ing one,” our author advanced steadily, though slowly and surely, in his geological acquirements.

‘*T remember,” says he, ‘‘ passing direct on one occasion from the

wild western coast of Ross-shire, where the Old Red Sandstone leans at a high angle against the prevailing quartz rock of the district to where, on the southern skirts of Mid-Lothian, the mountain limestone rises amid the coal, I have resided one season on a raised beach on the Moray Frith. I have spent the season immediately following amid the ancient granites and contorted schists of the central Highlands. In the north I have laid open by thousands the shells and lignites of the Oolite ; in the south I have disinterred from their matrices of stone or of shale the huge reeds and tree ferns of the Carboniferous period. . . . Inthe north there occurs a vast gap in the scale. The Lias leans unconform- ably against the Old Red Sandstone ; there is no Mountain Limestone, no Coal Measures, none of the New Red Marls or Sandstones. There are at least three entire systems omitted. But the upper portion of the scase is well-nigh complete. In one locality we may pass from the Lower to

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HUGH MILLER, xv.

the Upper Lias, in another from the Inferior to the Great Oolite, and

- enward to the Oxford Clay and the Coral Rag. We may explore in a third locality beds identical in their organisms with the Wealden of Sus- sex. Ina fourth we find the flints and fossils of the Chalk. The lower part of the scale is also well-nigh complete. The Old Red Sandstone is amply developed in Moray, Caithness, and Ross and the Grau wacke very extensively in Banffshire. But to acquaint one's self with the three miss- ing formations,—to complete one’s knowledge of the entire scale, by fill- ing up the hiatus, —it is necessary to remove to the south. The geology of the Lothians is the geology of at least two-thirds of the gap, and per- haps a little more ; the geology of Arran wants only a few of the upper beds of the New Red Sandstone to fill it entirely.”—Old Red Sandstone, pp. 13-17.

After having spent nearly fifteen years in the profession of a stone-mason, Mr Miller was promoted to a position more suited to his genius, When a bank was established in his native town of Cromarty, he received the appointment of ac- countant ; and he was thus employed for five years in keep- ing ledgers and discounting bills, When the contest in the Church of Scotland had come to a close, by the decision of the House of Lords in the Auchterarder case, Mr Miller’s celebrated letter to Lord Brougham attracted the particular attention of the party which was about to leave the Estab- lishment ; and he was selected as the most competent person to conduct the ‘‘ Witness” newspaper, the principal metropoli- tan organ of the Free Church, The great success which this ‘ournal has met with is owing, doubtless, to the fine articles, political, ecclesiastical, and geological, which Mr Miller has written for it. In the few leisure hours which so engrossing an occupation has allowed him to enjoy he has devoted him- self to the ardent prosecution of scientific inquiries ; and we trust the time is not far distant when the liberality of his country, to which he has done so much honour, will allow him to give his whole time to the prosecution of science.

Geologists of high character had believed that the Old Red Sandstone was defective in organic remains ; and it was not

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xVL MIUGH MILLER.

till afer ten years’ acquaintance with it that Mr Miller dis- covered it to be richly fossiliferous. The labours of other ten years were required to assign to its fossils their exact place in the scale.

Among the fossils discovered by our author, the Pterichthys or winged fish is doubtless the most remarkable. He had disinterred it so early as 1831, but it was only in 1838 that

: ”

he “ introduced it to the acquaintance of geologists.” It was

- not till 1831 that Mr Miller began to receive assistance in

his studies from without. In the Appendix to Messrs Ander-

son of Inverness’s admirable ‘‘ Guide to the Highlands and.

Islands of Scotland,” which “ he perused with intense inte rest,” he found the most important information respecting the geology of the North of Scotland ; and, during a correspond- ence with the accomplished authors of that work, many of

_ his views were developed and his difficulties removed. In

1838 he communicated to Dr Malcolmson of Madras, then in Paris, a drawing and description of the Pterichthys. His letter was submitted to Agassiz, and subsequently a restored drawing was communicated to the Elgin Scientific Society.

‘The great naturalist, as well as the members of the provincial

society, were surprised at the new form of life which Mr Miller had disclosed ; and some of them, no doubt, regarded it with a sceptical eye. ‘‘ Not many months after, however, a true bona fide Pterichthys was turned up in one of the newly-dis- covered beds of Nairnshire.” In his last visit to Scotland,

_ Agassiz found six species of the Pterichthys, three of which,

and the wings of a fourth, were in Mr Miller’s collection. This remarkable animal has less resemblance than any other fossil of the Old Red Sandstone to anything that now exists. When first brought to view by the single blow of a hammer, there appeared on a ground of light-coloured limestone the effigy of a creature, fashioned apparently out of jet, with a body covered with plates, two powerful-looking arms articu-

HUGH MILLER. XVII.

lated at the shoulders, a head as entirely lost in the trunk as that of the ray (or skate), and a long angular tail, equal im length to a third of the entire figure. Its general resem- _ blance is to the letter T,—the upper part of the vertical line being swelled out, and the lower part ending in an angular point, the two horizontal portions being, in the opinion of Agassiz, organs of locomotion. To this remarkable fossil M. Agassiz has given the appropriate name of Pterichthys Miller. An account of it, accompanied with two fine specimens, was communicated to the Geological Section of the British Asso- ciation at Glasgow in September 1840 ; and the most ample details, with accurate drawings, were afterwards published in 1841, in Mr Miller’s first work, “‘ The Old Red Sandstone,” which was dedicated to Sir Roderick Murchison, who was born on the Old Red Sandstone of the north, in the same district as Mr Miller, and whose great acquirements and distinguished labours are known all over the world among scientific men. This admirable work has already passed through three edi- _ tions. . From the originality and accuracy of its descriptions, and the importance of the researches which it contains, it has obtained for its author a high reputation among geologists ; while, from the elegance and purity of its style, and the force and liveliness of its illustrations, it has received the highest praise from its more general readers. * Although we have been obliged, from the information which it contains of our author’s early studies, to mention __the “Old Red Sandstone” as if it had been his first work ;

* Mr Miller is the author also of ‘‘ Scenes and Legends of the North of Scotland,” 1 vol. 8vo; ‘* A Letter from one of the Scotch People to the Right Honourable Lord Brougham and Vaux, on the Opinions ex- pressed by his Lordship in the Auchterarder Case ;” and ‘‘ The Whig- ism of the Old School, as exemplified in the Past History and Present Position of the Church of Scétland.” The second of these works is well characterized by Mr Gladstone as “an able, elegant, and masculine pro- duction.”

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Pel a Re

Xvili. - WUGH MILLER.

yet so early as 1830, after he had made his first fossil disco-

veries at Cromarty, he composed a paper on the subject (his first published production), which appeared as one of the chap- ters of a small legendary and descriptive work, entitled “The Traditional History of Cromarty,” which did not appear till 1835. This chapter, entitled “The Antiquary of the World,” possesses a high degree of interest. After describing the scene around him in its pictorial aspect, and under the warm associations which link it with existing life, he surveys it

with the cool eye of an “antiquary of the world,” studying | its once buried monuments, and deciphering the alphabet of

plants and animals, the hieroglyphics which embosom the his- tory of past times and of successive creations. The gigantie Ben Wevis, with its attendant hills, rose abruptly to the west; the distant peaks of Ben Vaichard appeared in the south ; and far to the north were descried the lofty hills of Suther- land, and even the Ord-hill of Caithness. Descending from the towers of nature’s lofty edifice, he surveys its ruins, its broken sculptures, and its half-defaced inscriptions, as exhi- bited in certain ichthyic remains of the Lower Old Red Sand- stone which had then no name, and which were unknown to the most accomplished geologists. Among these he specially notices “a confused bituminous-looking mass that had much the appearance of a toad or frog,” thus shadowing forth in the morning twilight the curious Pterichthys, which he was able afterwards, in better specimens, to exhibit in open day. As we have already referred with some minuteness to the fossils which our author had at this time discovered in the great charnel-house of the old world, we shall indulge our readers with a specimen of the noble sentiments which they inspired, and of the beautiful language in which these senti- ments are clothed.

“« But let, us quit this wonderful city of the dead, with all its reclining obelisks, and all its sculptured tumuli, the memorials of a race that exist

ee oaaiail

Kn Se

HUGH MILLER. : xix,

only in their tombs. And yet, ere we go, it were well, perhaps, to in- | dulge in some of those serious thoughts which we so naturally associate with the solitary burying-ground and the mutilated remains of the de-

. Let us once more look around us, and say whether, of all men, the geologist does not stand most in need of the Bible, however much he may contemn it in the pride of speculation. We tread on the remains of organized and sentient creatures, which, though more numerous at one period than the whole family of man, have long since ceased to exist ; the individuals perished one after one ; their remains served only to elevate - the floor on which their descendants pursued the various instincts of their nature, and then sunk, like the others, to form astill higher layer of soil; and now that the whole race has passed from the earth, and we see the animals of a different tribe occupying their places, what survives of them but a mass of inert and senseless matter, never again to be animated by the mysterious spirit of vitality,—that spirit which, dissipated in the air, or diffused in the ocean, can, like the sweet sounds and pleasant odours _ of the past, be neither gathered up nor recalled! And O, how dark the _ analogy which would lead us to anticipate a similar fate for ourselves ! As individuals, we are but as yesterday ; to-morrow we shall be laid in - our graves, and the tread of the coming generation shall be over our heads. Nay, have we not seen a terrible disease sweep away, in a few ' years, more than eighty millions of the race to which we belong ? and can we think of this, and say that a time may not come when, like the fossils - of these beds, our whole species shall be mingled with the soil, and when, though the sun may look down in his strength on our pleasant dwellings and our green fields, there shall be silence in all our borders, and desola- - tion in all our gates, and we shall have no thought of that past which it _ ts now our delight to recall, and no portion in that future which it is now our very nature to anticipate? Surely it is well to believe that a widely different destiny awaits us; that the God who endowed us with those wonderful powers which enable us to live in every departed era, every coming period, has given us to possess these powers for ever ; that not only does he number the hairs of our heads, but that his cares are ex- _ tended to even our very remains ; that our very bones, instead of being left, like the exuvie around us, to form the rocks and clays of a future world, shall, like those in the valley of vision, be again clothed with muscle and sinew; and that our bodies, animated by the warmth and vigour of life, shall again connect our souls to the matter existing around us, and be obedient. to every impulse of the will. It is surely no time, when we walk amid the dark cemeteries of a departed world, and see the cold blank shadows of the tombs falling drearily athwart the way,— _ it is surely no time to extinguish the light given us to shine so fully and _ so cheerfully on our own proper path. merely because its beams do not

Xx. HUGH MILLER.

enlighten the recesses that yawn around us. And O, what more unworthy of reasonable men than to reject so consoling a revelation on no juster quarrel than, when it unveils to us much of what could not otherwise be ; known, and without the knowledge of which we could not be other than” unhappy, it leaves to the invigorating exercise of our own powers what-— ever, in the wide circle of creation, lies fully within their grasp | ”—TZhe Antiquary of the World, pp. 56-58. i

The next work published by Mr Miller was entitled “ First Impressions of England and its People,”*—a popular and in- teresting volume, which has already gone through two editions, . and which may be read with equal interest by the geologist, the philanthropist, and the general reader. It is full of know- ledge and of anecdote, and is written in that attractive style which commands the attention even of the most incurious— readers.

This delightful work, though only in one volume, is equal | to three of the ordinary type, and cannot fail to pe perused - with high gratification by all classes of readers. It treats of | every subject which is presented to the notice of an accom- plished traveller while he visits the great cities and romantic | localities of merry England. We know of no tour in Eng- | land written by a native in which so much pleasant reading and substantial instruction are combined ; and though we are | occasionally stopped in a very delightful locality by a preci- | pice of the Old Red Sandstone, or frightened by a disinterred - skeleton, or sobered by the burial-service over Palzeozoic graves, we soon recover our equanimity, and again enter upon | the sunny path to which our author never fails to restore us.

Mr Miller’s new work, the “ Foot-prints of the Creator,” of which we publish now another edition, authorized by the writer, is very appropriately dedicated to Sir Philip Grey Egerton, Bart., M.P. for Cheshire,—a gentleman who pos- sesses a magnificent collection of fossils, and whose skill and ©

* London, 1847, pp. 409.

J

HUGH MILLER. RXL

acquirements in this department of Geology is known and ap- preciated both in Europe and America. The work itself is divided into fifteen chapters, in which the author treats of the fossil geology of the Orkneys, as exhibited in the vicinity of Stromness ; of the development hypothesis, and its conse- quences ; of the history and structure of that remarkable fish, the Asterolepis ; of the fishes of the Upper and Lower Silu- rian rocks ; of the progress of degradation, and its history ; of the Lamarckian hypothesis of the origin of plants, and its consequences ; of the marine and terrestrial floras ; and of final causes, and their bearing on geological history. In the course of these chapters Mr Miller discusses the development hypothesis, or the hypothesis of natural law, as maintained | by Lamarck and by the author of the “ Vestiges of Creation,” and has subjected it, in its geological aspect, to the most rigorous examination. Driven by the discoveries of Lord Rosse from the domains of astronomy, where it once seemed to hold a plausible position, it might have lingered with the appearance of life among the ambiguities of the Paleozoic for- mations ; but Mr Miller has, with an ingenuity and patience worthy of a better subject, stripped it even of its semblance of truth, and restored to the Creator, as Governor of the uni- verse, that power and those functions which he was supposed to have resigned at its birth. _- Having imposed upon himself the task of examining in de- tail the various fossiliferous formations of Scotland, our author extended his inquiries into the mainland of Orkney, and re- sided for some time in the vicinity of the busy seaport town of Stromness, as a central point from which the structure of the Orkney group of islands could be most advantageously studied. Like that of Caithness, the geology of these islands owes its principal interest to the immense development of the Lower Old Red Sandstone formation, and to the singular abundance of its vertebrate fossils. Though the Orkneys

xxii. HUGH MILLER.

contain only the third part of the Old Red Sandstone, which but a few years ago was supposed to be the least productive in fossils of any of the geological formations, yet it furnishes, according to Mr Miller, more fossil fish than every other geo- logical system in England, Scotland, and Wales, from the — Coal Measures to the Chalk inclusive. It is, in short, “the land of fish,” and “could supply with ichthyolites, by the | ton and by the ship-load, the museums of the world.” Its various deposits, with the curious organisms which they in- close, have been upheaved from their original position against a granitic axis, about six miles long and one broad, “ forming the great back-bone of the western district of the island ~ Pomona; and on this granitic axis, fast jambed in between — a steep hill and the sea, stands the town of Stromness.” The mass or pile of strata thus uplifted is described by Mr Miller as a three-barred pyramid resting on its granite base, exhibiting three broad tiers,—red, black, and gray,—sculp- tured with the hieroglyphics on which its history is recorded. — ;

The great conglomerate base on which it rests, covering from | 10,000 to 15,000 square miles, from the depth of from 100 — to 400 feet, consists of rough sand and water-worn pebbles ; — and above this have been deposited successive strata of mud, — equal in height to the highest of our mountains, now con- — taining the remains of millions and tens of millions of fish — which had perished in some sudden and mysterious catas- trophe.

In the examination of the different beds of the three-barred formation, our author discovered a well-marked bone, like a petrified large roofing nail, in a grayish-coloured layer of hard flag, about 100 yards over the granite, and about 160 feet over the upper stratum of the conglomerate. This sin- gular bone, which Mr Miller has represented in a figure, was probably the oldest vertebrate organism yet discovered in Orkney. It was 53 inches long, 2} inches across the head,

HUGH MILLER. XXL

and 3-10ths of an inch thick in the stem, and formed a cha- racteristic feature of the Asterolepis, as yet the most gigantic of the ganoid fishes, and probably one of the first of the Old Red Sandstone. In his former researches, our author had | found that all of the many hundred ichthyolites which he had disinterred from the Lower Old Red Sandstone were com- paratively of a small size, while those in the Upper Old Red were of great bulk ; and hence he had naturally inferred, that vertebrate life had increased towards the close of the system,—that, in short, it began with an age of dwarfs, and ended with an age of giants ; but he had thus greatly erred, like the supporters of the development system, in founding positive conclusions on merely negative evidence ; for here, at the very base of the system, where no dwarfs were to be found, he had discovered one of the most colossal of its giants.

After this most important discovery, Mr Miller extended his inquiries easterly for several miles along the bare and un- wooded Lake of Stennis, about fourteen miles in circumfer- ence, and divided into an upper and lower sheet of water by two long promontories jutting out from each side, and nearly meeting in the middle. The sea enters this lake through the openings of a long rustic bridge ; and hence the lower divi- sion of the lake “is salt in its nether reaches, and brackish in its upper ones; while the higher division is merely brackish in its nether reaches, and fresh enough in its upper ones to be potable.” The fauna and flora of the lake are therefore of a mixed character, the marine and fresh-water animals having each their own reaches, though each kind makes cer- tain encroachments on the province of the other.

In the marine and lacustrine floras of the lake, Mr Miller observed changes still more palpable. At the entrance of the sea, the Fucus nodosus and Fucus vesiculosus flourish in tneir proper form and magnitude. A little farther on the lake, the F. nodosus disappears, and the F. vesiculosus, though

*KX1V. HUGH MILLER.

continuing to exist for mile after mile, grows dwarfish and stunted, and finally disappears, giving place to rushes and other aquatic grasses, till the lacustrine has entirely dis- placed the marine flora. From these two important facts,— the existence of the fragment of Asterolepis in the lower flag- stones of the Orkneys, and of the “ curiously mixed semi- marine, semi-lacustrine vegetation in the Loch of Stennis,” which our author regards as bearing directly on the develop- ment hypothesis,—he takes occasion to submit that hypothesis to a severe examination, and to point out its consequences, —its incompatibility with the great truths of morality and revealed religion. According to Professor Oken, one of the ablest supporters of the development theory, “there are two kinds of generation in the world,—the creation proper, and the propagation that is sequent thereon, or the original and secondary generation. Consequently, no organism has been created of larger size than an infusorial point. No or- ganism is, or ever has been created, which is not microscopic. Whatever is large has not been created, but developed. Man has not been created, but developed.” Hence it follows that during the great geological period, when race after race was destroyed, and new forms of life called into being, “ nature had been pregnant with the human race,” and that immor- tal and intellectual Man is but the development of the Brute, —itself the development of some monad or mollusc, which has been smitten into life by the action of electricity upon a portion of gelatinous matter.

If the development theory be true, “ the early fossils ought to be very small] in size,” and “ very low in organization.” In the earliest strata we ought to find only “mere embryos ana fetuses ; and if we find instead the full-grown and mature, then must we hold that the testimony of geology is not only not mm accordance with the theory, but in positive opposition to it.” Having laid this down as the prineiple by which the

r

HUGH MILLER. XXYV.

question is to be decided, our author proceeds to consider “what are the facts.” The Asterolepis of Stromness seems to be the oldest organism yet discovered in the most ancient _ geological system of Scotland in which vertebrate remains occur. It is probably the oldest Coelacanth that the world has yet produced; for there is no certain trace of this family in the great Silurian system, which lies underneath, and on ‘which, according to our existing knowledge, organic exist- ence first began.” ‘How, then,” asks Mr Miller, “on the two relevant points,—bulk and organization,—does it an- swer to the demands of the development hypothesis? Was it a mere foetus of the finny tribe, of minute size and imper- _ fect embryonic faculty? Or was it of at least the ordinary | bulk, and, for its class, of the average organization ?’ | In order to answer these questions, Mr Miller proceeds in | his third chapter to give the recent history of the Astero- lepis ; in his fourth, to ascertain the cerebral development of - the earlier vertebrata ; and in his fifth chapter, to describe _ the structure, bulk, and aspect of the Asterolepis. In the rocks of Russia certain fossil remains had been long ago dis- covered, of such a singular nature as to have perplexed La- marck and other naturalists. Their true place among fishes was subsequently ascertained by M. Hichwald, a living na- turalist ; and Sir Roderick Murchison found that they were - ichthyolites of the Old Red Sandstone. Agassiz gave them the name of Chelonichthys ; but in consequence of very fine specimens having been found in the Old Red Sandstone of Russia, which Professor Asmus of Dorpat sent to the British Museum, and which exhibited star-like markings, he aban- doned his name of Chelonichthys, and adopted that of Astero- lepis, or star-scale, which Eichwald had proposed. Many points, however, respecting this curious fossil remained to be determined ; and it was fortunate for science that Mr Miller was enabled to accomplish this object by means of a variety

OE IS Mm Oe

XXVi. HUGH MILLER.

of oo eiecte specimens which he received from Mr Robert —

Dick, “an intelligent tradesman of Thurso, one of those ~ working men of Scotland, of active curiosity and well-de- veloped intellect, that give character and standing to the rest.” Agassiz had inferred, from very imperfect fragments, that the Asterolepis was a strongly-helmed fish of the Oela- canths, or hollow-spine family,—that it was probably a flat-

headed animal,—and that the discovery ofa head or of a jaw — might prove that the genus Dendrodus did not differ from it, —

_———ee Se

es eel

:

All these conjectures were completely confirmed by Mr Miller, —

after a careful examination of the specimens of Mr Dick.

Before proceeding to describe the structure of the gigantic

Asterolepis, Mr Miller devotes a long and elaborate chapter to the subject of the cerebral development of the earlier ver- tebrata, in order to ascertain in what manner their true brains were lodged, and to discover the modification which the cra- nium, as their protecting box, received in subsequent periods, This inquiry, which he has conducted with great skill and ability, is not only highly interesting in itself, but will be found to have a direct bearing on the great question which it is his object to discuss and decide.

The facts and reasonings contained in this chapter will, we doubt not, shake to its very base the bold theory of Pro- fessor Oken, which has been so generally received abroad, and which is beginning to find supporters even among the solid thinkers of our own country. In the “Isis” of 1818, Professor Lorenz Oken has given the following account of the hypo- thesis to which we allude :—‘“ In August 1806,” says he, “I made a journey over the Hartz. I slid down through the wood on the south side, and straight before me, at my very feet, lay a most beautiful blanched skull ofa hind, I picked it up, turned it round, regarded it intensely ;—the thing was done. ‘It is a vertebral column,’ struck me like a flood of lightning, ‘to the marrow and bone; and

il

HUGH MILLER. XXVil.

since that time the skull has been regarded as a vertebral column.” ,

This remarkable hypothesis was at first received with en- thusiasm by the naturalists of Germany, and, among others, by Agassiz, who, from grounds not of a geological kind, has more recently rejected it. It has been adopted by our dis- tinguished countryman Professor Owen, and forms the cen- tral idea in his lately published and ingenious work “ On the Nature of Limbs.” The conclusion at which he arrives, that the fore-limbs of the vertebrata are the ribs of the occipital bone or vertebra set free, and (in all the vertebrata higher in the scale than the ordinary fishes) carried down along the vertebral column by a sort of natural] dislocation, is a deduc- tion from the idea that startled Professor Oken in the forest of the Hartz. Whatever support this hypothesis might have expected from Geology has been struck from beneath it by this remarkable chapter of Mr Miller’s work ; and though anatomists may for a while maintain it under the influence of so high an authority as Professor Owen, we are much mis- taken if it ever forms a part of the creed of the geologist. Mr Miller, indeed, has, by a most skilful examination of the heads of the earliest vertebrata known to geologists, proved that the hypothesis derives no support from the structure which they exhibit; and Agassiz has even upon general prin- ciples rejected it as untenable.

Mr Miller’s next chapter, on the structure, bulk, and as- pect of the Asterolepis, is, like that which precedes it, the work of a master, evincing the highest powers of observation and analysis. Its size in the larger specimens must have been very great ; and from a comparison of the proportion of the head in the ganoids to the length of the body, which is sometimes as one to five, or one to six, or one to six and a half, or even one to seven, our author concludes that the total length of the specimens in his possession must have been

XXViil HUGH MILLER.

at least eight feet three inches, or from nine feet nine to nine feet ten inches. The remains of an Asterolepis found by

Mr Dick at Thurso indicate a length of from twelve feet five —

to thirteen feet eight inches ; and one of the Russian speci- mens of Professor Asmus must have been from eighteen to twenty-three feet long. “Hence,” says Mr Miller, “in the not unimportant circumstance of size, the most ancient Ce- lacanths yet known, instead of taking their places, agreeably to the demands of the development hypothesis, among the sprats, sticklebacks, and minnows of their class, took their place among its huge basking sharks, gigantic sturgeons, and bulky swordfishes. They were giants, not dwarfs.” Again, judging by the analogies which its structure exhibits to that of fishes of the existing period, the Asterolepis must have been a fish high in the scale of organization.

A specimen of Asterolepis discovered by Mr Dick among the Thurso rocks, and sent to Mr Miller, exhibited the sin- gular phenomenon of a quantity of thick tar lying beneath it, which stuck to the fingers when lifting the pieces of rock. “What had been once the nerves, muscles, and blood of this an- cient ganoid, still lay under its bones,”—a phenomenon which our author had previously seen beneath the body of a poor suicide, whose grave in a sandy bank had been laid open by the encroachments of a river, the sand beneath it having been “ consolidated into a dark-coloured pitchy mass,” extending a full yard beneath the body. In like manner, the animal juices of the Asterolepis had preserved its remains, by “ the pervading bitumen, greatly more conservative in its effects than the oil and gum of an old Egyptian undertaker.” The bones, though black as pitch, retained to a considerable de- gree the peculiar qualities of the original substance, in the same manner as the adipocere of wet burying-grounds pre- serves fresh and green the bones which it incloses,

In support of his anti-development views, Mr Miller de-

PSS ee lo — pnt

HUGH MILLER. Xxix.

votes his next and sixth chapter to the recent history, order,

and size of the fishes of the Upper and Lower Silurian rocks, Of these ancient formations, the bone-bed of the Upper Lud- low rocks is the only one which, besides defensive spines of fish, contains teeth, fragments of jaws, and shagreen points; whereas in the inferior deposits defensive spines alone are found. The species discovered by Professor Phillips in the Wenlock shale were microscopic; and the author of the “'Vestiges” took advantage of this insulated fact to support his views, by pronouncing the little creatures to which the species belonged as the foetal embryos of their class) Mr Miller has, however, even on this ground, defeated his op- ponent. By comparing the defensive spines of the Onchus Murchison of the Upper Ludlow bed with those of a recent Spinax Acanthias, or dog-fish, and of the Cestracion Phil- lippi, or Port-Jackson shark, he arrives at the conclusion, that the fishes to which the species belonged must be all of considerable size ; and in the following chapter on the high standing of the placoids, he shows that the same early fishes were high in intelligence and organization.

In his ninth chapter, on the “ History and Progress of De- gradation,” our author enters upon a new and interesting suo- ject. The object of it is to determine the proper ground on which the standing of the earlier vertebrata should be de- cided, namely, the test of what he terms homological sym- metry of organization. In nature there are monster families, just as there are in families monster individuals, —men without feet, hands, or eyes, or with them in a wrong place, sheep with legs growing from their necks, ducklings with wings on their haunches, and dogs and cats with more legs than they require. We have thus, according to our author -—1, monstrosity through defect of parts ; 2, monstrosity through redundancy of parts ; and, 3, monstrosity through dis- placement of parts. This last species, united in some cases

KAX, , HUGH MILLER.

with the other two, our author finds curiously exemplified in the geological history of the fish, which he considers better ‘known than that of any other division of the vertebrata ; and

he is convinced that it is from a survey of the progress of de- — gradation in the great ichthyic division that the standing of —

the kingly fishes of the earlier periods is to be determined. In the earliest vertebrate period, namely, the Silurian,

our author shows that the fishes were homologically symme-

trical in their organization, as exhibited in the placoids. In the second great ichthyic period, that of the Old Red Sand- stone, he finds the first example in the class of fishes, of mon- strosity by displacement of parts. In all the ganoids of the period there is the same departure from symmetry as would take place in man if his neck was annihilated, and the arms stuck to the back of the head. In the Coccostews and Pter- ichthys of the same period he fiuds the first example of de- gradation through defect, the former resembling a human monster without hands, and the latter, one without feet, After ages and centuries have passed away, and then after the termination of the Paleozoic period, a change takes place in the formation of the fish tail. ‘‘ Other ages and centuries pass away, during which the reptile class attains to its fullest development in point of size, organization, and number ; and then, after the times of the cretaceous deposits have begun, we find yet another remarkable monstrosity of displacement

introduced among all the fishes of one very numerous order, —

and among no inconsiderable proportion of the fishes of ano- ther. In the newly-introduced Ctenoids (Acanthopterygii ), and in those families of the Cycloids which Cuvier erected into the order Malacopterygit sub-brachiati, the hinder limbs are brought forward and stuck on to the base of the previously misplaced fore limbs, All the four limbs, by a strange mon- strosity of displacement, are crowded into the place of the extinguished neck. And: such, in the present day, is* the

SS

HUGH MILLER. ; XXX1,

prevalent type among fishes. Monstrosity through defect is also found to increase ; so that the snake-like apoda, or feet- wanting fishes, form a numerous order, some of whose genera are devoid, as in the common eels and the congers, of only the hinder limbs, while in others, as in the genera Murena and Syntranchus, both hinder and fore limbs are wanting.” From these and other facts our author concludes that, as in existing fishes we find many more proofs of the monstrosity, both from displacement and defect of parts, than in all the other three classes of the vertebrata, and as these monstro- sities did not appear early, but late, “the progress of the race as a whole, though it still retains not a few of the higher _ forms, has been a progress, not of development from the low to the high, but of degradation from the high to the low.” An extreme example of the degradation of distortion super- added to that of displacement may be seen in the flounder, plaice, halibut, or turbot,—fishes of a family of which there is no trace in the earlier periods. The creature is twisted half _ round and laid on itsside. The tail, too, is horizontal. Half the features of its head are twisted to one side, and the other half to the other; while its wry mouth is in keeping with its squint eyes. One jaw is straight, and the other like a bow; and while one contains from four to siz teeth, the other con- tains from thirty to thirty-“ve.

Aided by facts like these, an ingenious theorist might, as our author remarks, “ get up as unexceptionable a theory of _ degradation as of development.” But however this may be, the principle of degradation actually exists, and “the history of its progress in creation bears directly against the assump- tion that the earlier vertebrata were of a lower type than the vertebrata of the same ichthyic class: which exist now.”

{n his next and éenth. chapter, our author controverts, with his usual power, the argument in favour of the development hypothesis drawn from the predominance. of the brachiopods

~

xxxiL HUGH MILLER.

among the Silurian molluscs. The existence of the highly organized cephalopods in the same formation, not only neu tralizes this argument, but authorizes the conclusion that an animal of a very high order of organization existed in th earliest formation. It is of no consequence whether the c phalopods or the brachiopods were most numerous. Had there been only one cuttle-fish in the Silurian seas, and a million of brachiopods, the fact would equally have overturned the development system,

In the same chapter, Mr Miller treats of the geological history of the fossil flora, which has been pressed into the service of the development hypothesis. On the authority of Adolphe Brongniart, it was maintained that, previous to the age of the Lias, ‘‘ Nature had failed to achieve a tree, and that the rich vegetation of the Coal Measures had been ex- clusively composed of magnificent immaturities of the vege- table kingdom, of gigantic ferns and club-mosses that attained to the size of forest trees, and of thickets of the swamp-loving horse-tail family of plants.” True exogenous trees, however, do exist of vast size, and in great numbers, in all the coal- fields of our own country, as has been proved by Mr Miller. Nay, he himself discovered in the Old Red Sandstone, lignite, which is proved to have formed part of a true gymnosper- mous tree, represented by the pines of Europe and America, or more probably, as Mr Miller believes, by the Araucarians of Chili and New Zealand. ‘This important discovery is pregnant with instruction. The ancient conifer must have — waved its green foliage over dry land; and it is not probable that it was the only tree in the primeval forest. “The ship carpenter,” as our author observes, “ might have hopefully taken axe in hand to explore the woods for some such stately pine as the one described by Milton,—

4 {

‘ Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast Of some great admiral.’”

: sf ’ ' 4 z*

HUGH MILLER. XXX1iL

Viewing this olive leaf of the Old Red Sandstone as not at all devoid of poetry, our author invites us to a voyage from the latest formation up to the first zone of the Silurian for- mation, thus passing from ancient to still more ancient scenes of being, and finding, as at the commencement of our voy- age, a graceful intermixture of land and water, continent, river, and sea.

But though the existence of a true placoid, a real verte- brated fish, in the Cambrian Limestone of Bala, and of true wood at the base of the Old Red Sandstone, are utterly in- compatible with the development hypothesis, its supporters, thus driven to the wall, may take shelter under the vague and unquestioned truth that the lower plants and animals preceded the higher, and that the order of creation was fish, reptiles, birds, mammalia, quadrumana, and man. From this resource, too, our author has cut off his opponents, and pro- ceeds to show that such an order of creation, “‘ at once won- derful and beautiful,” does not afford even the slightest pre- sumption in favour of the hypothesis which it is adduced to support.

This argument is carried on in a popular and amusing dia- logue in the eleventh chapter. Mr Miller shows in the clearest manner, that “superposition is not parental rela- tion,” or that an organism lying above another gives us no ground for believing that the lower organism was the parent of the higher. The theorist, however, looks only at those phases of truth which are in unison with his own views; and when truth presents no such favourable aspect, he finally wraps himself up in the folds of ignorance and ambiguity,— the winding-sheet of error refuted and exposed. We have not yet penetrated, says he, in feeble accents, to the forma- tions which represent the dawn of being, and the simplest organism may yet be detected beneath the lowest fossiliferous rocks. This undoubtedly may be, and Sir Charles Lyell and

c

XXXIV. HUGH MILLER.

Mr Leonard Horner are of opinion that such rocks may yet be discovered ; while Sir Roderick Murchison, and Professor Sedgwick, and Mr Miller, are of an opposite opinion. But even were such rocks discovered to-morrow, it would not follow that their organisms gave the least support to the de- velopment hypothesis. In the year 1837, when fishes were not discovered in the Upper Silurian rocks, the theorist would have rightly predicted the existence of lower fossiliferous beds ; but wuen they are discovered, and their fossils exa- mined, they furnish the strongest argument that could be desired against the theory they were expected to sustain. This fact, no doubt, is so far in favour of the supposition that there may be still lower fossil-bearing strata; but, as Mr Miller observes, “ ‘The pyramid of organized existence, as it ascends into the bypast eternity, inclines sensibly towards its apex,—that apex of ‘beginning’ in which, on far other than geological grounds, it is our privilege to believe. The

——————

broad base of the superstructure planted on the existing scene

stretches across the entire scale of life, animal and vegetable ; but it contracts as it rises into the past: man,—the quadru mana,—the quadrupedal mammal,—the bird,—and the rep- tile,—are each in succession struck from off its breadth, till we at length see it with the vertebrata, represented by only the fish, narrowing, as it were, to a point; and though the clouds of the upper region may hide its apex, we infer, from the decli- nation of its sides, that it cannot penetrate much farther into

- the profound.” In our author’s next chapter,—the twel/th of the series,—

he proceeds to examine the “ Lamarckian hypothesis of the origin of plants, and its consequences.”

In his thirteenth chapter, on “The Two Floras, Marine and Terrestrial,” he has shown that all our experience is op- posed to the opinion that the one has been transmuted into the other. If the marine had been converted into terrestrial

HUGH MILLER. XXXV.

vegetation, we ought to have, in the Lake of Stennis, for ex- ample, plants of an intermediate character between the alge of the sea and the monocotyledons of the lake. But no such transition plants are found. The alge, as our author observes, become dwarfish and ill-developed. They cease to exist as the water becomes fresher, “until at length we find, instead of the brown, rootless, flowerless fucoids and conferve of the ocean, the green, rooted, flowering flags, rushes, and aquatic grasses of the fresh water. Many thousands of years have failed to originate a single intermediate plant.” The same conclusion may be drawn from the character of the vegeta- tion along the extensive shores of Britain and Ireland. No botanist has ever found a single plant in the transition state. The fourteenth chapter of the “ Foot-prints” will be perused with great interest by the general reader. It is a power- ful and argumentative exposure of the development hypothe- sis, and of the manner in which the subject has been treated in the ‘‘Vestiges.” Whether we consider it in its nature, in its history, or in the character of the intellects with whom ‘t originated, or by whom it has been received and supported, Mr Miller has shown that it has nothing to recommend it. lt existed as a wild dream before Geology had any being as a science. It was broached more than a century ago by De Maillet, who knew nothing of the geology even of his day. In a transiation of his “Telliamed,” published in 1750, Mr Miller finds very nearly the same account given of the ori- _gin of plants and animals as that in the “ Vestiges,” and in which the sea is described as that “great and fruitful womb of nature in which organization and life first begin.” Lamarck, though a skilful botanist and conchologist, was unacquainted with Geology ; and as he first published his development hy- pothesis in 1802 (an hypothesis identical with that of the “Vestiges”), it is probable that he was not then a very skil- ful zoologist. Nor has Professor Oken any higher claims to

’

xXXVi. HUGH MILLER.

geological acquirements. He confesses that he wrote the first edition of his work in a kind of inspiration / and it is not difficult to estimate the intelligence of the inspiring idol that announced to the German sage that the globe was a vast crys- tal, a little flawed in the facets, and that quartz, feldspar, and mica, the three constituents of granite, were the hail-drops of heavy showers of stone that fell into the original ocean, and accumulated into rocks at the bottom !

Such is the unscientific parentage of the theories promul- gated in the “ Vestiges.” But the author of this work ap- peals in the first instance to science. Astronomy, Geology, Botany, and Zoology, are called upon to give evidence in his favour; but the astronomer, geologist, botanist, and zoolo- gist, all refuse him their testimony, deny his premises, and reject his results. “ Itis not,’ as Mr Miller happily observes, “the illiberal religionist that casts him off ;—it is the induc- tive philosopher.” Science addresses him in the language of the possessed :—“ The astronomer I know, and the geologist I know; but who are ye?’ Thus left alone in a cloud of star-dust, or in brackish water between the marine and ter- restrial flora, he ‘‘ appeals from science to the want of it,” casts a stone at our scientific institutions, and demands a jury of “ordinary readers,” as the only ‘tribunal’ by which “the new philosophy is to be truly and righteously judged.”

The last and fifteenth chapter.of Mr Miller’s work, “On the Bearing of Final Causes on Geologic History,” if read with care and thought, will prove at once delightful and in- structive. The principle of final causes, or the conditions of ex- istence, affords a wide scope to our reason in Natural History, but especially in Geology. It becomes an interesting inquiry, if any reason can be assigned why at certain periods species hogan to exist, and became extinct after the lapse of lengthened periods of time ; and why the higher classes of being succeeded the lower in the order of creation, |The incompleteness of

HUGH MILLER. XXXVIL

get logical science, however, does not permit us to remove, for the present, the veil which hangs over this mysterious chrono- logy ; but our author is of opinion that in about a quarter of a century, in a favoured locality like the British islands, geological history ‘will assume a very extraordinary form.”

It is a singular fact, which will yet lead to singular re- sults, that Cuvier’s arrangement of the four classes of verte- brate animals should exhibit the same order as that in which they are found in the strata of the earth. In the fish, the average proportion of the brain to the spinal cord is only as 2 to 1. In the reptile, the ratio is as 24 to 1. In the bird, itisas 3 tol. In the mammailia, it is as 4 to 1; and in man, it is as 23 to 1. No less remarkable is the foetal pro- gress of the human brain, It first becomes a brain resem- bling that of a fish ; then it grows into the form of that of a reptile ; then into that of a bird ; then into that of a mam- miferous quadruped ; and finally it assumes the form of a human brain; “thus comprising in its foetal progress an epitome of geological history, as if man were in himself a compendium of all animated nature, and of kin to every crea- ture that lives.”

With these considerations, Mr Miller has brought his subject to the point at which science, in its onward progress, now stands. It is to embryology we are in future to look for further information upon the most intimate relations which exist between all organized beings. We may fairly entertain the hope that the time is not far when we shall not only fully understand the plan of creation, but even lift some corner of the veil which has hitherto prevented us from form- ing adequate ideas of the first introduction of animal and ve- getable life upon earth, and of the changes which both king- doms have undergone in the succession of geological ages.

L. AGASSIZ. Cambridge, Sevtember 1850.

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PREFATORY REMARKS BY MRS MILLER.

More than half-a-dozen years have now elapsed since a new edition of the “ Foot-prints of the Creator” came into re- quisition, and yet since that time it has failed to be reprinted. Under these circumstances, it becomes necessary to state the reasons for this long delay, as well as those which now render it both practicable and desirable that it should once more be brought before the public. I think it may be safely averred, that the chief cause of its disappearance lay in the failing health of its author. He was not able to keep up with the demands of the time. It had so happened that one of those alternations in the progress of discovery which are commoyx enough, although we do not always notice them, had just occurred in connection with this book. There are ebbs and

_ flows in the history of every science, which take place on the

line where the great ascertained facts of the past and those of the future meet, and where, for the moment, they present an appearance of confusion and conflict. Some such phenomenon,

el RO GE og eee ~~

“ye po ey

- a Seales

a

Xu. PREFATORY REMARKS

on a more remarkable scale than usual, had just taken place in the history of Geology. The evidence of almost all the first — English authorities in regard to certain fish-spines and de- — fences said to be found in the regions of Lower Siluria had — broken down. They had mistaken portions of crustacea for 4 portions of fish.* Accordingly, nearly a whole chapter of the “ Foot-prints,” founded upon these supposed discoveries, had to be erased, and some portion of the work re-written. “I must omit that chapter,” said the author, “and strengthen the general argument.” But pressure of other work, an increasingly irritable brain, and severe attacks of inflamma- tion of the lungs, to which he was subject in his latter years, prevented these intentions from being fulfilled. I think, too, that he was partly influenced by a desire to wait, in order to see what direction the progress of real discovery was likely to take. Was the Upper Ludlow bone-bed, at the top of the Silurians, to be the final resting-place where ichthyic life had its first beginnings? or was discovery of a more solid kind again to take its course downwards? Might not this chapter be soon supplanted by another, when geolo- gists, guarded against erroneous conclusions by former mis- takes, would be able to prove the earlier introduction of fish by evidence quite unimpeachable? Alas! were his hand now engaged on the task before me, a very noble chapter would doubtless have been written, in lieu of that which he intended to efface. It is true that re-discovery does not progress very rapidly, but it moves surely in the direction he anticipated. Many hundred feet below the Upper Lud-

* See Mr Salter’s Note, p. 315.

BY MRS MILLER. xii.

low boue-bed, with the Aymestry Limestone intervening, lie the Lower Ludlow rocks ; and there, in 1859, the Rev. Mr Lee of Caerleon, in company with Mr Lightbody of Ludlow, found a Pteraspis,—a genus closely allied to the Cephalaspis, —in the quarries of Leintwardine, Herefordshire. Regard- ing this, the Rev. Mr Symonds of Pendock writes me,— “JT visited the quarry, at the request. of Sir C. Lyell, and was shown the spot from which the specimen was procured, by Mr Lightbody. ‘There can be no doubt about the strata belonging to the Lower Ludlow rocks of Murchison, and some characteristic fossils are imbedded in the same slab

_ which contains the Pteraspis.”* Not only from this, but owing to some other circumstances, which we shall presently endeavour to explain, the family of the Cephalaspide have risen into much more importance ° than they possessed at the date of the ‘“ Foot-prints.” Ce- phalaspis ornatus, and Auchenaspis, another closely-allied

genus, were found in another Ludlow bed, occupying a rather higher level than the original one, before the publication of Sir Roderick Murchison’s last edition of “Siluria.” (See “Siluria,” p. 155.) In the tilestones or transition beds be- _ tween the Siluria and the Old Red, Cephalaspis and Pteraspis again appear. ‘In Shropshire,” says Sir R. Murchison, in recounting many instances of the same nature,—“ in Shrop-

Swf

* “No one,” says Mr Symonds, in a quite recent work, entitled ** Old Bones, or Notes for Young Naturalists,” ‘‘save the geologist, who knows the thickness of the Upper Ludlow shales, and the Aymestry limestone which intervenes between the site of the deposition of the Pteraspis truncatus and that of the Pteraspis Ludensis, can adequately comprehend how much the discovery of this little fish antedates the period during which fish have now been proved to have existed on our planet.”

Sa i a cr el

alii PREFATORY REMARKS

shire we find, in ascending from the tilestones into the maria _

and sandstones, with concretions of argillaceous limestones

(and the same phenomenon re-occurs near Kington, in Here- _ fordshire), that other species of Pteraspis occur, as well as

other species of Cephalaspis, and particularly the C. Lyelli; —

and thus we are conducted at once into the great formation — which, in parts of Scotland, also contains the same species,” * — Other characteristic organisms,—the large crustacean Ptery- ; gotus gigas, for example, with its egg-packets, long known by — the name of Parka decipiens,—are found associated with — the Cephalaspide, and tell the same story. These facts, the —

reader will perceive, prove two things: first, that the Ce-

phalaspid, which include Cephalaspis, Pteraspis, and Auch- —

enaspis, are unquestionably, as geological discovery at pre-

sent stands, the earliest forms of vertebrate life; secondly, —

that they and the Pterygoti, &., connect Siluria not with the

Old Red Sandstones of Cromarty and Caithness, prolific of —

ganoid fish, but with the Old Red of Forfarshire, where Cephalaspi and Pterygoti are abundant ; consequently regu- lating the succession of the Old Red Sandstone beds. So that the Cephalaspis beds, wherever they occur, as in Forfar- shire, constitute the Lower Old Red ; and those of the Dip teri and Pterichthyi, &c., must move upwards to occupy the middle place. That this arrangement was the true one, the author of the “ Foot-prints” suspected before he wrote his “‘ Testimony of the Rocks.” In the latter work, in treating of the less known fossil floras of Scotland, after saying that he deemed the evidence of his old reading not so

* See Note B, p. 302.

— = a

BY MRS MILLER. xliii.

conclusive as it was fifteen years ago,—but giving, neverthe- less, his reasons in its favour,—he goes on to say, “ It must, however, be stated, on the other hand, that the crustaceans of the gray tilestones of Forfar and Kincardine not a little re- semble those of the Upper Silurian and red tilestone beds of England ; and that, judging from the ichthyodorulites in both, their fishes must have been at least generically allied. The crustaceans of the Upper Silurian of Lesmahagow, too, seem certainly much akin to those of the Forfarshire tilestones.” Ié is not, however, the positions of the different forma- tions of the Old Red which are of greatest importance as affecting the conclusions of the “ Foot-prints,” but the real place and standing of the earliest known fish, whatever that maybe. Itis for the present a member of the Cephalaspian

family. Again, in a few years, it may be some ichthyo- lite whose name we do not know 3 or, in the course of an- ‘other few years thereafter, the true placoids may again have the start in the race for precedence, thereby bringing the “ Foot-prints” literally right, like the hand of a dial coming ‘round again to the hour. Whatever the reigning family may be which takes its place as jirst,—if we wish to test it by the development hypothesis,—it must submit to be put to the question, as the author of the “ Foot-prints” questions | the Asterolepis of Stromness,—“ How, on the two relevant points,—bulk and organization,—does it answer to the de- mands of that hypothesis? Was it a mere foetus of the finny tribe, of minute size and imperfect embryonic faculty ? or was it of at least the ordinary bulk, and, for its class, of the average organization?” On these points the reader may partly judge for himself, by turning to the Notes, and

=

-_ iene ————

a =

xliv. PREFATORY REMARKS

inspecting the plate which is there given, and which forms, as nearly as may be, a restoration of the Cephalaspis. : only part which seems at all doubtful is the tail. I have been shown the specimen from which the engraving we taken by the gentleman in whose possession it is—Mr Pow- rie of Reswallie, one of the best collectors and geologists i Forfarshire. The indications of a large and powerful tail are unmistakeable ; but most unfortunately the quarrymar : who disinterred the slab in which this fine specimen was found, and which showed at first only the foremost part of the skull, did not make sufficient allowance for the size of the animal, when reducing the slab to a portable size, and a great part of the tail was consequently cut away. The plates of the head, the pectoral fins, and the eye-orbits, are all as distinct as if freshly cut by the tool of the engraver out of wood or stone. Ina second specimen, the capsules of the eyes are preserved. The whole body in the larger specimen is closel covered with apparently very strong scales of a rhomboidal form. Here, then, there is no longer need of guess-work from spines, teeth, and pieces of shagreen, but an absolute form, which the most unpractised eye may discern to be no

foetus or half-developed crustacean, but a fish in all respects as perfectly organized after its kind as any fish—the lepi- dosteus, for example—of the present day. Nor is it among. the lower orders of existing fishes that the first comparative anatomists seek its analogues. Both Professor Owen and Professor Huxley, though differing in their ideas of classifi- cation, find these in the Siluroids,—an order of teleostean or bony fishes. The first of those great authorities, follow- ing Agassiz, retains the ganoid order intact, as adopted by

BY MRS MILLER. xly.

Hugh Miller in the “ Foot-prints” and his other works. But this Owen divides into two sub-orders, viz, placo-ga- noids, or ganoids covered with plates; and lepido-ganoids, or those covered with scales. In the former he places the Ce- phalaspide, including Pteraspis Ludensis,—the earliest known fish,—Coccosteus, Pterichthys, Asterolepis, &c. The lepido- ganoids include the Acanthodes, Diplacanthus, Cheiracan- ‘thus, and Cheirolepis ; likewise the Ccelacanths, as Glypto- lepis, Phyllolepis, and the Holoptychide.

Professor Huxley, on the other hand, demurs altogether | to Agassiz’s ganoid order, as it at present stands. He ex- | cludes from it the Siluroids (the analogues of the Cephalaspi- de), asserting that they are in no respect different from Tele- _ostei or true bony fishes, and says that the true ganoids are in- | termediate between the Zeleostei and Hlasmobranchit, or what are commonly called cartilaginous fishes. In this he follows Johannes Miiller, “since whose researches,” he says, “ the term Ganoidei has been received in a very different sense by the great mass of naturalists.” The term is restricted by ' Huxley to six genera of existing fishes; but as the charac- teristics depend on certain peculiarities of the brain, of the optic nerve, the aorta, &c., they must for ever remain undis- cernible by the great mass of readers, to whom Agassiz’s classification has the great advantage of being simple and easy of comprehension. Indeed, whether any classification is _ possible which, in the nice gradation of nature’s handiworks, _ shading off in all directions, does not include some anomalies, remains to be seen. With regard to these differences of opinion, Sir Philip Egerton writes me (with a kind permis- sion to quote from his letter) as lows :—“I am of opinion

xlvi. PREFATORY REMARKS

that the balance of evidence is in favour of the ganoid affini ties [of the Cephalaspide]; but I do think that there a sufficient grounds for dividing the ganoids of Agassiz, an adopting M‘Coy’s term Placostei,* or Owen’s Placo-Ganoide T prefer the latter, as Placostei is used by the Germans a synonymous with Placoidei. In this case, the Cephalaspide would form a family of the placo-ganoid sub-order.”

Whether we abide by Agassiz’s arrangement, modified bj | Professor Owen’s subdivisions, or, with Professor Huxley desire to adopt a more recondite and exclusive style of classi fication, for whose gradual development we must patient] wait until farther researches and clearer evidence will have brought it to light,—in any case it is worthy of remark, that Professor Huxley in no way endeavours to exclude the Cephalaspide from the true ganoids, in order to degrade them, but precisely the contrary. On this point his opinion is un- doubtedly entitled to great weight. Let us hear what h says :—

“Without doubt, there is a singularly close resemblance in the structure of the dermal plates, between Cephalaspis and: Megalichthys,—the last being very probably a true ganoid 3 but the point of difference is noteworthy ;—% is precisely the characteristic ganoid layer which is absent in Cephalaspis. On the other hand, the arrangement of the hard tissues in Pteraspis reminds one almost as strongly of Ostracion, an undoubted feleostean. The existing fishes to which Cepha- laspis presents the nearest resemblance in form,—viz, Lori- caria and Callichthys,—are Siluroid teleosteans, and not

* See the latter part of Note C, p. 309.

BY MRS MILLER. xlvii.

_ganoids ; and if we take the immediate allies of Cephalaspis and Pteraspis,—viz., Coccosteus and Pterichthys,—their ana- logies with Siluroids, such as Bagrus and Doras, are as strong as those with Accipenser (one of his six true ganoids). A careful consideration of the facts, then, seems to me to prove only the necessity of suspending one’s judgment. That Ce- | phalaspis and Pteraspis are either ganoids or teleosteans ap- pears certain ; but to which of these orders they belong there is no evidence to show. If this evidence is valid, it is clear that the ordinary assumption that the earliest fishes belonged to low types of organization falls to the ground, whatever may be the relative estimation in which the different orders of fishes are held.”—(Contribution by Professor Husley to the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society for August 1858.)

Professor Pander, again, as the reader will see by turning to Note C, p. 309, wishes to erect the Cephalaspide into é. distinct family, and its nearest allies, the Pterichthys, Coccosteus, &c. into another, to be entitled Placodermata.

From all this we learn, first, that the era of a classification in this department perfectly satisfactory to naturalists has not yet arrived; but that, whatever their opinions on that ' head may be, the earliest known fishes not only show nc signs of imperfection in their organization, but that the tokens of a still higher organization than any displayed by the ganoids of the third period of vertebrate existence,—those of the Middle Old Red, where the author of the “ Foot-prints,” according to the evidence of his day, supposed that ganoid life had its beginning,—their nearer approach, in fact, to the true bony fishes -€ the present day,—is precisely the

x | viii. PREFATORY REMARKS

point which occasions the disagreement of fossil anatomist as to their actual standing. In point of brain, they ar not so highly organized as the placoids, their immediate sue. cessors ; but it is only in the race of discovery that these placo-ganoids have gained the advantage by a single stage ; and presumptive evidence favours the supposition that placoid and ganoid life took their rise together. How far back into the Silurians this may have been, it is as yet impossible iO say. It may be mentioned, by the way, that too many generé were originally erected out of the placoid remains found in the Upper Ludlow bone-bed. A few, too, have proved spu- rious ; but no doubt whatever is entertained regarding som 7 accompanied as they are by pieces of shagreen, which prac- tised eyes, when assisted by the microscope, cannot fail t distinguish from the outer dermal coverings of the pie ganoid fish or crustaceans.

The reader already acquainted with the “ Foot-prints” may have made another observation on some of the opinion we have submitted to him, viz, that the principle embodied | in the chapter entitled “Rank Dependent on Brain, ne Bone,” bids fair to be very generally adopted. Twelve years ago, when the “ Foot-prints” was written, the author had no authority to fall back upon. But now, as we have seen, Pro- fessor Huxley considers it an essential point in the classifi- cation of fishes, and Professor Owen has boldly adopted 1t in regard to the mammalia, though he extends it for the pre sent no farther. The mammalia he distinguishes as perfect- brained, cor. olute-brained, smooth-brained, loose-brained ; i

_* See the Rev. W. S. Symonds’ recent work, before mentioned, io | which Owen’s system is admirably condensed.

BY MRS MILLER. xlix,

so that what twelve years ago was contended for in order to maintain some standing ground against the errors of the _“ Vestiges,” is now coming into use as a first principle of classification.

In undertaking, in present circumstances, to bring before the public a new edition of the “ Foot-prints,” it was difficult to determine whether the chapter on the Silurians ought to

_ be omitted, according to the expressed intention of its author, or no. On this head I consulted Sir Philip Egerton, to whom the work was originally dedicated, and his advice ran as follows :—‘“I am clearly of opinion that the text _ should stand intact, and that such explanations and emenda- _ tions as are required in consequence of recent discovery should be given in notes, or in an introductory chapter. No doubt, had the author lived, he could not have consented to a new edition without making such corrections as were called for, _ in consequence of the break-down of the evidence communi- cated to him by others (for he was not responsible for the facts), on which the arguments are based. But in posthu- _ mous editions, I am of opinion that no alterations of moment should be allowed in the original text. Besides, to omit this chapter would be to suppress one of the most powerful and lucid arguments in the whole book ; and to re-unite it, no _ man living is competent. It is only with reference to the Lower Silurian that the argument fails ; and, after all, the chapter may be prophetic. I see no reason to lead one to suppose that fish remains may not be found below the Upper Silurian.” On this advice—valuable every way—I have acted ; and for all reasons it is satisfactory, both to my-

self and to the public, that every transaction, as it were, be- d

1 PREFATORY REMARKS

tween us in regard to these posthumous volumes should be open and above board. Where the opinions of the present time differ from those of a few years ago, I wish that the grounds of this change should be apparent, in order that the — reader may in all cases judge for himself.

There are now appended to this work two papers, in the © form of addresses to Societies, the Royal Physical of Edin- burgh, and the British Association,—which contain remarks — of a more recent date than the “ Foot-prints,” upon the struc- _ ture of the ancient ganoids. They seem to have been in . some sort supplementary to the “ Foot-prints,” and would — no doubt have been embodied in the new edition which the — author contemplated. I was not aware of the existence of © these papers until Sir Philip Egerton, in preparing his notes ~on the fishes of the Old Red, made inquiries whether Hugh Miller had left any other details on the subject than were to be found in his published writings. Search was made

among certain old repositories, and these lectures found, which, it is hoped, will prove of great interest and of some value to geologists, and to those who like to follow the science into its minuter details. Some repetitions may per- haps be involved ; but the reader will excuse these, as it is impossible altogether to avoid them without destroying the unity of the addresses. Sir Philip Egerton thus expresses himself regarding them :—‘“ I have read carefully and with — great interest the manuscripts you have sent me. That on the structure and relations of the earlier ganoids seems to have been read before some Society. It is a paper of great inte-

—

rest, and would be a most valuable and interesting addition to the reprint of the “ Foot-prints.” You will find a passage

BY MRS MILLER. li.

marked * * which describes the érue nature of the vertebral anatomy of Coccosteus. The other paper was read to the geological section of the British Association at Edinburgh in 1849. As only a short abstract of the latter is given in the volume of the Association, it ought by all means to be printed in full in your new volume ; the more so that it is in itself a kind of supplement to the “ Foot-prints.” As specimens are frequently alluded to, and as woodcuts to such an extent would be very expensive, it would suffice to state in a note that the specimens described are now in the Museum of the University.” These suggestions have been attended to, and I merely quote from the letter to show the source from which they are derived.

These remarks by the author of the “ Foot-prints” on the structural peculiarities of the earlier ganoids embrace, as the reader will perceive, both the placo and the lepido-ga- noids of Owen,—a distinction which the author had not learnt to make, and to which we cannot, of course, now tell how far he would have adhered. But the value of the close and minute observations remain the same, and the more so as it is happily almost confined to structure, and only incidentally glances at the relations of place or position. Hereby the alterations in relative position only impart aa- ditional value to the observations, as enhancing the import- ance of the subject. Members of the great ganoid order of Agassiz have, as we have said, been found in the Upper Ludlow bed, accompanying the placoids, and likewise many hundred feet below it, as yet unaccompanied by other ichthyic remains, The same remarkable family passesupwards through the transition beds, and finds an ample development in the

- —— aa

lii. | PREFATORY REMARKS

Lower Old Red Sandstone; but it there comes to an end, so far

as we know. Other ichthyic forms, however, appear in that

creation, binding together the Lower system with those that follow. The lepido-ganoids of Owen appear in the shape chiefly of the Acanthodes, which, however, diffex specifically from those of Cromarty and Caithness (the Middle Old Red, This discovery of the Acanths, &., as contemporaries cf the Cephalaspis, has but very recently taken place, and was un-

known to Hugh Miller. They tikewise are not signs, but —

things, so very plain that a child may take delight m ex amining them. I have seen some in the collection of Mr Powrie of Reswallie, of which the minute and beautiful scales, the fins, the hungry-looking open jaws full of hooked teeth, may be all microscopically examined. And the ocean of the Lower Old Red seems to have swarmed, too, with its finny

inhabitants.

The Rev. Hugh Mitchell of Craig, near Montrose,—a — most successful collector in this new field,—thus writes me :

—‘ Over a wide district we have detected the indications of an extensive fossil fauna, and even flora. Cephalaspis Lyelli used to be the only complete form of fossil fish known from our rocks ; but, besides another species of Cephalaspid, we possess complete forms of Acanthodes,—Climatius and Diplacanthus.

“We have, besides, with the single exception of the Pteras-

pis, found all the species recorded from the equivalent rocks —

in England, which are either named from spines, such as Onchus, Ctenacanthus, or from jaws with anchylosed teeth, such as Plectrodus. But we have many, very many unnamed spinesand scattered scales, which indicate many discoveries yet

ee

BY MRS MILLER. liii

to be rade in our district. Among the Crustacez we have numerous forms of the genera Pterygotus and Hurypterus, of the family of the Eurypteridz, and others unnamed. Of our flora I can say nothing but that it is entirely unlike that. of the Caithness beds. Some of our genera range upwards, or at least are found in the Caithness beds,—Acanthodes and Diplacanthus,—thus binding them all together into one sys- tem. You will remember how strenuously Hugh Miller

contended for the Old Red Sandstone being assigned a posi-

tion, not as a formation, but as a system, in the geological scheme ; and I should think that the enormous depth of our Forfarshire strata,—some 10,000 feet,—containing, besides, — an abundant and characteristic Paleontology, fully estab. lishes that opinion.

“ The effect, therefore, of recent discoveries is to confirm

in all respects the opinions of Hugh Miller, with the simple

substitution of Middle for Lower, and vice versa ; and in his graphic descriptions—(and, alas! from no other pen do such descriptions come now)—he would have had to people the waters of the period with other forms of life besides the Cephalaspis and the Pterygotus.”

To one other novelty I shall allude before closing this part of the subject, and that is, the discovery by that most invalu- able pioneer of science, Mr Charles Peach, of true bony ver- tebree in other forms of ganoid fish besides the Coccosteus. The reader will have observed that, in a quotation given from a letter of Sir Philip Egerton’s, he alludes to a passage in the supplementary papers, as describing the érwe nature of the vertebral anatomy of Coccosteus,—that is, it had not ossified

vertebral centra, but a persistent notochord, with bony apo-

liv. ' PREFATORY REMARKS

physes. Now, whether the skeletons discovered in Caithness by Mr Peach resembled Coccosteus in this, or whether they had truly ossified vertebral centra, we are as yet not acquainted with the data upon which to decide; but the discovery appears, at any rate, to be a bona fide one. My friend Mr Symonds writes,—“‘ Mr Peach has found a fish allied to the Dipterus, with well-ossified vertebre, in the Middle Old Red of the north of Scotland. Sir P. Egerton has examined the specimen, and writes me word that it is so.” If, indeed, these vertebre are well ossified, there is here a complete revolution in our ideas of the ganoids of the Old Red. — For, if we find some with bony skeletons, the law, hitherto accepted as invariable, that the hard indestructible dermo-skeletons of that period were necessarily connected with frail, perishable, cartilaginous vertebrae, ceases

to be. We should, indeed, almost accept it as presumptive

evidence that all might have possessed bony skeletons, which have only not been preserved, did we not find, as Professor Huxley clearly shows, that among the six forms which he accepts as true ganoids in the present day there are amazing differences in this respect. “In this small group,” he says, “Nature seems to have amused herself with working out every possible variety of endo-skeleton and exo-skeleton. Lepidosteus has a greatly-developed exo-skeleton, and the most Salamandroid vertebra known among fishes. Polypte- rus has an equally well-developed exo-skeleton, and a well- ossified but piscine vertebral column,” &c. &c. With such living examples before us, what can we say, but that it is not easy to set limits to the discursive powers of Nature, or rather, of Nature’s God ?

Nothing very new, we believe, has appeared in behalf of

— TO ee ee

i

BY MRS MILLER lv;

the theories of the “ Vestiges” since the publication of the “ Foot-prints,” unless we accept in that light Mr Darwin’s book on the “ Origin of Species.” While we wish to speak of this work with the respect due to an accomplished na- turalist, we must express our belief that it labours under two disadvantages. Its style is very much less lucid than that of the “ Vestiges,” and so it is less fitted to become widely popular ; and it likewise suffers from the want of implicit faith on the part of its author. This latter defect probably arises from the scientific character of his mind, which makes his theories, in so far as he ventures to carry them out, partly the result of personal investigations, and not altogether of hearsay evidence.

Mr Darwin seems to believe, or to wish to believe, in the thorough transmutation of species,—that any one species, how different soever it may be, can, by a gradual process within the lapse of ages, be changed into any other species, without regard to the element to which it may have belonged. ‘“See- ing,” says he, “that we have flying birds and mammals, fly- ing insects of the most diversified types, and formerly had flying reptiles, it is conceivable that flying-fish, which now glide far through the air, slightly rising and turning by the aid of their fluttering fins, might have been modified into perfectly winged animals. If this had been effected, who would have ever imagined that in an early transitional state they had been inhabitants of the open ocean, and had used their incipient organs of flight exclusively, as far as we know, to escape being devoured by other fishes ?”

Mr Darwin, however, does not believe, with the author of the “ Vestiges,” that all life has been developed from micro-

————— eC CU Cer

lv. PREFATORY REMARKS

scopic cells,—that the fundamental form of organic being is a cell hawing new cells forming within itself. In that axiom, — per se, there may be doubtless some physiological truth, which, rightly accepted, need in no way interfere with the great facts — and mysteries of creation, varied through space and time even ad infinitum. The cell which contains the future oak, and that which contains the future human being, may be as essentially distinct in their kinds, and may no less require an intelligent deviser, and the forthputting of “creative power, than the grown oak and mature human being. They are, if possible, more wonderful, as being more beyond imitation by any contrivance of art. By the creation of microscopic cells God may originate new species when it pleases Him, or, ex- — ceptionally, by the creation of full-grown individuals. The fact of creative power implies an absence of limit to creative power. If we believe that God has created a single micro- scopic cell, containing the germ of a single species, within the past eternity, we must be as philosophically right in be- lieving that he can repeat that act at intervals of ages, years, hours, or moments,—that He may be so occupied now, if not on this planet, in some other part of space.

But Mr Darwin’s efforts at belief do not lie in this direc- tion. He imagines a series of strata, not pre-Adamite sim- ply, but what, for want of another word, we may term pre- geological, in which the types of all living organisms had their primeval habitat. “If my theory be true,” he says, “it is indisputable that, before the lowest Silurian stratum was deposited, long periods elapsed,—as long as, or probably far longer than, the whole interval from the Silurian age to

the present day ; and that, during these vast yet quite un-

' BY MRS MILLER, Ivii.

known periods of time, the world swarmed with living crea- tures.” Again, “ Why do we not find great piles of strata beneath the Silurian system, stored with the remains of the progenitors of the Silurian groupes of fossils? For cer- tainly, on my theory, such strata must somewhere have been deposited at these ancient and utterly unknown epochs in the world’s history ?”

We cannot answer why, except by the simple assertion, grounded on fact, that Nature reveals to us no such thing. But if the imagination go thus far, it may be allowed to goa little farther. What kind of beings inhabited those primeval strata? Were they perfectly developed after their kind, or only rudimentary? Were their organs of vision,

for example, adapted to their modes of life, like those of the trilobite,—the ancient inhabitant of a really ancient ocean ? or had they but the very beginnings of eyes, striving after a structural adaptation? If the first were the case, where is the use of that laboured hypothesis which requires us to believe that not only living creatures as they exist, but all their organs, are the result of a process of transmutation, which gradually brings them nearer to perfection. -“ He who will go thus far,” says Mr Darwin, “ ought not to hesi- tate to go farther, and to admit that a structure even as per- fect as the eye of an eagle might be formed by natural se- lection, although in this case he does not know any of the transitional grades. ‘His reason ought to conquer his ima- gination,’ though I have felt the difficulty far too keenly to be surprised at any degree of hesitation in extending the prin- ciple of natural selection to such startling lengths.” Was, then, this ancient repository of progenitive life—

lviiL PREFATORY REMARKS

this representative of chaos and old night,—filled only wi y strange rudimentary beings, framed after a pattern unknoy

in this? Or may we not be permitted to ask if the mental process would not be exactly reversed? In order to be able to believe it, must not imagination have wholly conquere reason !

And were those odd uncomfortable creatures governed by laws different from those which have obtained ever since? For, otherwise, how could the transmutation of species be made more manifest in them than in those with which we are acquainted ? But if the laws of nature have not changed,— — if their attribute is to remain constant and invariable,—then f it is not easy to perceive any necessity for such pre-geological — strata, seeing that we ought to be able to turn for a demonstra | tion equally complete, to the things around us. There is surely something egregiously false in a theory which has both to sup- — plant real by supposititious facts, and to comeinto collision with —

that attribute of law without which man’s reason would be —

a oe

useless and his researches vain, And it must be remem- — pered that Mr Darwin confesses, with an incomprehensible

ba SPY

candour, that these imaginations are not mere outworks of his — theory, which he can afford to have struck off, but that they é are absolutely essential to it. We may be permitted here par- — ticularly to call the attention of the reader to that part of the — “ Foot-prints” entitled ‘“‘ The Bearing of the Experience Ar- — gument,” and likewise to that most pregnant passage in the chapter following (p. 246), beginning, “It is not true that human observation has not been spread over a period suffi-

EE il

BY MRS MILLER. lix. |

t tly extended to furnish the necessary data for testing the

, lopment hypothesis.” We think the reader will not fail ‘see that these passages apply at least as much to the “Origin of Species” as to the “ Vestiges of Creation.” _ Furthermore, whether, with the “ Vestiges,” we adopt the “opinion that the principle of life originated in a single cell, from which all subsequent life was evolved by the agency i of magnetism, or imagine, with Mr Darwin, some undisco- 'yered matrix replete with progenitive forms of life, is of little consequence, so far as a heresy against Christianity and the immortality of the soul is concerned. I think we may say likewise of both, as M. Agassiz asserts of the for- “mer in his admirable remarks on the “Foot-prints,”* that ‘they equally involve a heresy against the inductive philo- _sophy. To prove these three positions is, indeed, the ob- ject of the “Foot-prints ;’ nor can we see that the train of reasoning therein expanded is at-all impaired by any one fact or fancy embodied in the work on the origin of spe- cies. Yet, in so far as Mr Darwin bases his reasoning on facts, and not on the absence of them, insomuch as it embraces a series of observations on the elasticity of spe- cies, or their capabilities of expanding into varieties,—an elasticity with which the Creator has, for the wisest pur- poses, endowed them,—just in so far is Mr Darwin’s work @ valuable acquisition to the natural historian, Neverthe-

_ * M. Agassiz, in those remarks on the ‘‘ Foot-prints” and sketch of _ the life of the author published in America, which we have thought ' would prove very acceptable to the English reader, has acknowledged his obligations to Sir David Brewster, and has borrowed largely from a , sketch by that distinguished philosopher, which appeared in the ‘‘ North _ British Review.”

' for the good of the species,—if it is not an INTELLIGED 7

lx. PREFATORY REMARKS

less, we should much like to see it met in detail by some able” living writer. So far as the principle of natural selection, | upon which he relies for the accomplishment of his theory, | depends upon natural causes, it might be shown that natural selection works greatly more against the transmutation 0} species than it operates in its favour ; while there are various barriers in the shape of laws which Mr Darwin acknowledges to be all but insuperable, and which it would be no difficult matter to prove are not almost, but altogether so. |

Again, it could be clearly shown that, when the cause of this natural selection is occult, not natural and obvious,

—when it is a mysterious something, operating in all cases

Cavs, in which all the mental faculties which produce de . sign as a result are actively engaged, then it must be synony- mous with magnetism, which of all natural powers is the most hidden in its operations. This is a blind power, analogous to instinct, and admitted to act selfishly, and exclusivel y for the benefit of its possessor. Such a position can surely be best met, not by details of special design, which Mr Dar-: win throws more daringly, openly, and avowedly overboa 1 than even the author of the “Vestiges,”—and herein is his work especially dangerous,—but by such considerations of special adaptation as are set forth, for example, in Dr M‘Oosh’s admirable work on “Typical Forms and Special Ends in Creation.” We allude to such chapters as “ Adap- tation of Inorganic Objects to Animals and Plants,” and “Special Adjustments needed in order to the Harmony of Cosmical Bodies.” “If it could be proved,” says Mr Darwin, 3 ‘that any part of any one species had been formed for the

‘

BY MRS MILLER lx

exclusive good of another species, it would annihilate my

‘theory, for such could not have been produced through naiu-

selection.” Such a writer as Dr M‘Cosh, we believe, could ‘meet this, and other positions of the same kind, of which this ook is full, both in their details and on more general grounds, ‘go as to do good service to the cause of science and religion. _ But the most efficient protest against this blind exclu- ‘sive theory, which would inaugurate the reign of selfishness . throughout nature, is to be found in the human heart. “Childhood recognises a Father in Heaven in the daily “blessings of its little life; and the more enlightened the _ mind unsophisticated by special theory becomes, the more _is it brought into harmony with this first lesson of the heart. _ As the eyes of the understanding are opened day by day, the ) magnificent adaptations of Nature press forward evermore, as parts of “one stupendous whole.”

The only theory this, capable of a true expansion from the day when man enters upon this mortal scene, until that upon which he bids it an everlasting farewell.

rss)

SIR PHILIP MALPAS DE GREY EGERTON,

BART., M.P., F.R.S. & G.S.

| : To you, Sir, as our highest British authority on fossil fishes, I take the liberty of dedicating this little volume. In tracing the history of Crea- tion, as illustrated in that ichthyic division of the vertebrata which is at once the most ancient and the most extensively preserved, I have intro- duced a considerable amount of fact and observation, for the general

_ integrity of which my appeal must lie, not to the writings of my friends the geologists, but to the strangely significant record inscribed in the rocks, which it is their highest merit justly to interpret and faithfully to transcribe. The ingenious and popular author whose views on Creation

I attempt controverting, virtually carries his appeal from science to the want of it. I would fain adopt an opposite course ; and my use, on this occasion, of your name, may serve to evince the desire which I entertain, that the collation of my transcripts of hitherto uncopied portions of the geologic history with the history itself, should be in the hands of men qualified, by original vigour of faculty, and the patient research of years, either to detect the erroneous or to certify the true. Further, I feel peculiar pleasure in availing myself of the opportunity furnished me by the publication of this little work, of giving expression to my sincere respect for one who, occupying a high place in society, and deriving his

|

Ixiv. DEDICATION. pi, 4

descent from names illustrious in history, has wisely taken up the tra e

position of birth and rank in an enlightened country and age; and y b Ps .

in asserting, by his modest, persevering labours, his proper standing . the scientific world, has rendered himself first among his countrymen in an interesting department of Natural Science, to which there is no aris

*‘ooratic or ‘royal road.”

I have the honour to be, Sir,

With admiration and respect, Your obedient humble Servant, ra

HUGH MOLLER

TO THE READER.

THERE are chapters in this little volume which will, 1 am afraid, be deemed too prolix by the general reader, and which yet the geologist would like less were there any por- tion of them away. They refer chiefly to organisms not hitherto figured nor described, and must owe their modi- cum of value to that very minuteness of detail which, by critics of the merely literary type, unacquainted with fossils, and not greatly interested in them, may be regarded as a formidable defect, suited to overlay the general subject of the work. Perhaps the best mode of compromising the matter may be to intimate, as if by beacon, at the outset, the more repulsive chapters ; somewhat in the way that the servants of the Humane Society indicate to the skater who frequents in winter the lakes in the neighbourhood of Edin- burgh, those parts of the ice on which he might be in dan- ger of losing himself. I would recommend, then, readers not particularly paleontological, to pass but lightly over the whole of my fourth and fifth chapters, with the latter half 3

Ixvi. TO THE READER. of the third, marking, however, as they skim the pages, the — conclusions at which I arrive regarding the bulk and orga- nization of the extraordinary animal described, and the data . on which these are founded. My book, like an Irish land- scape dotted with green bogs, has its portions on which it may be perilous for the unpractised surveyor to make any considerable stand, but across which he may safely take his i sights and lay down his angles. 1 It will, I trust, be found, that in dealing with errors which, in at least their primary bearing, affect questions of — science, I have not offended against the courtesies of scien- tific controversy. True, they are errors which also involve moral consequences. There is a species of superstition — which inclines men to take on trust whatever assumes the name of science, and which seems to be a re-action on the - old superstition, that had faith in witches, but none in Sir — Isaac Newton, and believed in ghosts, but failed to credit } the Gregorian calendar. And, owing mainly to the wide ’ diffusion of this credulous spirit of the modern type, as little disposed to examine what it receives as its ancient wnreason-— | ing predecessor, the development doctrines are doing much ~ harm on both sides of the Atlantic, especially among intelli- — gent mechanics, and a class of young men engaged in the © subordinate departments of trade and the law. And the j harm thns considerable in amount must be necessarily more than merely considerable in degree. For it invariably hap- —

pens, that when persons in these walks become materialists,

they become also turbulent subjects and bad men. ‘That q

belief in the existence after death, which forms the distin- q

guishing instinct of humanity, is too essential a part of man’s ¥

, r * itd tan oe ie vs

TO THE READER. lxviL

‘moral constitution not to be missed when away ; and so, when once fairly eradicated, the life and conduct rarely fail to betray its absence. But I have not, from any considera- _ tion of the mischief thus effected, written as if arguments, like cannon-balls, could be rendered more formidable than in the cool state, by being made red-hot. I have not even felt, in discussing the question, as if I had a man before me _ as an opponent; for though my work contains numerous re- ferences to the author of the “ Vestiges,” I have invariably thought on these occasions, not of the anonymous writer of the volume, of whom I know nothing, but simply of an in- genious, well-written book, unfortunate in its facts, and not always very happy in its reasonings. Further, I do not think that paleontological fact, in its bearing on the points at issue, is of such a doubtful complexion as to leave the geo- logist, however much, from moral considerations, in earnest in the matter, any very serious excuse for losing his temper. In my reference to the three great divisions of the geo- logic scale, I designate as Paleozoic all the fossiliferous rocks, from the first appearance of organic existence down to the close of the Permian system ; all as Secondary, from the close of the Permian system down to the close of the Cre- taceous deposits ; and all as Zertiary, from the close of the Cretaceous deposits down to the introduction of man. The woodcuts of the volume, of which at least nine-tenths of the whole represent objects never figured before, were drawn and cut by Mr John Adams of Edinburgh, with a degree of care and skill which has left me no reason to regret my distance from the London artists and engravers. So far at least as the objects could be adequately represented

xviii. TO THE READER.

on wood, and in the limited space at Mr Adams’ command, — their truth is such that I can safely recommend them to — the paleontologist. In the accompanying descriptions, and — in my statements of geologic fact in general, it will, I hope,

be seen that I have not exaggerated the peculiar features : on which I have founded, nor rendered truth partial in order to make it serve a purpose. Where I have reasoned © and inferred, the reader will of course be able to judge 3 for himself whether the argument be sound or the deduction just ; and to weigh, where I have merely speculated, the probability of the speculation : but as, in at least some of my — statements of fact, he might lie more at my mercy, I have : striven in every instance to make these adequately repre- — sentative of the actualities to which they refer. And so, if it be ultimately found that on some occasions I have misled — others, it will, I hope, be also seen to be only in cases in j which I have been mistaken myself. The first or popular ; title of my work, “ Foot-prints of the Creator,” I owe to Dr — Hetherington, the well-known historian of the Church of — Scotland. My other various obligations to my friends, lite- rary and scientific, the reader will find acknowledged in the — body of the volume, as the occasion occurs of availing my- j self of either the information communicated, or the organ- — ism, recent or extinct, lent me or given.

CONTENTS.

. THE DEVELOPMENT HYPOTHESIS, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES . °

_ THE RECENT HISTORY OF THE ASTEROLEPIS.—ITS FAMILY . .

of

“ahs

oo DEVELOPMENT OF THE EARLIER VERTEBRATA.—ITS APPA- \

bers 9 RENT PRINCIPLE é ‘ 4 J , S ea

TE ASTEROLEPIS.—ITS STRUCTURE, BULK, AND ASPECT : :

| FISHES OF THE SILURIAN ROCKS, UPPER AND LOWER.—THEIR RECENT HISTORY, ORDER, AND SIZE . . . : °

. id

| HIGH STANDING OF THE PLACOIDS.—OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED ;

_ THE PLACOID BRAIN.—EMBRYONIC CHARACTERISTICS NOT NECESSARILY BPTOW ORDER =. ws ll tl

THE PROGRESS OF DEGRADATION.—ITS HISTORY , 2 ‘

EVIDENCE OF THE SILURIAN MOLLUSCS.—OF THE FOSSIL FLORA.—AN-

_ SUPERPOSITION NOT PARENTAL RELATION.— THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE

LAMARCKIAN HYPOTHESIS OF THE ORIGIN OF PLANTS.—ITS CONSE- QUENCES . . ° . .

THE TWO FLORAS, MARINE AND TERRESTRIAL.—BEARING OF THE EX- ; ‘PERIENCE ARGUMENT R , . J ‘ 2

PAGE

35 66

106 123

135 155

177 200

212

Ixx. CONTENTS.

THE DEVELOPMENT HYPOTHESIS IN ITS EMBRYONIC STATE.—OLDER THAN ITS ALLEGED FOUNDATIONS J é . Pee FINAL CAUSES.—THEIR BEARING ON GEOLOGIC HISTORY.—CONOLUSION 268 NOTES . ° : 5 ; ; ° ; ‘ : | NOTE ADDRESSED TO MRS MILLER BY MR SALTER, OF THE GEOLOGICAL “4

SURVEY, UPON THE CHAPTEL UN ‘‘ THE FISHES OF THE SILURIAN ROOKS, UPPER AND LOWER” s,s . i

*

NOTES BY HUGH MILLLER, ON A SUITE OF FOSSILS ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE rs STRUCTURE AND RELATIONS OF THE EARLIER GANOIDS .

PAPER BY HUGH MILLER, ON A CURIOUS SUITE OF FOSSILS FROM THE LOWER OLD RED SANDSTONE OF SCOTLAND . ; 7 an

LIST OF WOODCUTS.

. Internal ridge of hyoid plate of Asterolepis Shagreen of Raia clavata,—of Sphagodus ; . Scales of Acanthodes sulcatus :—shagreen of Scyllium ‘stellahe

Scales of Cheiracanthus microlepidotus :—shagreen of Spinax

Acanthias

. Section of shagreen of Rowidsail Pei onde? sale of Choir:

acanthus microlepidotus

. Scales of Osteolepis microlepidotus : al an s aasiomesibed amin

of Glyptolepis +, Reso 406 . Osseous points of Placoid Oikateas ‘ . 8. Osseous centrum of Spinax Acanthias :—of Rae wanate 3 . Portions of caudal fin of Cheiracanthus :— of yore ge a .

10. Upper surface of cranium of Cod

1. Cranial buckler of Coccosteus

2. Cranial buckler of Osteolepis 18. Upper part of head of Osteolepis

‘14. Under part of head of Osteolepis ; , 1 Head of Osteolepis, seen in profile. ‘ . R 6. Cranial buckler of oo ; 7. Ditto. . Ditto (portion of) 19. Palatal dart-head, and ioe of ‘palitad teeth, a Diplpterus 20. Cranial buckler of Dipterus ‘ ° F

P 1. Base of cranium of Dipterus

22. Under jaw of Dipterus : 3. Longitudinal section of head of Dintanus Section of vertebral centrum of Thornback

. Dermal tubercles of A sterolepis 2

Scales of A sterolepis Portion of carved surface of sale , ‘ : Cranial buckler of Asterolepis . ‘ .

. Inner surface of cranial buckler of A siradopis ‘ Key-stone shaped plate in cranial buckler of pilernlogis as

|xxii, LIST OF WOODCUTS.

31. Plates of cranial buckler of Asterolepis . ° F ° 32. Outer side of portion of under jaw of Asterolepis a Se 33. Inner side of portion of under jaw of Asterolepis .

34. Portion of transverse section of reptile tooth of Asterlepis 35. Section of jaw of Asterolepis . . : : 36. Under jaw of young Asterolepis ° : ° ‘ ° 37. Palatal plate of Asterolepis i , ‘ . ‘ :

38. Maxillary bone ? . : : ‘ , : . 39. Inner surface of operculum of Asterslevte ‘ . o Se 40. Hyoid plate . . , . : ‘ : : 41. Nail-like bone of hyoid iia . , ‘ : : 42. Non-descript latero-hyoidal plate of Asterolepi ; :

43. Shoulder plate of Asterolepis . : ; : ; 44. Dermal bones of Asterolepis . : ‘ 45. Clavicle and latero-cerebral plate of Aaterlepis ; . 46. Internal bones of Asterolepis . . °

47. Internal bones of some unknown fish F :

48. Ischium of Asterolepis ‘ y

49. Joint of ray of Thornback :—of ubiercbpa ;

50. Coprolites of Asterolepis . ; ‘ : : :

51. Hyoid plate of Thurso Asterolepis

52. Hyoid plate of Russian A sterolepis

53. Spine of Spinax Acanthias :—fragment of Onbudiage apie

54. Tail of Spinax Acanthias :—of Ichthyosaurus Tenuirostris .

55. Port-Jackson Shark (Cestracion sari

56. Tail of Osteolepis ; ‘ , ;

57. Tail of Lepidosteus Osseus . - : ; :

58. Tailof Perch . : : : : ‘ :

59. Progress of dearadaien :

60. Altingia excelsa (Norfolk ep Pine} :

61. Fucoids of the Lower (Middle) Old Red Sandateaie

62. Two species of Old Red Fucoids a ‘ a

63. Fern? of the Lower (Middle) Old Red Sansone

64. Lignite of the Lower (Middle) Old Red Sandstone .

65. Internal structure of aig of Lower char Old Red Sand- stone . °

66. Cephalaspis Lyall ; fk I, : :

§7. Restoration of Cephalaspis : : : : .

' >

STROMNESS AND ITS ASTEROLEPIS.

THE LAKE OF STENNIS.

» ‘8 ay oe engaged in prosecuting the self-im- cine posed task of examining in detail the sq various fossiliferous deposits of Scotland, wi: I extended my exploratory ramble, about two years ago, into the mainland of Ork- “= ney, and resided for some time in the Ricinity of Stromness, This busy seaport town forms that spe- _ cial centre, in this northern archipelago, from which the struc- ' ture of the entire group can be most advantageously studied. The geology of the Orkneys, like that of Caithness, owes its chief interest to the immense development which it exhi- bits of one formation,—the Old Red Sandstone,—and to the _ extraordinary abundance of its vertebrate remains, It is not too much to affirm that, in the comparatively small portion which this cluster of islands contains of a system regarded only _ afew years ago as the least fossiliferous in the geologic scale, _ there are more fossil fish enclosed than in every other geologic system in England, Scotland, and Wales, from the Coal Mea- sures to the Chalk inclusive. Orkney is emphatically to the geologist what a juvenile Shetland poetess designates her A

2 THE LAKE OF STENNIS.

country, in challenging for it a standing independent of the — “Tand of Cakes,”"—a “Land of Fish ;” and, were the trade once fairly opened up, could supply with ichthyolites, by the ton and the ship-load, the museums of the world. Its va- rious deposits, with all their strange organisms, have been uptilted from the bottom against a granitic axis, rather more ; than six miles in length by about a mile in breadth, which forms the great backbone of the western district of Pomona; and on this granitic axis—fast jammed in between a steep hill and the sea—stands the town of Stromness. Situated — thus at the bottom of the upturned deposits of the island, it occupies exactly such a point of observation as that which the curious eastern traveller would select, in front of some huge pyramid or hieroglyphic-covered obelisk, as a proper site © for his tent. It presents, besides, not a few facilities for studying, with the geologic phenomena, various interesting — points in physical science of a cognate character. Resting © on its granitic base, in front of the strangely sculptured pyra- mid of three broad tiers—red, black, and gray—which the Old Red Sandstone of these islands may be regarded as form-_ ing, it is but a short half-mile from the Great Conglomerate of the formation, and scarcely a quarter of a mile more from the beds of its flagstone deposit ; while an hour’s sail on the one hand opens to the explorer the overlying arenaceous de- q posit of Hoy, and an hour’s walk on the other introduces him ~ to the Loch of Stennis, with its curiously mixed flora and — fauna. But of the Loch of Stennis and its productions more ~ anon. ; The day was far spent when I reached Stromness ; but as — I had a fine bright evening still before me, longer by some — three or four degrees of north latitude than the midsummer — evenings of the south of Scotland, I set out, hammer in hand, | to examine the junction of the granite and the Great Con- © glomerate, where it has been laid bare by the sea along the ;

' THE LAKE OF STENNIS. 3

low promontory which forms the western boundary of the harbour. ‘The granite here is a ternary of the usual com- ponents, somewhat intermediate in grain and colour between _ the granites of Peterhead and Aberdeen ; and the Conglo- : merate consists of materials almost exclusively derived from it,—evidence enough of itself, that when this ancient me- ~ chanical deposit was in course of forming, the granite—ex- actly such a compound then as it is now—was one of the ‘surface rocks of the locality, and much exposed to disinte- grating influences. This Conglomerate base of the Old Red ~ Sandstone of Scotland, which presents, over an area of many thousand square miles, such an identity of character, that - specimens taken from the neighbourhood of Lerwick, in Shet- land, or of Gamrie, in Banff, can scarce be distinguished from _ specimens detached from the hills which rise over the Great _ Caledonian Valley, or from the cliffs immediately in front of the village of Contin, seems to have been formed in a vast oceanic basin of primary rock,—a Paleozoic Hudson’s or _ Baffin’s Bay,— partially surrounded, mayhap, by primary con- tinents, swept by numerous streams, rapid and headlong, and _ charged with the broken debris of the inhospitable regions which they drained. The graptolite-bearing grauwacke of _ Banffshire seems to have been the only fossiliferous rock that _ occurred throughout the entire extent of this ancient northern _ basin ; and its few organisms now serve to open the sole vista through which the geological explorer to the north of the Grampians can catch a glimpse of an earlier period of exist- _ ence than that represented by the ichthyolites of the Lower Old Red Sandstone, * Very many ages must have passed ere, amid waves and currents, the water-worn debris which now forms the Great

* [Since the discovery of Maclurea and other Silurian forms in the | North-West Highlands, by Mr C. Peach, this is no longer the case.— See Appendix, A.]

4 PHE LAKE OF STENNIS,

Conglomerate could have accumulated over tracts of sea- — bottom from ten to fifteen thousand square miles in area, to its present depth of from one to four hundred feet. At length, however, a thorough change took place ; but we can — only doubtfully speculate regarding its nature or cause. The

bottom of the Palzeozoic basin became greatly less exposed. Some protecting circle of coast had been thrown up around it ; or, what is perhaps more probable, it had sunk to a pro- founder depth, and the ancient shores and streams had re-

ceded, through the depression, to much greater distances. ©

And, in consequence, the deposition of rough sand and rolled

pebbles was followed by a deposition of mud. Myriads of —

fish, of forms the most ancient and obsolete, congregated on

its banks or sheltered in its hollows; generation succeeded

generation, millions and tens of millions perished myste- riously by sudden death ; shoals after shoals were annihi-

lated ; but the productive powers of nature were strong, and —

the waste was kept up. But who among men shall reckon the years or centuries during which these races existed, and this muddy ocean of the remote past spread out to unknown

and nameless shores around them? As in those great cities —

of the desert that lie uninhabited and waste, we can but con-

jecture their term of existence from the vast extent of their

cemeteries, we only know that the dark, finely-grained schists in which they so abundantly occur must have been of comparatively slow formation, and that yet the thickness of the deposit more than equals the height of our loftiest Scot- tish mountains. It would seem as if a period equal to that

in which all human history is comprised might be cut out of : a corner of the period represented by the Lower* Old Red —

* [It is the opinion of Sir Roderick Murchison, that what had hitherto © been considered the lowest of the Old Red occupies the middle place in — that formation ; likewise, that the whole three formations are represented —

in Orkney.—See Appendix, B.]

ae

\ ; | f ; 4 ‘ q ;

cael

THE LAKE OF STENNIS. 5

Sandstone, and be scarce missed when away : nay, for every year

_ during which man has lived upon earth, it is not improbable that the Pterichthys and its contemporaries may have lived -acentury. Their last hour, however, at length came. Over the dark-coloured ichthyolitic schists so immensely developed in Caithness and Orkney there occurs a pale-tinted, unfossi- liferous sandstone, which in the island of Hoy rises into hills of from fourteen to sixteen hundred feet in height; and among the organisms of those newer formations of the Old Red, not a species of ichthyolite identical with the species entombed in the lower sehists has yet been detected. In the blank interval which the arenaceous deposit represents, tribes and families perished and disappeared, leaving none of their race to succeed them, that other tribes and families might be called into being, and fall into their vacant places in the onward march of creation.

Such, so far as the various hieroglyphics of the pile have yet rendered their meanings to the geologist, is the strange story recorded on the three-barred pyramid of Stromness. I traced the formation upwards this evening along the edges of the upturned strata, from where the Great Conglomerate leans against the granite, till where it merges into the ich- thyolitic flagstone ; and then pursued these from older and lower to newer and higher layers, desirous of ascertaining at what distance over the base of the system its more ancient organisms first appear, and what their character and kind. ‘And, embedded in a grayish-coloured layer of hard flag, somewhat less: than a hundred yards over the granite, and about a hundred and sixty feet over the upper stratum of the Conglomerate, I found what I sought,—a well-marked bone,—in all probability the oldest vertebrate remain yet discovered in Orkney. What, asks the reader, was the cha- racter of this ancient organism of the Paleozoic basin ?

As shown by its cancellated texture, palpable to the naked

6 THE LAKE OF STENNIS.

eye, and still more unequivocally by the irregular complexity of fabric which it exhibits under the microscope,—by its speck-like life-points or canaliculi, that remind one of air- bubbles in ice,—its branching channels, like minute veins, through which the blood must once have flown,—and its general groundwork of irregular lines of corpuscular fibre, that wind through the whole, like currents in a river studded with islands,—it was as truly osseous in its composition as the solid bones of any of the reptiles of the Secondary or the quadrupeds of the Tertiary periods. And in form it closely resembled a large roofing-nail. With this bone our more practised paleontologists are but little acquainted, for no re- mains of the animal to which it belonged have yet been dis- covered in Britain to the south of the Grampians, nor, except in the Old Red Sandstone of Russia, has it been detected anywhere on the Continent. Nor am I aware that, save in the accompanying woodcut (fig. 1), it has ever been figured. The amateur geologists of Caithness and Orkney have, however, learned to recognise it as the “ petrified nail.” The length of the entire specimen in this instance was five seven-eighth inches, the transverse breadth of the head two inches and a quarter, and the thickness of the stem nearly three-tenth parts of an inch. This nail-like bone formed a characteristic portion of the Asterolepis,—so far as is yet known, the most gigantic ganoid of the Old Red Sandstone.

There were various considerations which led me to regard the “ petrified nail” in this case as one of the most interest- ing fossils I had ever seen ; and, before quitting Orkney, to pursue my explorations farther to the south, I brought two intelligent geologists of the district,* to mark its place and

character, that they might be able to point it out to geolo- —

gical visitors in the future, or, if they preferred removing it

* Dr George Garson, Stromness, and Mr William Watt, jun., Skaill.

oe a Ne

0 ei et i Gh hs

Se ee ee a a ee

| a _

i

rHE LAKE OF STENNIS. mq

to their town museum, to indicate to them the stratum in which it had lain, It showed me, among other things, how

Fig. 1.

INTERNAL RIDGE OF HYOID PLATE OF ASTEROLEPIS.* (One-third the natural size, linear.)

unsafe it is for the geologist to base positive conclusions on

merely negative data. Founding on the fact that, of many

hundred ichthyolites of the Lower [Middle] Old Red Sand- stone which I had disinterred and examined, all were of com- paratively small size, while in the Upper Old Red many of the ichthyolites are of great mass and bulk, I had inferred

| that vertebrate life had been restricted to minuter forms at

the commencement than at the close of the system. It had begun, I had ventured to state in the earlier editions of a little work on the “Old Red Sandstone,” with an age of dwarfs, and had ended with an age of giants. And now, here, unaccompanied by aught to establish the contemporary existence of its dwarfs,—which appear, however, in an over-

* Figured from a Thurso specimen, slightly different in its proportions from the Stromness specimen described.

‘8 THE LAKE OF STENNIS.

of its giants. But not unfrequently in the geologic field has — the practice of basing positive conclusions on merely nega- _ tive grounds led to a misreading of the record. From evi- — dence of a kind exactly similar to that on which I had built, — it was inferred, some two or three years ago, that there had — lived no reptiles during the period of the Coal Measures, I extended my researches, a few days after, in an easterly i direction from the town of Stromness, and walked for several — miles along the shores of the Loch of Stennis,—a large lake — about fourteen miles in circumference, bare and treeless, like ~ all the other lakes and lochs of Orkney, but picturesque of outline, and divided into an upper and lower sheet of water by two low, long promontories, that jut out from opposite — sides, and so nearly meet in the middle as to be connected ~ by a thread-like line of road, half-mound, half-bridge, “The Loch of Stennis,” says Mr David Vedder, the sailor-poet of — Orkney, “is a beautiful Mediterranean in miniature.” It © gives admission to the sea by a narrow strait, crossed, like .that which separates the two promontories in the middle, by — a long rustic bridge ; and, in consequence of this peculiarity, — the lower division of the lake is salt in its nether reaches — and brackish in its upper ones, while the higher division is — merely brackish in its nether reaches, and fresh enough in its — upper ones to be potable. Viewed from the east, in one of — the long, clear, sunshiny evenings of the Orkney summer, it — seems not unworthy the eulogium of Vedder. There are moory hills and a few rude cottages in front; and in the ~ background, some eight or ten miles away, the bold, steep mountain masses of Hoy ; while on the promontories of the lake, in the middle distance, conspicuous in the landscape, — from the relief furnished by the biue ground of the sur- rounding waters, stand the tall gray obelisks of Stennis, —

: - eo i

ae ;

THE LAKE OF STENNIS. 9

“pne group on the northern promontory, the other on the ~south,—

~

“¢ Old even beyond tradition’s breath.”

The shores of both the upper and lower divisions of the Jake were strewed, at the time I passed, by a line of wrack, ‘consisting, for the first few miles from where the lower loch ‘opens to the sea, of only marine plants, then of marine plants mixed with those of fresh-water growth, and then, in the _ upper sheet of water, of lacustrine plants exclusively. And

‘the fauna of the loch is, I was informed, of as mixed a cha-

racter as its flora,—the marine and fresh-water animals hav-

ing each their own reaches, with certain debateable tracts _ between, in which each kind expatiates with more or less - freedom, according to its specific nature and constitution,— some of the sea-fish advancing far on the fresh water, and others, among the proper denizens of the lake, encroaching far on the salt. The common fresh-water eel strikes out, I was told, farthest into the sea-water ; in which, indeed, re- _ versing the habits of the salmon, it is known in various places to deposit its spawn. It seeks, too, impatient of a low tem- perature, to escape from the cold of winter, by taking refuge in water brackish enough, in a climate such as ours, to resist _ the influence of frost. Of the marine fish, on the other hand, I found that the flounder got greatly higher than any of the others, inhabiting reaches of the lake almost entirely fresh. I have had an opportunity elsewhere of observing a curious change which fresh water induces in this fish. In the brack- ish water of an estuary, the animal becomes, without dimi- nishing in general size, thicker and more fleshy than when in its legitimate habitat, the sea ; but the flesh loses in quality what it gains in quantity ;—it grows flabby and insipid, and the margin-fins lack always their strip of transparent fat. But the change induced in the two floras of the lake,—marine end ‘acustrine,—is conside~ably more palpable and obvious

10 THE LAKE OF STENNIS.

than that induced in its two faunas. As I passed along the strait through which it gives admission to the sea, J . found the commoner fucoids of our sea-coasts streaming in great luxuriance in the pee from the stones and rocks Co) |

r ‘ tree in the sea,” presenting its amplest spread of pod and | frond. A little farther in, Halidrys and Fucus nodosus dis- appear, and Fucus vesiculosus becomes greatly stunted, and — no longer exhibits its characteristic double rows of bladders. — i But for mile after mile it continues to exist, blent with some — of the hardier conferve, until at length it becomes as dwarfish, { and nearly as slim of frond, as the confervee themselves ; and — it is only by tracing it through the intermediate forms that % we succeed in convincing ourselves that, in the brown stunted — tufts of from one to three inches in length, which continue © to fringe the middle reaches of the lake, we have in reality — the well-known Fucus before us. Rushes, flags, and aquatic grasses may now be seen standing in diminutive tufts out of the water ; and a terrestrial vegetation at least continues to exist, though it can scarcely be said to thrive, on banks covered © by the tide at full) The lacustrine flora increases, both in — extent and luxuriance, as that of the sea diminishes ; and in © the upper reaches we fail to detect all trace of marine plants: the alge, so luxuriant of growth along the straits of this “miniature Mediterranean,” altogether cease ; and a semi- aquatic vegetation attains, in turn, to the state of fullest de- velopment anywhere permitted by the temperature of this northern locality. A memoir descriptive of the Loch of Stennis, and its productions, animal and vegetable, such as — old Gilbert White of Selborne could have produced, would — be at once a very valuable and curious document, important —

SS ee

; THE LAKE OF STENNIS. 11 to the naturalist, and not without its use to the geological student.

-, I know not how it may be with others; but the special _ phenomena connected with Orkney that most decidedly bore - fruit in my mind, and to which my thoughts have most fre- “quently reverted, were those exhibited in the neighbourhood of Stromness. I would more particularly refer to the charac- _ teristic fragment of Asterolepis which I detected in its flag- _ stones, and to the curiously mixed, semi-marine, semi-lacus- _ trine vegetation of the Loch of Stennis. Both seem to bear _yery directly on that development hypothesis,—fast spread- ‘ing among an active and ingenious order of minds, both in ‘Britain and America, and which has been long known on the Continent,—that would fain transfer the work of crea- tion from the department of miracle to the province of natu- ral law, and would strike down, in the process of removal, gil the old landmarks, ethical and religious.

12 THE DEVELOPMENT HYPOTHESIS,

THE DEVELOPMENT HYPOTHESIS, AND ITS — CONSEQUENCES. :

Every individual, whatever its species or order, begins and increases until it attains to its state of fullest development, under certain fixed laws, and in consequence of their opera- tiou. The microscopic monad develops into a fetus, the foetus into a child, the child into a man ; and, however mar- vellous the process, in none of its stages is there the slightest. mixture of miracle ; from beginning to end, all is progres- sive development, according to a determinate order of things. Has Nature, during the vast geologic periods, been pregnant, in like manner, with the human race ? and is the species, hke the individual, an effect of progressive development, induced and regulated by law? The assertors of the revived hypo- thesis of Maillet and Lamarck reply in the affirmative. Nor, be it remarked, is there positive atheism involved in the be- lief. God might as certainly have originated the species by a law of development, as he maintains it by a law of deve- lopment ; the existence of a First Great Cause is as perfectly — compatible with the one scheme as with the other; and it may be necessary thus broadly to state the fact, not only in justice to the Lamarckians, but also fairly to warn their non-— geological opponents, that in this contest the old anti-atheistie arguments, whether founded on the evidence of design, or on ©

AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. 13

the preliminary doctrine of final causes, cannot be brought to bear.

_ here are, however, beliefs, in no degree less important to _the moralist or the Christian than even that in the being of a God, which seem wholly incompatible with the develop- ment hypothesis. If, during a period so vast as to be scarce | expressible by figures, the creatures now human have been rising, by almost infinitesimals, from compound microscopic - eells,—minute vital globules within globules, begot by elec- tricity on dead gelatinous matter,—until they have at length _ become the men and women whom we see around us, we must hold either the monstrous belief, that all the vitalities, whether those of monads or of mites, of fishes or of reptiles, of birds or of beasts, are individually and inherently immortal and andying, or that human souls are not so, The difference be- _ tween the dying and the undying,—between the spirit of the brute that goeth downward, and the spirit of the man that goeth upward,—is not a difference infinitesimally, or even _ atomically, small. It possesses all the breadth of theeternity to come, and is an infinitely great difference. It cannot, if I _ may so express myself, be shaded off by infinitesimals or _ atoms ; for it is a difference which—as there can be no class of beings intermediate in their nature between the dying and _ the undying—admits not of gradation at all What mind regulated by the ordinary principles of human belief can pos- sibly hold that every one of the thousand vital points which - swim in a drop of stagnant water are inherently fitted to maintain their individuality throughout eternity? Or how can it be rationally held that a mere progressive step, in it- _ self no greater or more important than that effected by the addition of a single brick to a house in the building state, or of a single atom to a body in the growing state, could ever have produced immortality? And yet, if the spirit of a monad or of a mollusc be not immortal, then must there either

14 THE DEVELOPMENT HYPOTHESIS,

have been a point in the history of the species at which a dying brute,—differing from its offspring merely by an infe- — riority of development, represented by a few atoms, mayhap © by a single atom,—produced an undying man, or man in his | present state must be a mere animal, possessed of no immor- © tal soul, and as irresponsible for his actions to the God before — whose bar he is, in consequence, never to appear, as his pre- | sumed relatives and progenitors the beasts that perish. Nor | will it do to attempt escaping from the difficulty, by alleging ~ that God at some certain link in the chain might have con-— verted a mortal creature into an immortal existence, by breath- — ing into it a “living soul ;’ seeing that a renunciation of any — such direct interference on the part of Deity in the work of — creation forms the prominent and characteristic feature of 3 the scheme,—nay, that it constitutes the very nucleus round ~ which the scheme has originated. And thus, though the de- — velopment theory be not atheistic, it is at least practically tan- — tamount to atheism. For, if man be a dying creature, re- stricted in his existence to the present scene of things, what does it really matter to him, for any one moral purpose, - whether there be a God or no? If in reality on the same religious level with the dog, wolf, and fox, that are by nature

atheists,—a nature most properly coupled with irresponsibi- lity,—to what one practical purpose should he know or be- — lieve in a God whom he, as certainly as they, is never to meet as his Judge? or why should he square his conduct by the — requirements of the moral code, farther than a low and con- — venient expediency may chance to demand ?*

* The Continental assertors of the development hypothesis are greatly more frank than those of our own country regarding the “‘life after — death,” and what man has to expect from it. The individual, they tell us, perishes for ever; but then, out of his remains there spring up other vitalities. The immortality of the soul is, it would seem, an idle figment, for there really exists no such things as souls ; but is there no comfort in being taught, instead, that we are to resolve into monads and maggots?

AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. 15

ie Nor does the purely Christian objection to the development

thesis seem less, but even more, insuperable than that

ived from the province of natural theology. The belief which is perhaps of all others most fundamentally essential to the revealed scheme of salvation, is the belief that ‘‘God ereated man upright,” and that man, instead of proceeding onward and upward from this high and fair beginning, to a yet higher and fairer standing in the scale of creation, sank, and became morally lost and degraded. And hence the ne- -cessity for that second dispensation of recovery and restora- tion which forms the entire burden of God’s revealed mes. sage to man. If, according to the development theory, the

“progress of the “first Adam” was an upward progress, the

existence of the “second Adam,”—that “happier man,” ac- cording to Milton, whose special work it is to “restore” and “regain the blissful seat? of the lapsed race,—is simply « ‘meaningless anomaly. Christianity, if the development theory be true, is exactly what some of the more extreme Moderate _divines of the last age used to make it,—an idle and un- sightly excrescence on a code of morals that would be perfect were it away.

_ Job solaced himself with the assurance that, even after worms had de- _ stroyed his body, he was in the flesh to see God. Had Professor Oken _ been one of his comforters, he would have sought to restrict his hopes to the prospect of living in the worms. ‘‘ If the organic fundamental sub- _ stance consist of infusoria,” says the Professor, ‘‘so must the whole orga- nie world originate from infusoria. Plants and animals can only be me- _ tamorphoses of infusoria. This being granted, so also must all organiza- _ tions consist of infusoria, and, during their destruction, dissolve into the same. very plant, every animal, is converted by maceration into a _ Mucous mass ; this putrefies, and the moisture is stocked with infusoria. - Putrefaction is nothing else than a division of organisms into infusoria, _ —a reduction of the higher to the primary life. . . . . Death is no annihilation, but only a change. One individual emerges out of an- other. Death is only a transition to another life,—not intodeath. This | transition from one life to another takes place through the primary con _ dition of the organic, or the mucus.” —Physio-Philosophy, pp. 187-189.

ner =

16 THE DEVELOPMENT HYPOTHESIS,

ter; and, if so, would feel grateful to the man who could point out to me that special link in the chain of inference | at which, with respect to the bearing of the theory on the two theologies—natural and revealed—the mistake has taken place. But if I be in error at all, it is an error into whic I find not a few of the first men of the age,—represented, as” a class, by our Professor Sedgwicks and Sir David Brewsters, : —have also fallen ; and until it be shown to de an error, and ~ that the development theory is in no degree incompatible with a belief in the immortality of the soul, in the responsi- bility of man to God as the final Judge, or in the Christian scheme of salvation, it is every honest man’s duty to protest against any ex parte statement of the question that would insidiously represent it as ethically an indifferent one, or si unimportant in its theologic heating, save to “ little religious” sects and scientific coteries.” In an address on the fossil _ flora, made in September last by a gentleman of Edinburgh to the St Andrew’s Horticultural Society, there occurs the following passage on this subject :—“ Life is governed ol external conditions, and new conditions imply new races; but then, as to their creation, that is the ‘mystery of mysteries. 7 Are they created by an immediate fiat and direct act of the Almighty ? or has He originally impressed life with an elaail ticity and adaptability, so that it shall take upon itself news forms and characters, according to the conditions to which it

shall be subjected ? Hach opinion has had, and still has, its

advocates and opponents ; but the truth is, that science, so far | as it knows, or rather so far as it has had the honesty and courage to avow, has yet been unable to pronounce a satis-— factory decision. Lither way, it matters little, physically or : morally ; either mode implies the same omnipotence, and

wisdom, and foresight, and protection ; and it is only your

little religious sects and scientific coteries which make a po-

ee

AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. 17

ther about the matter,—sects and coteries of which it may De justly said, that they would almost exclude God from the _ management of his own world, if not managed and directed _ in the way that they would have it.” Now, this is surely a most unfair representation of the consequences, ethical and _ religious, involved in the development hypothesis., It is not _ its compatibility with belief in the existence of a First Great , _ Cause that has to be established, in order to prove it harmless ;

_ but its compatibility with certain other all-important bidity without which simple Theism is of no moral value whatever, —

a belief in the immortality and responsibility of man, and in _ the scheme of salvation by a Mediator and Redeemer. Dis- _ sociated from these beliefs, a belief in the existence of a God is of as little ethical value as a belief in the existence of the great sea-serpent.

_ Let us see whether we cannot determine what the testi- mony of Geology on this question of creation by development veallyis. It is always perilous to under-estimate the strength of an enemy ; and the danger from the development hypo- _ thesis to an ingenious order of minds, smitten with the novel _ fascinations of physical science, has been under-estimated very considerably indeed. Save by a few studious men, who to the cultivation of Geology and the cognate branches add some acquaintance with metaphysical science, the general corre- _ spondence of the line of assault taken up by this new school of infidelity with that occupied by the old, and the conse- | quent ability of the assailants to bring, not only the recently _ forged, but also the previously employed artillery into full _ play along its front, has not only not been marked, but even not so much as suspected. And yet, in order to show that _ there actually is such a correspondence, it can be but neces- _ Sary to state, that the great antagonist points in the array of _ the opposite lines are simply the law of development versus _ the miracle of creation. The evangelistic Churches cannot, B

18 THE DEVELOPMENT HYPOTHESIS,

in consistency with their character, or with a due regard to the - interests of their people, slight or overlook a form of error at_ once exceedingly plausible and consummately dangerous, and which is telling so widely on society, that one can scarce travel by railway or in a steamboat, or encounter a group of intelli- _ gent mechanics, without finding decided trace of its ravages.

But ere the Churches can be prepared competently to deal with it, or with the other objections of a similar class which the infidelity of an age so largely engaged as the present in physical pursuits will be from time to time originating, they must greatly extend their educational walks into the field of physical science. The mighty change which has taken place. during the present century in the direction in which the minds of the first order are operating, though indicated on the face of the country in characters which cannot be mis- taken, seems to have too much escaped the notice of our theo-

t

logians. Speculative theolagy and the metaphysics are cog- nate branches of the same science ; and when, as in the last and the preceding ages, the higher philosophy of the world was metaphysical, the Churches took ready cognizance of the fact, and, in due accordance with the requirements of the time, the battle of the Evidences was fought on metaphysical ground. But, judging from the preparations made in their colleges and halls, they do not now seem sufliciently aware, though the low thunder of every railway, and the snort of every steam-engine, and the whistle of the wind amid the wires of every electric telegraph, serve to publish the fact,— that it is in the departments of physics, not of metaphysics, that the greater minds of the age are engaged,—that the Lockes, Humes, Kants, Berkeleys, Dugald Stewarts, and Thomas Browns, belong to the past,—and that the philoso- phers of the present time, tall enough to be seen all the world over, are the Humboldts, the Aragos, the Agassizes, the Lie bigs, the Owens, the Herschels, the Bucklands, and the

AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. 19

Brewsters In that educational course through which, in this country, candidates for the ministry pass, in preparation _ for their office, I find every group of great minds which has in turn influenced and directed the mind of Europe for the

_ last three centuries, represented, more or less adequately,

“save the last. It is an epitome of all kinds of learning, with the exception of the kind most imperatively required, because

_ most in accordance with the genius of the time. The restor- __ ers of classic literature,—the Buchanans and Erasmuses,—we _ see represented in our Universities by the Greek and what

are termed the Humanity courses; the Galileos, Boyles, and Newtons, by the Mathematical and Natural Philosophy

_ eourses ; and the Lockes, Kants, Humes, and Berkeleys, by _ the Metaphysical course. But the Cuviers, the Huttons,

the Cavendishes, and the Watts, with their successors, the practical philosophers of the present age, —men whose achieve-

- ments in physical science we find marked on the surface of the country in characters which might be read from the - moon,—are not adequately represented ;—it would be per-

haps more correct to say, that they are not represented at 41 ;* and the clergy, as a class, suffer themselves to linger far in the rear of an intelligent and accomplished laity,—a

- full age behind the requirements’ of the time. Let them

not shut their eyes to the danger which is obviously coming. The battle of the Evidences will have as certainly to be fought on the field of physical science, as it was contested in the last

_ age on that of the metaphysics. And on this new arena the

* I trust that at least by and by there may be an exception claimed, from the general, but, I am sure, well-meant, censure of this’ passage,

in favour of the Free Church of Scotland. It has got as its Professor of _ Physical Science,—thanks to the sagacity of Chalmers,— Dr John Flem-

ing, a man of European reputation ; and all that seems further neces-

_ Sary, in order to secure the benefits contemplated in the appointment, is, _ that attendance on his course should be rendered imperative on ald Free _ Church candidates for the ministry.

= = >

20 THE DEVELOPMENT HYPOTHESIS,

combatants will have to employ new weapons, which it will _ be the privilege of the challenger to choose. The oid, op- posed to these, would prove but of little avail. In an age of muskets and artillery, the bows and arrows of an obsole 2 school of warfare would be found greatly less than sufficient, in the field of battle, for purposes either of assault or defence.

“There are two kinds of generation in the world,” says Professor Lorenz Oken, in his “ Elements of Physio-Philo- sophy ;’ “the creation proper, and the propagation that is sequent thereupon,—or the generatio originaria and secun- daria. Consequently, no organism has been created of larger size than an infusorial point. No organism is, nor ever has one been created, which is not microscopic. Whatever is larger has not been created, but developed. Man has not been created, but developed.” Such, in a few brief dogmatic sentences, is the development theory. What, in order to establish its truth, or even to render it in some degree pro- bable, ought to be the geological evidence regarding it? The reply seems obvious. In the first place, the earlier fossils ought to be very smal in size ; in the second, very low in organization. In cutting into the stony womb of nature, in: order to determine what it contained mayhap millions of ages ago, we must expect, if the development theory be true, to look upon mere embryos and foetuses. And if we find, in- stead, the full-grown and the mature, then must we hold that the testimony of Geology is not only not in accordance with the theory, but in positive opposition to it. Such, palpably, is the principle on which, in this matter, we ought to decide. — What are the facts ? :

The oldest organism yet discovered in Pe most ancient. geological system of Scotland in which vertebrate remains occur, seems* to be the Asterolepis of Stromness. After the

* [This seems is characteristic of the caution of the author. The Ce- phalaspide, and even the Acanthide. take precedence of the Asterolepis

AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. 21 .

fens of many years over a wide area, I have detected

ne other equally low in the system ; nor have I ascertained han any brother-explorer in the same field has been more

I isiatn It is, up to the present time, the most ancient _ Scotch witness of the great class of fishes that can in this case _ be brought into court ; nay, it is in all probability the oldest

ganoid witness the world has yet produced ; for there appears

no certain trace of this order of fishes in the great Silurian _ system which lies underneath, and in which, so far as geolo-

gists yet know, organic existence first began. How, then,

_ on the two relevant points—bulk and organization—does it

answer to the demands of the development hypothesis ? Was

_ it a mere foetus of the finny tribe, of minute size, and impet- _ fect, embryonic faculty? Or was it of at least the ordinary

bulk, and, for its class, of the average organization? May I

- solicit the forbearance of the non-geological reader should _ my reply to these apparently simple questions seem unneces- _ sarily proliy.and elaborate? Peculiar opportunities of obser- _ vation, and the possession of a set of unique fossils, enable

me to submit to our paleontologists a certain amount of in- formation regarding this ancient ganoid, which they will deem at once interesting and new; and the bearing of my state- ments on the general argument will, I trust, become apparent as I proceed.

(See prefatory remarks.) A description of Cephalaspis, as that which now seems to be the most ancient vertebrate witness the world has yet

produced, is subjoined in Appendix, C. The Asterolepis appears to have the advantage over its predecessors only in point of bulk. ]

22 THE RECENT HISTORY

THE RECENT HISTORY OF THE ASTEROLEPIS,

ITS FAMILY.

i. ir had been long known to the continental naturalists, that in certain Russian deposits, very extensively developed, there — occur in considerable abundance certain animal organisms ;— but for many years neither their position nor character could © be satisfactorily determined. By some they were placed too — high in the scale of organized being; by others too low. Kutorga, a writer not very familiarly known in this country, described the remains as those of mammals ;—the Russian — rocks contained, he said, bones of quadrupeds, and, in espe- ~ ‘cial, the teeth of swine: whereas Lamarck, a better known — authority, though not invariably a safe one,—for he had a . trick of dreaming when wide awake, and of calling his dreams — philosophy,—assigned to them a place among the corals. — They belonged, he asserted, as shown by certain star-like — markings with which they are fretted, to the Polyparia. He — even erected for their reception a new genus of Astrea, which — he designated, from the little rounded hillock which rises in — the middle of each star, the genus Monticularia. It was left — to a living naturalist, M. Eichwald, to fix their true position —

zoologically among the class of fishes, and to Sir Roderick —

Murchison to determine their position geologically as ich- —

thyolites of the Old Red Sandstone.

7]

OF THE ASTEROLEPIS. £3

Sir Roderick, on his return from his great Russian cam- “paigns, in which he fared far otherwise than Napoleon, and accomplished more, submitted to Agassiz a series of fragments of these gigantic Ganoids ; and the celebrated ichthyologist, who had been introduced little more than a twelvemonth be- fore to the Pterichthys of Cromarty, was at first inclined to regard them as the remains of a large cuirassed fish of the Cephalaspian type, but generically new. Under this impres- sion he bestowed upon the yet unknown ichthyolite, of which they had formed part, the name Chelonichthys, from the re- semblance borne by the broken plates to those of the cara- pace and plastron of some of the Chelonians, At this stage, _ however, the Russian Old Red yielded a set of greatly finer - remains than it had previously furnished ; and of these, casts were transmitted by Professor Asmus of the University of _ Dorpat to the British and London Geological Museums, and to Agassiz, “I knew not at first what to do,” says the ich- ‘thyologist, “ with bones of so singular a conformation that 1 _ eould refer them to no known type.” Detecting, however, on their exterior surfaces the star-like markings which had misled Lamarck, and which he had also detected on the lesser _ fragments submitted to him by Sir Roderick, he succeeded in

identifying both the fragments and bones as remains of the same genus ; and on ascertaining that M. Eichwald had be- stowed upon it, from these characteristic sculpturings, the generic name Aséerolepis, or star-scale, he suffered the name _ which he himself had originated to drop. Even this second name, however, which the ichthyolite still continues to bear, is in some degree founded in error. Its true scales, as I shall _ by and by show, were not stelliferous, but fretted by a pecu- _ liar style of ornament, consisting of waved anastomosing ridges, breaking atop into angular-shaped dots, scooped out internally like the letter V; and were evidently intermediate in their character between the scales which cover the Glyptolepis and

24 THE RECENT HISTORY

those of the Holoptychius. And the stellate markings which — M. Eichwald graphically describes as minute paps rising out — of the middle of star-like wreaths of little leaflets, were re- | stricted to the dermal plates of the head.

Agassiz ultimately succeeded in classing the bones which had at first so puzzled him into two divisions,—interior and dermal ; and the latter he divided yet further, though not | without first lodging a precautionary protest, founded on the — extreme obscurity of the subject, into cranial and opercular. — Of the interior bones he specified two,—a super-scapular bone (supra-scapulaire),—that bone which in osseous fishes com- pletes the scapular arch or belt, by uniting the scapula to the — cranium ; anda maxillary or upper jaw-bone. But his world- wide acquaintance with existing fishes could lend him no as-_ sistance in determining the places of the dermal bones : they formed the mere fragments of a broken puzzle, of which the key was lost. Even in their detached and irreducible state, however, he succeeded in basing upon them several shrewd deductions. He inferred, in the first place, that the Astero- lepis was not, as had been at first supposed, a cuirassed fish, which took its place among the Cephalaspians, but a strongly- helmed fish of that Celacanth family to which the Holopty- chius and Glyptolepis belong ; in the second, that, like seve- ral of its bulkier congeners, it was in all probability a broad, — flat-headed animal ; and, in the third, that as its remains are found associated in the Russian beds with numerous detached — teeth of large size,—the boar-tusks of Kutorga,—which pre- sent internally that peculiar microscopic character on which — Professor Owen has erected his Dendrodic or tree-toothed — family of fishes,—it would in all likelihood be found that both bones and teeth belonged to the same group. “ It appears more than probable,” he said, “ that one day, by the discovery of a head or an entire jaw, it will be shown that the genera Dendrodus and Asterolepis form but one.” As we proceed,

OF THE ASTEROLEPIS. 95

the reader will see how justly the ichthyologist assigned to

the Asterolepis its place among the Celacanths, and how en-

tirely his two other conjectures regarding it have been con-

firmed. “TI have had in general,” he concluded, “ but small and mutilated fragments of the creature’s bones submitted to me, and of these, even the surface ornaments not well pre-

served ; but I hope the immense materials with which the Old Red Sandstone of Russia has furnished the savans of that

_ eountry will not be lost to science ; and that my labours on

this interesting genus, incomplete as they are, will excite more

and more the attention of geologists, by showing them how

ignorant we are of all the essential facts concerning the his-

_ tory of the first inhabitants of our globe.”

I know not what the savans of Russia have been doing for the last few years ; but, mainly through the labours of an in-

- telligent tradesman of Thurso, Mr Robert Dick,—one of those | working men of Scotland of active curiosity and well-deve- — loped intellect, that give character and standing to the rest, _—I am enabled to justify the classification and confirm the

conjectures of Agassiz. Mr Dick, after acquainting himself, in the leisure hours of a laborious profession, with the shells, insects, and plants of the northern locality in which he re-

_ sides, had set himself to study its geology ; and with this view

he procured a copy of the little treatise on the Old Red Sand- stone to which I have already referred, and which was at that time, as Agassiz’s Monograph of the Old Red fishes had

_ not yet appeared, the only work specially devoted to the

paleontology of the system, so largely developed in the neigh- bourhood of Thurso. With perhaps a single exception,—

_ for the Thurso rocks do not yet seem to have yielded a

Pterichthys,—he succeeded in finding specimens, in a state of better or worse keeping, of all the various ichthyolites

_ which I had described as peculiar to the Lower Old Red

Sandstone. He found, however,—what I had noé descr:bed,

in the British. Museum of the fossils of Professor Asmus. Be- —

26 THE RECENT HISTORY

a

—the remains of apparently a very gigantic ichthyolite ; an¢ communicating with me through the medium of a common friend, he submitted to me, in the first instance, drawings of his new set of fossils; and ultimately, as [ could arrive at no satisfactory conclusion from the drawings, he with great — liberality made over to me the fossils themselves. Agassiz’s — Monograph was not yet published; nor had I an opportu- nity of examining, until about a’twelvemonth after, the casts _

a Se

aed iB eee

sides, all the little information, derived from various sources, | which I had acquired respecting the Russian Chelonichthys,— for such was its name at the time,—referred it to the cui- © rassed type, and served but to mislead. I was assured, for — instance, that Professor Asmus regarded his set of remains as portions of the plates and paddles of a gigantic Pterichthys, of from twenty to thirty feet in length. And so, as I had recognised in the Thurso fossils the peculiarities of the Ho-_ loptychian (Celacanth) family, I at first failed to identify them with the remains of the great Russian fish, All the — larger bones sent me by Mr Dick were, I found, cerebral ; — and the scales associated with these indicated, not a cuirass-— protected, but a scale-covered body, and exhibited, in their — sculptured and broadly imbricated surfaces, the well-marked — Celacanth style of disposition and ornament. But though I could not recognise in either bones or scales the remains ~ of one ichthyolite more of the Old Red Sandstone, “that — could be regarded as manifesting as peculiar a type among a fishes as do the Ichthyosauri and Plesiosauri among rep- — tiles,’* I was engaged at the time in.a course of inquiry — regarding the cerebral development of the earlier vertebrata, that made me deem them scarce less interesting than if I~ could. Ere, however, I attempt communicating to the reader —

* Agassiz’s description of the Pterichthys, as quoted by Humboldt in — his Cosmos, “a

OF THE ASTEROLEPIS, SF

the result of my researches, I must introduce him, in order ‘that he may be able to set out with me to the examination of the Asterolepis from the same starting-point, tv the Cela- eanth family,— indisputably one of the oldest, and not the ast interesting, of its order. _ §$o far as is_yet known, all the fishes of the earliest fossili- | system belonged to the placoid or “ broad-plated” _ order,—a great division of fishes, represented in the existing seas by the Sharks and Rays,—animals that to an internal skeleton of cartilage unite a dermal covering of points, plates, or spines of enamelled bone, and have their gills fixed. The dermal or cuticular bones of this order vary greatly in form, _ according to the species or family ; in some cases they even - vary, according to their place, on the same individual. Those _ button-like tubercles, for instance, with an enamelled thorn, _ bent like a hook, growing out of the centre of each, which run down the back and tail, and stud the pectorals of the _ thorn-back (Raia clavata), differ very much from the smaller _ thorns, with star-formed bases, which roughen the other parts of the crea- ture’s body ; and the bony points which mottle the back and sides of g the sharks are, in most of the known species, considerably more elongated and prickly than the points which cover their fins, belly, and snout. _ The extreme forms, however, of the 6 shagreen tubercle or plate seem to _ be those of the upright prickle or a Shagreen of the Thornback | (Raia clavata.) _ Spine on the one hand, and of the p, shagreen of Sphagodus,— _ slant-laid, rhomboidal, scale-shaped a placoid of the Upper : Silurian.* plate on the other The minuter

* From Murchison’s “ Silurian System.’

28 FAMILY

thorns of the ray (fig. 2, a) exemplify the extreme of he prickly type; the fins, abdomen, and anterior part of the j head of the spotted dog-fish (Scylliwm stellare) are covered by lozenge-shaped little plates, which glisten with enamel, and are so thickly set that they cover the entire surface o . the skin (fig. 3, 6); and these seem equally illustrative of the scale-like form. They are shagreen points passing into osseous — scales, without, however, becoming really such ; though the y approach them so nearly in the shape and disposition of their upper discs, that the true scales, also osseous, of the Acan thodes sulcatus (fig. 3, a), a ganoid of the Coal Mes can scarce be distinguished from them, even when microscopically examined, It is only when seen in section that the distinctive diffe:

a ence appears. The true scale of the Acanth, though considerably elevat-_ A ed in the centre, seems to have been —

planted on the skin; whereas the

scale-like shagreen of the dog-fish is ~

elevated over it on an osseous pedicle

sp carne pl ee sul- oy footstalk (fig. 5, a), as a mushroom —

B sais ez poe oug stel- is elevated over the sward on its

Ped Soret ANIA stem ; and the base of the stalk is

ee ne eee found to resemble in its stellate cha _

racter that of a shagreen point of the prickly type. The ap-—

parent scale is, we find, a bony prickle bent at right angles — ‘

a little over its base, and flattened into a rhombodial dise

atop. : In small fragments of shagreen (fig. 2, 6), which have beau

detected in the bone-bed of the Upper Ludlow Rocks (Upper |

Silurian), and constitute the most ancient portions of this —

substance known to the paleontologist, the osseous tubercles |

ave, as in the minuter spikes of the ray, of the upright thorn- —

OF THE ASTEROLEPIS, 29

like type: they merely serve to show that the placoids of the first period possessed, like those of the existing seas, an ability of secreting solid bone on their cuticular surfaces ; and that, though at least such of them as have bequeathed to us "specimens of their dermal armature possessed it in the form farthest removed from that of their immediate successors, the _ ganoidal fishes, they resembled them not less in the substance of which their dermoskeletal, than in that of which their _ endoskeletal, parts were composed ; for the internal skeleton ‘in both orders, during these early ages, seems to have been _ equally cartilaginous, and the cuticular skeleton equally osse- ‘ous. In the ichthyolitic formation _ immediately over the Silurians,— _ that of the Lower Old Red Sand- _ stone,—the ganoids first appear ; and _ the members of at least one of the _ families of the deposit, the Acanths, —afamily rich in generaand species, -_ —seem to have formed connecting links between this second orderand 6 _ their placoid predecessors. They __were covered with true scales (fig. 4, Sates af Ohairatanthus _ a), and their free gills were protect- Microlepidotus. _ ed by gill-covers ; and so they must >. Shagreen of Spinax A can- ; thias. (Snout.) be regarded as real ganoids ; but as tag (Mag. eight diameters.)

the shagreen of the spotted dog-fish

nearly approaches, in form and character, to ganoidal scales,

without being really such, the scales of this family, on the _ other hand, approached equally near, without changing their nature, to the shagreen of the placoids, especially to that of the spiked dog-fish (Spinaz Acanthias). (Fig. 4, 6.) We even find on their under surfaces what seems to be an ap- proximation to the characteristic footstalk. They so consi- derably thicken in the middle from their edges inwards (fig.

30 . FAMILY

Fig. 5. 5, c), as to terminate in their centres - in obtuse points. With these sha- green-like scales, the heads, bodies, | and fins of all the species of at least © two of the Acanth genera,—Cheir . acanthus and Diplacanthus,—were © i > as thickly covered as the heads, bo- | dies, and fins of the sharks are with —

a. wpe naya ain ae i of their shagreen ; and so slight was. Under surface of do, the degree of imbrication, that the . Section of scales of Cheir- portion of each scale overlaid by the © San io Gera two scales in immediate advance of. eae it did not exceed the one-twelfth (Mag. eight diameters. ) , . . part of its entire area. In the scale

of the Cheiracanthus we find the covered portion indicated — by a smooth, narrow band, that ran along its anterior edges, and which the furrows that fretted the exposed surface did — not traverse. It may be added, that both genera had the anterior edge of their fins armed with strong spines,—a cha- — racteristic of several of the placoid families. ; In the Dipterian genera Osteolepis and Diplopterus, the — scales were more unequivocally such than in the Acanths, — and more removed from shagreen. The under surface of — each was traversed longitudinally by a raised bar, which at- — tached it to the skin, and which in the transverse section serves to remind one of the shagreen footstalk. They are, — besides, of a rhombodial form ; and, when seen in the finer | specimens, lying in their proper places on what had been once © the creature’s body, they seem merely laid down side by side in lime, like those rows of glazed tiles that pave a cathedral floor ; but on more careful examination, we find that each little tile was deeply grooved on its higher side and end (for it lay diagonally in relation to the head), like the flags of a — stone roof (fig, 6, a),—that its lateral and anterior neigh: |

Cr

—— a _

——— -

OF THE ASTEROLEPIS. 31

_ bours impinged upon it along these grooves to the extent of

bout one-third its area,—and that it impinged, in turn, to the ne extent, on the scales that ered on it posteriorly and ro-posteriorly. Now, inthe 4@ Beclacanth family (and on this spe- “cial point the foregoing remarks "are intended to bear), the scales, _ which were generally of a round or irregularly oval form (fig, 6 6), overlapped each other to as _ great an extent as in any of the existing fishes of the Cycloid or _ Otenoid orders,—to as great an extent, for instance, as in the carp, salmon, or herring. Ina slated roof there is no part on which the slates do not lie double, and along the lower edge of each tier they lie triple ;—there is more of * ante Sri siorols slate covered than of slate seen: b. Scales af an undescribed spe- whereas in a tile-roof, the co- cies of Glyptolepis.” vered portion is restricted to a (The single scales mag. two dia- : : meters, —the others nat. size.) small strip running along the top and one of the edges of each tile, and the tiles do not lie double in more than the same degree in which the slates lie triple. The scaly cover of the two genera of Dipteriaus to which I have referred was a cover on the tile-roof principle ; _ and this is an exceedingly common characteristic of the scales of the ganoids, The scaly cover of the Celacanths, on the

Fig. 6.

oh hi = HH ¥( illo ay i RM

fitter?

* These scales, which occur in a detached state, in a stratified clay of the Old Red Sandstone, near Cremarty, present for their size a large: extent of cover than the scales of any other ganoid.

32 FAMILY

other hand, was a cover on the slate-roof principle ;—there was in some of their genera about one-third more of each scale covered than exposed ; and this is so rare a ganoidal mode of arrangement, that, with the exception of the Dip- terus,—a genus which, though it gives its name to the Dip- terian sept, differed greatly from every other Dipterian,—l know not, beyond the limits of the ancient Celacanth family, a single ganoid that possessed it. The bony covering of the Celacanths was farthest removed in character from shagreen, as that of their contemporaries the Acanths approximated to it most nearly : they were, in this respect, the two extremes of their order ; and, did we tind the Celacanths in but the later geological formations, while the Acanths were restricted to the earlier, it might be urged by assertors of the develop- ment hypothesis, that the amply imbricated slate-like scale of the latter had been developed, in the lapse of ages, from the shagreen tubercle, by passing in its downward course—broad- ening and expanding as it descended—through the minute, scarcely imbricated discs of the Acanths, and the more amply imbricated tile-like rhombs of the Dipterians and Paleonisci, until it had reached its full extent of imbrication in the fa- miliar modern type exemplified in both the Celacanths and the ordinary fishes. But such is not the order which nature has observed ;—the two extremes of the ganoidal scale appear together in the same early formation ; both become extinct at a period geologically remote ; and the ganoidal scales of the - existing state of things which most nearly resemble those of | ancient time are scales formed on the intermediate or tile- roof principle. 2 The scales of the Celacanths were, in almost all the genera | which compose the family, of great size,—in some species, of ; the greatest size to which this kind of integument ever at- — tained. Of a Celacanth of the Coal Measures, the Holop- tychius Hibbert, the scales in the larger specimens were 0c- |

ea ¥

OF THE ASTEROLEPIS. 33

easionally from five to six inches in diameter. Even in the Holoptychius Nobilissimus, in an individual scarcely exceeding two and a half feet in length, they measured from an inch and a half to an inch and three quarters each way. In the splen- did specimen of this last species in the British Museum, there occur but fourteen scales between the ventrals, though these lie low on the creature’s body, and the head ; and in a spe- -cimen of a smaller species,—the Holoptychius Andersoni,— but about seventeen. The exposed portion of the scale was in most species of the family curiously fretted by intermingled ridges and furrows, pits and tubercles, which were either boldly relieved, as in the Holoptychius, or existed, as in the Glypiolepis, as slim, delicately chiselled threads, lines, and _ The head was covered by strong plates, which were

coughened with tubercles either confluent or detached, or hollowed, as in the Bothriolepis, into shallow pits. The jaws were thickly set with an outer range of true fish-teeth, and ‘more thinly with an inner range of what seem repéile-teeth, that stood up, tall and bulky, behind the others, like officers ‘on horseback seen over the heads of their foot-soldiers in front. The double fins,—pectorals and ventrals,—were cha- racterized each by a thick scale-covered centre, fringed by the rays ; and they must have borne externally somewhat the

form of the sweeping paddles of the Ichthyosaurian genus,— a peculiarity shared also by the double fins of the Dipterus, The single fins, in all the members of the family of which specimens have been found sufficiently entire to indicate the fact, were four in number,—an anal, a caudal, and two dorsal fins ; and, with the exception of the anterior dorsal, which was comparatively small, and bent downwards along the back, as if its rays had been distorted when young,* they were all of large size. They crowded thickly on the posterior portion, * A peculiarity which also occurs in the anterior dorsal of the Dip- terus.

| 9

34 FAMILY OF THE ASTEROLFPIS,

of the body, the anterior dorsal opposite the ventrals, and the posterior dorsal opposite the anal fin. The fin-rays of | the various members of the family, and such of their spinous” processes as have been detected, were hollow tubular bones ; or rather, like the larger pieces in the framework of the pla- ; coids, they were cartilaginous within, and covered externally by a thin osseous crust or shell, which alone survives ; and | to this peculiarity they owe their family name, Celacanth, or “hollow-spine.” The internal hollow, 4. ¢., cartilaginous centre, was, however, equally a characteristic of the spinous processes of the Coccosteus. In their general proportions, the © true Celacanths, if we perhaps except one species,—the Glyp- tolepis Microlepidotus,—were all squat, robust, strongly-built fishes, of the Dirk Hatterick or Balfour-of-Burley type ; and not only in the larger specimens gigantic in their proportions, — but remarkable for the strength and weight of their armour, — even when of but moderate stature. The specimen of Ho- loptychius Nobilissimus in the British Museum could have . measured little more than three feet from snout to tail when most entire ; but it must have been nearly a foot in breadth, — and a Gallet would have rebounded flattened from its scales. 4 And such was that ancient Celacanth family, of which the oldest of our Scotch ganoids,—the Asterolepis of Stromness, } —formed one of the members, and which for untold ages has had no living representative. / Let us now enter on our proposed inquiry regarding the © cerebral development of the earlier vertebrata, and see whe- ther we cannot ascertain after what manner the first true — brains were lodged, and what those modifications were which ~ their protecting box, the cranium, received in the subsequent periods. Independently of its own special interest, the in- quiry will be found to have a direct bearing on our general subject.

a a ea

ae

i —

CEREBRAL DEVELOPMENT, ETC. 35

| CEREBRAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE EARLIER VERTEBRATA.

ITS APPARENT PRINCIPLE.

Ir is held by a class of naturalists, some of them of the high- _ est standing, that the skulls of the vertebrata consist, like the | columns to which they are attached, of vertebral joints, com- _ posed each, in the more typical forms of head, as they are in the trunk, of five parts or elements,—the centrum or body, the two spinous processes which enclose the spinal cord, and the two ribs. These cranial vertebrae, four in number, cor- respond, it is said, to the four senses that have their seat in the head. ° There is the nasal vertebra, the centrum of which _ is the vomer, its spinal processes the nasal and ethmoid bones, _ and its ribs the wpper jaws ; there is the ocular vertebra, the _ centrum of which is the anterior portion of the sphenoid bone, its spinal processes the frontals, and its ribs the wnder jaws ; there it the lingual vertebra, the centrum. of which is the pos- terior sphenoid bone, its spinal processes the parietals, and its ribs the hyoid and branchial bones,—portions of the ske- leton largely developed in fishes ; and, lastly, there is the au- ' ditory vertebra, the centrum of which is the base of the oc- _¢ipital bone, and its spinal processes the occipital crest, and

in illustrating his theory, the Grecian beaw ideal of the human

36 CEREBRAL DEVELOPMENT

which in the osseous fishes bears attached to it, as its ribs, the bones of the scapular ring. And the cerebral segments . thus constructed we find represented in typical diagrams of — the skull, as real vertebre. Professor Owen, in his lately — published treatise on “The Nature of Limbs,”—a work — charged with valuable fact, and instinct with philosophy,— figures, in his draught of the archetypal skeleton of the ver- tebrata, the four vertebre of the head, in a form as unequivo- cally such as any of the vertebre of the neck or body. : Now, for certain purposes of generalization, I doubt not that the conception nfay have its value. There are in all — nature and in all philosophy certain central ideas of general — bearing, round which, at distances less or more remote, the subordinate and particular ideas arrange themselves,

** Cycle and epicycle, orb in orb.” —

In the classifications of the naturalist, for instance, all species

range round some central generic idea ; all genera round some ~ central idea, to which we give the name of order ; all orders — round some central idea of class ; all classes round some central idea of division ; and all divisions round the anterior — central idea which constitutes a kingdom. Sir Joshua Rey- — nolds forms his theory of beauty on this principle of central — ideas. ‘‘ Every species of the animal, as well as of the vege- table creation,” he remarks, “may be said to have a fixed or determinate form, towards which nature is continually inclin- ing, like various lines terminating in a centre ; or it may be

compared to pendulums vibrating in different directions over — one central point, which they all cross, though only one of — their number passes through any other point.” He instances, —

ii

nose, as seen in the statues of the Greek deities. It formed © a straight line ; whereas all deformity of nose is of a convex” or concave character, and occasioned by either a rising above

F

_ or a sinking below this medial line of beauty. And it may be of use, as it is unquestionably of interest, to conceive, after

OF THE EARLIER VERTEBRATA. 37

this manner, of a certain type of skeleton, embodying, as it

_ were, the central or primary type of all vertebral skeletons, _ and consisting of a double range of rings, united by the bodies

of the vertebre, as the two rings of a figure 8 are united at their point of junction ; the upper ring forming the enclosure

of the brain,—spinal and cephalic; the lower that of the

_ viscera,—respiratory, circulatory, and digestive. - Such is the

idea embodied in Professor Owen’s archetypal skeleton. It is a series of vertebree composing double rings,—their brain- rings comparatively small in the vertebre of the trunk, but

_ of much greater size in the vertebre of the head, But it - must not be forgotten, that central ideas, however necessary

to the classification of the naturalist, are not historic facts. We may safely hold with the philosophic painter, that the

- outline of the typical human nose is a straight line ; but it

would be very unsafe to hold, as a consequence, that the first

- men had all straight noses. And when we find it urged by

at least one eminent assertor of the development hypothesis, —Professor Oken,—that light was the main agent in develop- ing the substance of nerve,—that the nerves, ranged in pairs,

_ in turn developed the vertebre, each vertebra being but “the

periphery or envelope of a pair of nerves,”’—and that the nerves of those four senses of smell, sight, taste, and hearing, which, according to the Professor, “make up the head,” ori- ginated the four cranial vertebre which constitute the skull, — it becomes us to test the central idea, thus converted into a sort of historic myth, by the realities of actual history. What, then, let us inquire, is the real history of the cerebral develop- ment of the vertebrata, as recorded in the rocks of the earlier geologic periods ?

Though the vertebrata existed in the ichthyic form through- out a part of the vastly extended Silurian period, we find in

38 CEREBRAL DEVELOPMENT

that system no remains of the cranium :* the Silurian fishes — seem, as has been already said (page 27), to have been exclu- — sively placoid, and the purely cartilaginous box, formed by — nature for the protection of the brain in this order, has in no ] case been preserved. Teeth, and, in at least one or two in- | stances, the minute jaws over which they were planted, have been found, but no portion of the skull. We know, however, — that in the fishes of the same order which now exist, the | cranium consists of one undivided piece of a cartilaginous substance, set thickly over its outer surface with minute poly- — gonal points of bone (fig. 7), composed internally of star-like rays, that radiate — from the centre of ossification, and that present, in consequence, seen through a © microscope, the appearance of the poly- —

LS gonal cells of a coral of the genus Astrea. Osseous point placoid The pattern induced is that of stars set

sides within polygons. Along the sides or to

Cera ents: of this adicue acta box, that sia . bits no mark of suture, we find the perforations through — which the nerves of smell, sight, taste, and hearing passed from the brain outwards, and see that they have failed to originate distinct vertebral envelopes for themselves: they — all lodge in one undivided mansion-house, and have merely separate doors. We find, further, that the homotypal ribs of the entire cranium consist, not of four, but simply of a single pair, attached to the occiput, and which serves both — to suspend the jaws, upper and nether, in their place under — the middle of the head, and to lend support to the hyoid and — branchial framework ; while the scapular ring we find exist- ing, as in the higher vertebrata, not as a cerebral, but asa —

* This, as the reader knows, is no longer the case, the Cephalaspian cranium being most beautifully preserved. + From the head of Raia clavata.

OF THE EARLIER VERTEBRATA. 39

Pecvin or dorsal appendage. In the wide range of the ani- mal kingdom, there are scarce any two pieces of organization that less resemble each other in form than the vertebrae of the placoids resemble their skulls ; and the difference is not _ merely external, but extends to even their internal construc- tion. In both skull and vertebree we detect an union of bone and cartilage ; but the bone of each vertebra forms an : anternal continuous nucleus, round which the cartilage is arranged ; whereas in the skulls it is the cartilage that is internal, and the bone is spread in granular points over it. If we dip the body of one of the dorsal vertebre of a herring into melted wax, and then withdraw it, we will find it to re- present in its crusted state the vertebral centrum of a pla- - coid,—soft without and osseous within ; but in order to re- present the placoid skull, we would have first to mould it _ out of one unbroken piece of wax, and then to cover it over with a priming of bone-dust. And such is the effect of this arrangement, that, while the skull of a placoid exposed to a red heat falls into dust, from the circumstance that the supporting framework on which the granular bone was ar- ranged perishes in the fire, the vertebral centrum, whose in- _ternal framework is itself bone, and so not perishable, comes out in a state of beautiful entireness,—resembling in the thornback a squat sand-glass, elegantly fenced round by the lateral pillars (fig. 8, 6); and in the dog- fish (a) a more elongated sand-glass, in which the lateral pillars are wanting. Such are the heads and vertebral joints of the existing placoids ; and such, rea- soning from analogy, seem to have been a. Osseous centrum of the character and construction of the 4 — prs" heads and vertebral joints of the pla- Raia clavata, _coids of the Silurian period. tag

The most ancient brain-bearing craniums that have come

Fig. 8.

40 CEREBRAL DEVELOPMENT

down to us in the fossil state are those of the ganoids o the Lower Red Sandstone ;* and in these fishes the truc skull appears to have been as entirely a simple cartilaginous box, as that of the placoids of either the Silurian period o of the present time, or of those existing ganoids, the stur geons. In the Old Red genera Cheiracanthus and Diplacan- thus, though the heads are frequently preserved as amorphous: masses of coloured water, we detect no trace of internal bone, save perhaps in the gill-covers of the first-named genus, which were fringed by from eighteen to twenty minute osseous rays. The cranium seems to have been covered, as in the shark family, by skin, and the skin by minute shagreen-like scales ; and all of the interior cerebral framework which appears un- derneath exists simply as faint impressions of an undivided body, covered by what seem to be osseous points,—bony molecules, it is probable, which encrusted the cartilage. The jaws, in the better specimens, are also preserved in the same doubtful style ; and this state of keeping is the common one in deposits in which every true bone, however delicate, pre- sents an outline as sharp as when it occupied its place in the living animal. The dermal or skeleton of both genera, which consisted, as has been shown (pages 28, 29), of shagreen-like osseous scales and slender spines, both brilliantly enamelled, 1s preserved entire ; whereas the interior framework of the head exists as mere point-speckled impressions ; and the in- ference appears unavoidable, that parts which so invariably differ in their state of keeping now, must have essentially differed in their substance originally.

Now in the Cheiracanthus we detect the first faint indi- cations of a peculiar arrangement of the dermal skeleton, in

* That these remarks apply to fish of an earlier date, the placo-ganoids of the Silurian, imparts to them an additional interest. The reader may be very safe in regarding these two kinds of brain, the placoid and the ganoid, as Silurian contemporaries.—.L. M.

OF THE EARLIER VERTEBRATA. 41

‘relation to certain parts of the skeleton within, which— greatly more developed in some of its contemporaries—led to important‘results in the general structure of these ganoids, and furnishes the true key to the character of the early ga- -noidal head. In such of the existing placoids as I have had an opportunity of examining, the only portions of the dermal _ skeleton of bone which conform in their arrangement to por- tions of the interior skeleton of cartilage are the teeth, which _are always laid on a base of skin right over the jaws. There _is also an approximation to arrangement of a corresponding kind, though a distant one, in those hook-armed tubercles of certain species of rays which run along the vertebral column. _ But in the shagreen by which the creatures are covered I have _ been able to detect no such arrangement, Whether it occurs on the fins, the body, or the head, or in the scale form, or in that of the prickle, it manifests the same careless irregu- larity. And on the head and body of the Cheiracanthus, and on all its fins save one, the shagreen-like scales, though laid down more symmetrically in lines than true shagreen, manifested an equal absence of arrangement in relation to the framework within. On that one fin, however,—the cau-

dal,—the scales, passing from their ordinary rhomboidal to a more rectangular form, ranged themselves in right lines over the internal rays (fig. 9, a), and imparted to these such strength as a splint of wood or whalebone fastened over a _ fractured toe or finger imparts to the injured digit,—a pro- _ vision which was probably rendered necessary in the case of this important organ of motion, from the circumstance that it was the only fin which the creature possessed that was not strengthened and protected anteriorly by astrong spine. In the Cheirolepis,—a contemporary fish, characterized, like its congeners the Cheiracanthus and Diplacanthus, by shagreen- like scales, but in which the spines were wanting,—we find a farther development of the provision. In all the fins the

i

42 CEREBRAL DEVELOPMENT

richly-enamelled dermal covering was arranged in lines over the rays (fig. 9, 6) ; and the scale, which assumes in the fins, like the scales on the © tail of the Cheiracanthus, though some- — what more irregularly, a rectangular 4 shape, is so considerably elongated, that ~ it assumes for its normal character as a — scale, that of the joint of an external ray. A similar arrangement of external pro- ff ag tection takes place in this genus over the —

ainae iitee Wortaasage

ply in these dermal plates, which covered an interior skull, of which, save in one ge-

yy ae bones of the head: the cartilaginous jaws

Pie i ive thei dermal i

a y) receive their osseous dermal covering 4 ines and, with these, the hyoid bones, the

We opercules, and the cranium. And it is

ADLY.)

Me

a. Portion of caudal Jin of Cheiracan- $0 thus.* mains in any of the Old Red fishes thus

b. Portion of caudal > otected, that we first trace what seem to jin of Cheirolepis ‘ : Cummingic. be the homologues of the cranial bones of

(Mag. sig diame- the osseous fishes,—at least their homo-

nus—the Dipterus—not a vestige re-—

— rs

logues so far as the cuticular can represent —

the internal. They appear for the first time, not as modified spinous processes, broadened, as in the carpace of the Chelo- nians, into osseous plates, but like those corneous external plates of this order of reptiles (known in one species as the tortoise- shell of commerce), the origin of which is purely cuticular, and which evince so little correspondence in their divisions with the sutures of the bones on which they rest, that they have been instanced, in their relation to the joinings beneath, as ad- mirable illustrations of the cross-banding of the mechanician.

* The darker upper patch in this figure indicates a portion in which the scales of the fins in the fossil state still retain their enamel; the lighter, a portion from which the enamel has disappeared.

OF THE EARLIER VERTEBRATA. 43

In the heads of the osseous: fishes, the cranium proper, hough consisting, like the skulls of birds, reptiles, and mam- “mals, of several bones, exists from snout to nape, and from “mastoid to mastoid, as one unbroken box; whereas all the ther bones of the head, such as the maxillaries and inter- naxillaries, the lower jaws, the opercular appendages, the branchial arches, and the branchiostegous rays, are connected _ but by muscle and ligament, and fall apart under the putre- _ factive influences, or in the process of boiling. This unbroken box, which consists, in the cod, of twenty-five bones, is the omologue of that cranial box of the placoids which consists _ of one entire piece, and the homotype, according to Oken, of the bodies and spinal processes of four vertebrae ; while _ the looser bones, which drop away, represent their sabe The Bs; upper surface of the box,—that extending from the nasal bone _ to the nape,—is the only part over which a dermal buckler - could be laid, as it is the only part with which the external _ skin comes in contact ; and so it is between this upper sur- ~ face and the cranial bucklers of the early ganoids that we have to institute comparisous. For it is a curious fact, that, _ with the exception of the Old Red genera Acanthodus, Cheir- if acanthus, and Diplacanthus,* all the ganoids of the period in _ which ganoids first appear have dermal bucklers placed right 2 over their true skulls, and that these, though as united in their _ parts as the bones proper to the cranium in quadrupeds and _ fishes, are composed of several pieces, furnished each with its independent centre of ossification. The Dipterians, the Ce- lacanths, the Cephalaspians, and at least one genus placed rather doubtfully among the Acanths,—the genus Cheirolepis, _ —all possessed cranial bucklers, extending from the nape ‘o _ the snout, in which the plates, various, in the several genera, in form and position, were fast soldered together, though in

every instance the lines of suture were distinctly marked.

* The Acanths of the Coal Measures possess the cranial buckler.

ES —————

}

44 CEREBRAL DEVELOPMENT

On each side of this external cranium, the various cereb plates, like the corresponding cerebral ribs in the osseo fishes, were free, at least not anchylosed together ; and some of their number unequivocally performed, in part at least, the functions of two of these cerebral ribs, viz, the upper and under jaws, with those of the opercular appendages attached to the latter. In the cod, as in most other osse ous fishes, the upper portion of the cranium consists of thir- teen bones, which represent, however, only seven bones in the human skull,—the nasal, the frontal, the two parietal,

Fig. 10.

UPPER SURFACE OF CRANIUM OF coD.* A, Occrpital bone. F, F, Posterior frontals. B, B, Parietals. E, E, Mastoid bones. C, C, C, Superior frontal. 2, 2, Hye-orbits. I, Nasal bone. a, a, Par-occipital bones.

D, D, Anterior frontal.

* Professor Owen, in fixing the homologues of the ichthyic head, | differs considerably from Cuvier ; but his view seems to be the cor. rect one. It will, however, be seen, that in my attempted compari-

OF THE EARLIER VERTEBRATA. 45

‘the occipital, and one-half the two temporal bones. And whereas in man, and in most of the mammals, there are four f these placed in the medial line,—the four which, accord-

ests of the four cerebral vertebrze,—in the cod there are but three. The super-occipital bone, A (fig. 10), pieces on to the superior frontal, C, C, C; and the parietals, B, B, which in the human subject form the upper and middle portions of the cranial vault, are thrust out laterally and posteriorly, and take their places, in a subordinate capacity, on each side of the super-occipital. This is not an invariable arrangement ong fishes. In the carp genus, for instance, the parietals assume their proper medial place between the occipital and frontal bones ; but so very general is the displacement, that Professor Owen regards it as characteristic of the great ich- _ thyic class, and as the first example in the vertebrata, reckon- _ ing from the lower forms upwards, of a sort of natural dislo- cation among the bones,—‘“‘a modification,” he remarks, “which, sometimes accompanied by great change of place, - has tended most to obscure the essential nature of parts, and their true relations to the archetype.” _ Of all the cerebral bucklers of the first ganoid period, that which best bears comparison with the cranial front of the cod is the buckler of the Coccosteus (fig. 11.) The general pro-

son of the divisions of the ancient ganoid cranium with those of the craniums of existing fishes, the points at issue between the two great na- turalists are not involved, otherwise than as mere questions of words. The matter to be determined, for instance, is not whether plate A in the skulls of the cod and Coccosteus be the homologue of a part of the occipi- tal or that of a part of the parietal bones, but whether plate A in the Ooccosteus be the homologue of plate A in the cod. The letters em- ployed I have borrowed from Agassiz’s restoration of the Coccosteus ; whereas the figures intimate divisions which the imperfect keeping of the specimens on which the ichthyologist founded did not enable him to detect.

—

46 CEREBRAL DEVELOPMENT F

portions of this portion of the ancient Cephalaspian head* differ very considerably from those of the corresponding part

Fig. 11.

CRANIAL BUCKLER OF COCCOSTEUS DECIPIENS.

a, a, Points of attachment to the cuirass which covered the upper part of the creature’s body.

in the modern cycloid one; but in their larger divisions, the modern and the ancient answer bone to bone. Three osse- ous plates in the Coccosteus, A, C, I, the homologues appa- rently of the occipital, frontal, and nasal bones, range along the medial line. The apparent homologues of the parietals, B, B, occupy the same position of lateral displacement as the parietals of the cod, and of so many other fishes. The pos- terior frontals, F, and the anterior frontals, D, also occupy

| places relatively the same, though the latter, which are of

greater proportional size, encroach much further, laterally and posteriorly, on the superior frontal, C, C, C, and sweep en- tirely round the upper half of the eye-orbits, 2, 2. The ap- parent homologue of the mastoid bone, E, which also occu-

* This designation is worthy of remark, as coinciding with Professor Huxley’s most recent researches. (See previous quotation.) He says likewise, in a letter to me, ‘‘ Fishes such as Cephalaspis, Pteraspis (and I may now add Coccosteus), present certain features of resemblance to the Siluroids, which are Teleostean fish.”—L. M.

OF THE EARLIER VERTEBRATA. 47

ies its proper place, joins posteriorly to a little plate, a, im- erfectly separated in most specimens from the parietal, but thich seems to represent the par-occipital bone ; and it is a urious circumstance, that as, in many of the osseous fishes, _is to these bones that the forks of the scapular arch are at- a sched, they unite in the Coccosteus in furnishing, in like man- er, a point of attachment to the cuirass which covered the ipper part of the creature’s body. Of the true internal skull f the Coccosteus there remains not a vestige. Like that of he sturgeon, it must have been a perishable, cartilaginous

In the Osteolepis,—an animal the whole of whose external 1ead I have, at an expense of some labour, and from the exa- . mination of many specimens, been enabled to restore,—the anial buckler (fig. 12) was divided in a more arbitrary style ;

pul AM (hhc =~ ;

en

APU "

4) he "

= —SSD]aP==j|HS

SS SS SSS SS 4 Zaye SSS SB Se! ——$———<— =Sz

———— SSS = —HS ——>

=

=z

=——!

CRANIAL BUCKLER OF OSTEOLEPIS.

Baa we find that an element of uncertainty mingles with our inferences regarding it, from the circumstance that some of _its lines of division, especially in the frontal half (C), were not

48 CEREBRAL DEVELOPMENT

real sutures, but formed merely a kind of surface-tatooing, re- sorted to as if for purposes of ornament. The cranial buck- ler of the Asterolepis exhibited, as I shall afterwards have oc- casion to show, a similar peculiarity ; both had their pseudo- sutures, resembling those false joints introduced by the archi- tect into his rusticated basements, in order to impart the ne- cessary aspect of regularity to what is technically termed the coursing and banding of the fabric. We can, however, de- termine, notwithstanding the induced obscurity, that the buck- ler of the Osteolepis was divided transversely in the middle into two main parts or segments,—an occipital part, A, and a frontal part, C ; and that the occipital segment seems to in- clude, with the super-occipital, the parietal plates, and the frontal © segment to comprise, with its own proper plates, not only the - nasal plate, but also the representative of the anterior part of the vomer. All, however, is obscure. But in our uncer-— tainty regarding the homologies of the divisions of this der- mal buckler, let us not forget the homology of the buckler it- self, as a whole, with the upper surface of the true cranium in the osseous fishes. Though frequently crushed and broken, it exists, 1n all the finer specimens of my collection, as a symmetrically arranged collocation of enamelled plates, as firmly united into one, though they all indicate their distinct centres of ossification, as the corresponding surface of the cranium in the carp or cod. The lateral curves in the fron- tal part, immediately opposite the lozenge-shaped plate in the centre, show the position of the eyes, which were placed in — this genus, as in some of the carnivorous turtles, immediately — over the mouth,—an arrangement common to almost all the ganoids of the Old Red Sandstone. The nearly semicircular | termination of the buckler formed the creature’s snout; and ~ in the Osteolepis, as in the Glyptolepis and the Diplopienuall it was armed on the under side, like the vomer of so many — of the osseous fishes, with sharp teeth. Some of my speci- —

OF THE EARLIER VERTEBRATA, 49

“mens indicate the nasal openings a little in advance of the eyes. ‘The nape of the creature was covered by three de- tached plates (9, 9, 9, fig. 13), which rested upon anterior

rsal scales, and whose homologues, in the osseous fishes, may ssibly be found in those bones which, uniting the shoulder-

Fig 13.

a

UPPER PART OF HEAD OF OSTEOLEPIS.

bones to the head, complete the scapular belt or ring. The operculum we find represented by a single plate (8), which had attached to it, as its sub-operculum, a plate (13) of nearly equal size (see figs. 14 and 15.) Four small plates (2, 4, 5) formed the under curve of the eyes, described in many of the osseous fishes by a chain of small bones or ossicles ; a consi- -derably larger plate (6) occupied the place of the pre-opercu- lar bone ; while the intermaxillaries had their representatives in well-marked plates (3, 3), which, in the genera Osteolepis, _Diplopterus, and Glyptolepis, we find bristling so thickly with teeth along their lower edges, as to remind us of the minia- _ ture saws employed by the joiner in cutting out circular holes. These external intermaxillaries did not, as in the perch or cod, meet in front of the nasal bone and vomer, but joined on at the side, a little in advance of the eyes, leaving the rounded D

a

—

50 CEREBRAL DEVELOPMENT

termination of the cranial buckler, which, like the intermaxil- laries, was thickly fringed with teeth, to form, as has been already said, the creature’s snout.

The under jaws (10),—strongly-marked bones in at least all the Dipterian and Celacanth genera,—we find represented externally by massy plates, bearing, like those of the upper. jaw, their range of teeth. As shown in a well-preserved specimen of the lower jaw of Holoptychius, in my possession, they were boxes of bone enclosing a bulky nucleus of car- tilage, which, in approaching towards the condyloid process, where great strength was necessary, was thickly traversed by osseous cancelli, and passed at the joint into true bone. Itis in the under jaws of the earlier ganoids that we first detect a true union of the external with the internal skeleton,—of the bony plates and teeth, which were mere plates and teeth of the skin, with the osseous, granular walls, which enclosed at .east all the larger pieces of the cartilaginous framework of the interior. The jaws of the rays and sharks, formed of cartilage, and fenced round on their sides and edges by their thin coverings of polygonal, bony points, are wholly internal and skin-covered ; whereas the teeth, which rest on the soft cuticular integument right over them, are as purely dermal as the surrounding shagreen. ‘Teeth and shagreen may, we find, be alike stripped off with the skin. Now, in the ear- lier ganoidal jaw, two sides of the osseous box which it com- posed,—its outer and under sides,—were mere dermal plates, representative of the skin of the placoids, or of their sha- green ; while the other two,—its upper and inner sides,— seem to have been developments of the interior osseous walls waich covered the endoskeletal cartilage. Nor is it unworthy at notice, that the reptile fishes of the period had their echthyze teeth ranged along the edge of an exterior dermal plate, which covered the outer side of the jaw ; whereas their reptile teeth were planted on a plate, apparently of interior development,

| 4 ‘

OF THE EARLIER VERTEBRATA. 51

| which covered its upper edge, It is further worthy of remark. that while the teeth of the dermal plate,—themselves also der- on al, seem as if they had grown out of it, and formed part of it, _ —just as the teeth of the placoids grow out of the skin on _ which they rest,—the reptile teeth within rested in shailow _ pits,—the first faint indications of true sockets.

That space included within the arch formed by the sweep - of the under jaws, which we find occupied in the osseous g fishes by the hyoid bones and the branchiostegous rays, was ' filled up externally, in the Dipterians and Celacanths, and ~ in at least two genera of Cephalaspians, by dermal plates ; in "some genera, such as the Diplopterus, by three plates ; in _ others, such as the Holoptychius and Glyptolepis, by two ; and in the Asterolepis, as we shall afterwards see, by but a 6 single plate. In the Osteolepis these plates were increased to

Fig. 14.

10

UNDER PART OF HEAD OF OSTEOLEPIS.”

_ five in number by the little plates 14, 14 (fig. 14), whicr, however, may have heen also present in the Diplopterus, though

_ * The jaws (10, 10), which exhibit in the print their greatest breadth, _ would have presented in the animal, seen from beneath, their narrow _ under-edges, and have nearly fallen into the line of the sub-opercular plates (13, 13).

52 CEREBRAL DEVELOPMENT

my specimens fail to show them, The general arrangement was of much elegance,—an elegance, however, which, in the accompanying restorations, the dislocation of the free plates, drawn apart to indicate their detached character, somewhat tends to obscure. But the position of the eyes must have

imparted to the animal a sinister, reptile-like aspect. The

profile (fig. 15), the result, not of a chance-drawn outline, arbi-

Fig. 15.

HEAD OF OSTEOLEPIS, SEEN IN PROFILE.

{ trarily filled up, but produced by the careful arrangement in their proper places of actually existing plate, seryes to show how perfectly the dermoskeletal parts of the creature were developed. Some of the animals with which we are best acquainted, if represented by but their cuticular skeletons, would appear simply as sets of hoofs and horns : even the’ tortoise or pengolin would present about the head and limbs - their gaps and missing portions. But the dermoskeleton of the Osteolepis, composed of solid bone, and burnished with enamel, exhibited the outline of the fish entire, and, with the - exception of the eye, the filling up of all its external parts. Presenting outside, in its original state, no fragment of skin or membrane, and with even its most flexible organs sheathed | in enamelled bone, the Osteolepis must have very much re- sembled a fish carved in ivory; and, though so effectually covered, it would have appeared, from the circumstance, that

a .

OF THE EARLIER VERTEBRATA. 58

it wore almost all its bone outside, as naked as the human

teeth, The cranial buckler of the Diplopterus (fig. 16) somewhat Fig. 16.

CRANIAL BUCKLER OF DIPLOPTERUS.

resembled that of its fellow-dipterian the Osteolepis, but ex-

_ hibited greater elegance of outline. My first perfect speci- - men, which I owe to the kindness of Mr John Miller of

Thurso, an intelligent geologist of the north, reminded me, as it glittered in jet-black enamel on its ground of pale gray, of those Roman cuirasses which one sees in old prints, im- paled on stakes, as the central objects in warlike trophies formed of spoils taken in battle. The rounded snout repre- sented the chest and shoulders, the middle portion the waist, and the expansion at the nape the piece of dress attached, which, like the Highland kilt, fell adown the thighs. The addition of a fragment of a sleeve, suspended a little over the eye-orbits, 2, 2, seemed all that was necessary in order to render the resemblance complete. But as I disinterred the

buried edges of the specimen with a graver, the form, though

it grew still more elegant, became less that of the ancient evat of armour: the snout expanded into a semicircle ; the eye-orbits gradually deepened ; and the entire fossil became not particularly like anything but the thing it once was,— tne cranial buckler of the Diplopterus. The print (fig. 17)

54 CEREBRAL DEVELOPMENT

exhibits its true form. It consists of two main divisions,

occipital (A) and frontal (C, fig. 16); and in each of these Fig. 17.

Cie

ll

a i

(Mi i AN, ( : :

\ uN We | “Y) Ih

CRANIAL BUCKLER OF DIPLOPTERUS.

we find a pair of smaller divisions, with what seem to be in- dications of yet further division, marked, not by lines, but by dots ; though I have hitherto failed to determine whether the plates which these last indicate possess their independ- ent centres of ossification. Not unfrequently, however, has the comparative anatomist to seek the analogues of two bones in one ; nor is it at least more difficult to trace in the faint divisions of the cranial buckler of the Diplopterus, the ho- mologues of the occipital, frontal, parietal, and nasal bones, than to recognise the representatives of the carpals of the middle and ring finger in man in the cannon bone of the fore leg of the ox. I may mention in passing, that the little central plate of the frontal division (1, fig. 16), which so nearly corresponds with that of the Osteolepis, occurred, though with considerable variations of form and homology, ana some slight difference of position, in all the ganoids of the Old Red Sandstone whose craniums were covered with an osseous buckler, and that its place was always either im-

OF THE EARLIER VERTEBRATA. 55

mediately between the eyes, or a very little over them. Its : never-failing recurrence shows that it must have had some “meaning, though it may be difficult to say what.* In the _Coccosteus it takes the form of the male dovetail, which united the nasal plate or snout to the plate representative of the su-

_ * Thad the pleasure, in the autumn of 1850, of introducing Professor _ Owen and Sir Philip Egerton to my collection. Both gentlemen ex- “pressed a desire of seeing the little plate referred to here, as exhibited in _ the cranial buckler of the Diplopterus, and I submitted it to their in- _ spection in a specimen which—wholly detached from the rock—exhibits } F it both in the outer and inner surface of the buckler. *‘ It is exactly as 1 had thought,” said the distinguished comparative anatomist to Sir _ Philip, ‘‘ a prolongation of the brain extended downwards from the [bcain-pan proper, and bore at its termination the pineal gland, which rested immediately under the little plate, and had its place indicated by it. » The revelation struck me as fraught with a startling interest. <A z "disciple of that ancient school of anatomy which regarded this gland as a ‘the seat of the soul would have said that the ever-recurring plate which _ had attracted my notice marked the exact point where the soul of an ancient fish of the Old Red Sandstone took its stand,—like the man sta- tioned a-head on the outlook in a vessel,—to will and direct the crea- _ture’s course. During my subsequent exploratory labours among the rocks of Caithness I kept the remark of Professor Owen in view, and succeeded in procuring, through the kindness of Mr Dick, part of a cra- nium of Diplopterus, which illustrates, and—so far at least as the solid and less perishable parts of an organism can confirm so occult a conclu- sion regarding the soft and perishable ones—confirms it. In the speci-

Fig. 18.

_ ten figured (No. 18), the occipital and parietal portions of the buckler __ Lave been removed by a singularly delicate operator,—the slowly disin-

56 CEREBRAL DEVELOPMENT

perior frontal. Of the cartilaginous box which formed the interior skull of either Osteolepis or Diplopterus, or, with but one exception, of the interior skulls of any of their contem- — poraries, no trace, as I have said, has yet been detected. The — solitary exception in the case is, however, one of singular in- — terest,

In a collection of miscellaneous fragments sent me by Mr > Dick from the rocks of Thurso, I de- — tected patches of palatal teeth ranged — in nearly the quadratures of circles,

a | and which radiated outwards from the — rectangular angle or centre (fig, 19, © b). And with the patches there oc- | curred plates exactly resembling the —

, barbed head of a dart (a), with which —

I had been previously acquainted, — though I had failed to determine their character or place. The excel- lent state of keeping of some of Mr a. Palatal dart-head. Dick’s specimens now enabled me to Pi NORD Of BOE LO treba ese patches with the dart-head, and several other plates, to a curious piece of palatal me- chanism, ranged along the base of a ganoidal cranium, covered externally by a brightly enamelled buckler, and to ascertain

tegrating wear of the surf,—and exhibits, in consequence, the walls of the - brain-chamber lying underneath, with a narrow cavity or passage run- ning downwards from the chamber towards the little central plate. And along this passage, the prolongation of the brain, which terminated in the pineal gland, seems to have descended. The reader will of course see to what the'evidence here actually amounts. A witness of credit states that there once ran a certain prolongation of a certain organ, long since reduced to dust, from one indicated point to another, and this in a direction in which it had not been previously known that there existed a passage for its transmission. An opportunity of observation occurs, how- eyer,—that furnished by the organism here figured,—and the required passage is found running in the indicated direction.

OF THE EARLIER VERTEBRATA, o@

a order in which patches and plates occurred. And then, a ough not without some labour, I succeeded in tracing the ekler with which they were associated to the Dipterus,— a fish which, though it has engaged the attention of both - Ouvier and Agassiz, has not yet been adequately restored. Tt is on an ill-preserved Orkney specimen of the cranial _ buckler of this ganoid that the ichthyologist has founded his " genus Polyphractus ; while groupes of its palatal teeth from ‘the Old Red of Russia he refers to a supposed placoid,—the _ Ctenodus. But in the earlier ages of paleontological re- search, mistakes of this character are wholly unavoidable. _ The palzontologist who did avoid them would be either very -unobservant, or at once very rash and very fortunate in his - guesses. If, ere an entire skeleton of the [chthyosaurus had turned up, there had been found in different localities, in the Liasic formation, a beak like that of a porpoise, teeth like _ those of a crocodile, a head and sternum like those of a lizard, paddles like those of a cetacean, and vertebree like those of a _ fish, it would have been greatly more judicious, and more in - accordance with the existing analogies, to have erected, pro- visionally at least, places specifically, or even generically se- _ parated, in which to range the separate pieces, than to hold that they had all united in one anomalous genus ; though ‘such was actually the fact. And Agassiz, in erecting three _ distinct genera out of the fragments of a single genus, has in reality acted at once more prudently and more intelligently than if he had avoided the error by rashly uniting parts which in their separate state indicate no tie of connection.

The cranial buckler of the Dipterus (fig. 20) was, like that of the Diplopterus, of great beauty. In some of the finest specimens we find the enamel ornately tatooed, within the more strongly-marked divisions, by delicately traced lines. waved and bent, as if upon the principle of Hogarth ; and though the lateral plates are numerous and small, and defy

‘58 CEREBRAL DEVELOPMENT |

the homologies, we may trace in those of the central Fig. 20.

CRANIAL BUCKLER OF DIPTERUS.

RY

from the snout to the nape, what seem to be the representa if tives of the frontal, parietal, and occipital bones,—the parie-

Fig. 21.

——————— = ene ee -

ES rae ee

ett = ye

15

a nn Ie

ee

BASE OF CRANIUM OF DLIETERUS.

ne

OF THE EARLIER VERTEBRATA. 59

tals ranging, as in the skull of the carp, and in that of most ‘of the mammals, in their proper place in the medial line. But the under surface of the cranium, armed, as on the upper surface, with plates of bone, exhibited an arrangement still more peculiar (fig. 21). In rectangular patches of palatal 4 eeth, its curious dart-like bone, placed immediately behind these, and attached, as the dart-head is attached to the handle, to a broad lozenge-shaped plate, with two strong osseous pro- “cesses projecting on either side, forms such a tout ensemble as ‘is unique among fishes. Even here, however, there may be traced at least a shade of homological resemblance to the c. which form the base of the osseous skull. The single zenge-shaped plate (A), with its dart-head, occupies the place é of the basi-occipital bone; the posterior portion of the vomer "seems represented by a strong bony ridge, extending towards the snout ; two separate bones, each bearing one of the an- gular patches of teeth, correspond to the sphenoid bone and its ale ; and, attached laterally to each of these, there is the strong projecting bone, on which the lower jaw appears to have hinged, and which apparently represents the lower part _of the temporal bone. Not less singular was the form of tne _creature’s under jaw (fig. 22). I know no other fishjaw,

UNDER JAW OF DIPTERUS.

_ whether of the recent or the extinct races, that might beso _Yeadily mistaken for that of a quadruped. It exhibits not _ only the condyloid, but also the coronvid processes; and,

60 CEREBRAL DEVELOPMEN1

save that it broadens on its upper edges, where in mammals” the grinders are placed, so as to furnish field enough for an gular patches of teeth, which correspond with the angule patches in the palate, it might be regarded, found detached, as at least a reptilian, if not mammalian, bone. The dispo- sition of the palatal teeth of the Dipterus will scarce fail to ~ remind the mechanist of the style of grooving resorted to in the formation of mill-stones for the grinding of flour ; nor is it wholly improbable that, in correspondence with the rota- tory motion of the stones to which the grooving is specially adapted, jaws so hinged may have possessed some such power of lateral motion as that exemplified by the human subject’ in the use of the molar teeth. | The protection afforded by the osseous covering of both the upper and under surface of the cranium of this ichthyolite has resulted, in several instances, in the preservation, though always in a greatly compressed state, of the cranium itself, and the consequent exhibition of two very important cranial cavities, the brain-pan proper, and the passage through which the spinal cord passed into the brain. In the sturgeon the brain occupies nearly the middle of the head ; and there is a considerable part of the occipital region traversed by the spine” in a curved channel, which, seen in profile, appears wide at_ the nape, but considerably narrower where 1t enters the brain- — pain, and altogether very much resembling the interior of a miniature hunting-horn. And such exactly was the arrange-— ment of the greater cavities in the head of the Dipterus. The portion of the cranium which was overlaid by what may be regarded as the occipital plate was traversed by a cavity shaped | : like a Lilliputian bugle-horn; while the hollow in which the brain was lodged lay under the two parietal plates, and the : little elliptical plate in the centre. The accompanying print . (fig. 23), though of but slight show, may be regarded by the : reader with some little interest, as a not inadequate repre-

OF THE EARLIER VERTEBRATA. 61

“sentation of the most ancient brain-pan on which human eye thas yet looked,—as, in short, the type of cell in which, my

Fig. 23.

LONGITUDINAL SECTION OF HEAD OF DIPTERUS,

a of ages ago, in at least one genus, that mysterious sub- _ stance was lodged on whose place and development so very - much in the scheme of creation was destined to depend. The ‘specimen from which the figure is taken was laid open late- _ rally by chance exposure to the waves on the shores of Thurso ; _ another specimen, cut longitudinally by the saw of the lapi- dary, yields a similar section, but greatly more compressed in _ the cavities; on which, of course, as unsupported hollows, _ the compression to which the entire cranium had been ex- posed chiefly acted. When the top and bottom of a box are violently forced together, it is the empty space which the box - encloses that is annihilated in consequence of the violence. It is deserving of notice, that the analogies of the cranial cavities in this ancient ganoid should point so directly on the cranial cavities of that special ganoid of the present time _ which unites a true skull of cartilage to a dermal skull of osseous plates,—a circumstance strongly corroborative of the general evidence, negative and positive, on which I have con- cluded that the true skulls of the first ganoids were also car- tilaginous. It is further worthy of observation, that in all the sections of the cranium of Dipterus which I have yet examined, the internal line is continuous, as in the placoids, from nape to snout, and that the true skull presents no trace of those cerebral vertebree of which skulls are regarded by Oken and his disciples as developments. Historically at least, the progress of the ichthyic head seems to have been

<r ee

ES

; ae aaa a

= - - “ ~ — = Se eames

0 CEREBRAL DEVELOPMENT

a progress from simple cartilaginous boxes to cartilaginous boxes covered with osseous plates, that performed the func tions, whether active or passive, of internal bones ; and then — trom external plates to the interior bones which the plates had previously represented, and whose proper work they had done. : The principle which rendered it necessary that the divi- sions which exist in the dermal skulls of the first ganoids should so closely correspond with the divisions which exist in the internal skulls of the osseous fishes of a greatly later — period, does not seem to lie far from the surface. Of the solid parts of the ichthyic head, a certain set of pieces afford protection to the brain and cerebral nerves, and to some of the organs of the senses, such as those of seeing and hearing ; while another certain set of pieces constitute the framework | through which an important class of functions, manducatory and respiratory, are performed. The protective bones of merely passive function are fixed, whereas the bones of active function, such as the jaws, the osseous framework of the opercules, and the hyoid bones, are to the necessary extent free, 2. e. capable of independent motion. Of course, the de- tached character necessary to the free cerebral bones would be equally necessary in cerebral plates united dermally to the

_ pieces of the cartilaginous framework which performed in

the ancient fish the functions of these free bones; and hence jaw plates, opercular plates, and hyoid plates, whose homolo- gical relation with recent jaws and opercular and hyoid bones cannot be mistaken. They were operative in performing identical mechanical functions, and had to exist, in conse- quence, in identical mechanical conditions. And an equally simple, though somewhat different principle, seems to have regulated the divisions of the fixed cranial bucklers of the Old Red ganoids, and to have determined their homologies with the fixed cerebral bones of the osseous fishes.

‘

OF THE EARLIER VERTEBRATA. 63

_ These cranial bucklers, extending from nape to snout, pro- tected the exposed upper surface of the cartilaginous skull, and conformed to it in shape, as a helmet conforms to the : shape of the head, or a breast-plate to the shape of the chest. o. nd as the cartilaginous heads resembled in general outline the osseous ones, the buckler which covered their upper sur- "face resembled in general outline the upper surface of the osseous skull. It was in no case entirely a flat plate ; but _ in every species rounded over the snout, and in most species at the sides ; and so, in order that its characteristic propor- tions might be preserved throughout the various stages of _ growth in the head which it covered, it had to be formed from several distinct centres of ossification, and to extend in _ area around the edges of the plates originated from these. The workman finds no difficulty in adding to the size of a . piece of straight wall, whether by heightening or lengthening 5 it; but he cannot add to the size of a dome or arch without : first taking it down, and then erecting it anew on a larger

scale. In the domes and arches of the animal kingdom, the _ problem is solved by building them up of distinct pieces, few or many, according to the demands of the figure which they _ compose, and then rendering these pieces capable of increase along their edges. Itis on this principle that the Cystidea, the

Echinide, the Chelonian carapace and plastron, and the skulls

of the osseous vertebrata, are constructed. It is also the

principle on which the cranial bucklers of the ancient ganoids were formed.* And from the general resemblance in figure

* In all probability it is likewise the principle of the placoid skull. The numerous osseous points by which the latter is encrusted, each capable of increase at the edges, seem the minute bricks of an ample dome. It is possible, however, that new points may be formed in the interstices between the first formed ones, as what anatomists term the triquetra or Wormiana form between the serrated edges of the lam- doidal suture in the human skull; and that the osseous surface of the cerebral dome may thus extend, as the dome itself increases in size, not

64 CEREBRAL DEVELOPMENT

of these bucklers to the upper surface of the osseous skull, the separate parts necessary for the building up of the on were anticipated, by many ages, in the building up of the other ; just as we find external arches of stone which were erected two thousand years ago, constructed on the same principle, and relatively of the same parts, as internal arches of brick built in the present age. Doubtless, however, with this mechanical necessity for correspondence of parts in the formation of corresponding erections, there may have mingled that regard for typical resemblance which seems so marked a characteristic of the style, if I may so express myself, um which the Divine Architect gives expression to his ideas, The external osseous buckler He divided after the general pattern which was to be exemplified, in latter times, in the divisions of the internal osseous skull; as if in illustration - of that “ideal exemplar” which dwelt in his mind from eternity, and on the palpable existence of which sober science . . . . . . . \ has based deductions identical in their scope and bearing with - some of the sublimest doctrines of the theologian. “The re- cognition,” says Professor Owen, “of an ideal exemplar for : through the growth of the previously existing pieces, the minute bricks — of my illustration,—but through the addition of new ones. Equally i in either case, however, that essential difference between the placoid skull and the placoid verte- brata to which I have referred appears to hinge | on the circumstance, that while the osseous nu- cleus of each vertebral centrum could form, in even its most complicated shape, from a single point, the osseous walls of the cranium had to be — formed from hundreds. The accompanying dia- — ee a ee gram serves to show after what manner the ver- CENTRUM OF THORN- 5 : BACK. tebral centrum in the ray enlarges with the growth of the animal, by addition of bony mat- ter external to the point in the middle, at which ossification first begins. The horizontal lines indicate the lines of increment in the two internal

cones which each centrum comprises, and the vertical ones the lines of increment in the lateral pillars.

Fig. 24.

OF THE EARLIER VERTEBRATA, 65

the vertebrated animals, proves that the knowledge of suck _ a being as man existed before man appeared ; for the Divine - Mind which planned the archetype also foreknew all its modi- f ications. The archetypal idea was manifested in the flesh, under divers such modifications, upon this planet, long prior _ to the existence of those animal species that actually exem-

_ But while we find place in that geological history in which _ every character is an organism, for the “ ideal exemplar” of

" developed skull of Professor Oken. The true genealogy of the _ head runs in an entirely different line. The nerves of the _ cerebral senses did not, we find, originate cerebral vertebra, "seeing that the heads of the first and second geologic periods ad the cerebral nerves, but not their cerebral vertebre ; and

that what are regarded as cerebral vertebree appear for the first time, not in the early fishes, but in the reptiles of the Coal formation. That line of succession through the fish in- _ dicated by the Continental assertor of the development hypo- _ thesis, is a line cut off. All the existing evidence conspires to show that the placoid heads of the Silurian system were, - like the placoid heads of the recent period, mere cartilagi- nous boxes; and that there existed ganoidal heads, that to _ the internal cartilaginous box added external plates of bone, _ the homologues, apparently—so far at least as the merely _ cuticular could be representative of the endoskeletal—of the opercular, maxillary, frontal, and occipital bones in the osse- ous fishes of a long posterior period,—fishes that were not ushered upon the scene until after the appearance of the reptile _ in its highest forms, and of even the marsupia] quadruped.

AES Gi ir SE

ES

66 THE ASTEROLEPIS,

THE ASTEROLEPIS, ITS STRUCTURE, BU aa AND ASPECT.

Wiru the reader, if he has accompanied me thus far, I shall now pass on to the consideration of the remains of the Astero- lepis. Our preliminary acquaintance with the cerebral pecu- liarities of a few of its less gigantic contemporaries will be : found of use in enabling us to determine regarding a class of somewhat resembling peculiarities which characterized this hugest ganoid of the [Middle] Old Red Sandstone. : The head of the Asterolepis, like the heads of all the other Celacanth, and of all the Dipterians, was covered with osse-_ ous plates,—its body with osseous scales; and, as I have already had occasion to mention, it is from the star-like tubercles by which the cerebral plates were fretted that M. Eichwald bestowed on the creature its generic name. Agas- siz has even erected species on certain varieties in the pattern of the stars, as exhibited on detached fragments ; but I am far from being satisfied that we are to seek in their peculi- arities of style the characters by which the several species” were distinguished. The stellar form of the tubercle seems” to have been its normal or most perfect form, as it was also, with certain modifications, that of the tubercle of the Coc- costeus and Pterichthys ; but its development as a complete star was comparatively rare : in most cases the tubercles ex-_ isted without the rays,—frequently in the insulated pap-like

| .

ITS STRUCTURE, BULK, AND ASPECT. 67

shape, but not rarely confluent, or of an elongated or bent _ form ; and when to these the characteristic rays were added, _ the stars produced were of a rather eccentric order,—stars _ somewhat resembling the shadows of stars seen in water. In- dividual specimens have already been found, on which, if we recognise the form of the tubercle as a specific character, se- _ veral species might be erected. The _ accompanying woodcut (fig. 25) re- i presents, from a Thurso specimen, _ what seems to be the true normal © | pattern of these cerebral carvings. 7 Seen in profile (6), the tubercles re- semble little hillocks, perforated at _ their bases by single lines of thickly-

_ set caves ; while seen from above (a), Dermal tubercles of Astero- _ the narrow piers of bone by which Kae 4 Sa (Mag. two diameters.)

_ the caves are divided take the form

ofrays. The paleontologist will scarce fail to recognise in this print the coral Monticularia of Lamarck, or to detect, in at ~ least the profile, the peculiarity which suggested the name, __ The scales which covered the creature’s body (fig. 26) were, _ in proportion to its size, considerably smaller and thinner than _ those of the Holoptychius, which, however, they greatly re- semble in their general style of sculpture. Each, on the lower _ part of its exposed field, was, we see, fretted by longitudinal anastomosing ridges, which, in the upper part, break into de- tached angular tubercles, placed with the apex downwards, and hollowed, leaf-like, in the centre ; while that covered portion which was overlaid by the scales immediately above we find thickly pitted by microscopic hollows, that give to this part of the field, viewed under a tolerably high magnifying power, a honeycombed appearance. ‘The central and lower parts of _ the interior surface of the scale (a) are in most of the speci- mens irregularly roughened ; while a broad, smootb band,

2 eS

a

1b

68 THE ASTEROLEPIS,

which runs along the top and sides, and seems to have fur.

uished the line of attachment to the creature’s body, is com-

- —— as

SCALES OF ASTEROLEPIS.

(Nat. size.) a. Inner surface of scale. b. Eaterior surface. :

paratively smooth. The exterior carvings, though they de- mand the assistance of the lens to see them aright, are of singular elegance and beauty ; as perhaps the accompanying woodcut (fig. 7). which gives a magnified view of a portion of the scale immediately above (6), from the middle of the honeycombed field on the right side, to where the anastomosing ridges bend gracefully” in their descent, may in some degree serve to” show. I have seen a richly inlaid coat of mail, which was once worn by the puissant Charles | the Fifth ; but its elaborate carvings, though they

PORTION OF Bis 2 carvED sur- belonged to the age of Benvenuto Cellini, were |

(Mag ie Lg rude and unfinished, compared with those which — | Deter fretted the armour of the Asterolepis.

ITS STRUCTURE, BULK, AND ASPECT. 69

_ The creature’s cranial buckler, which was of great size and _ strength, might well be mistaken for the carapace of some Che- ~ lonian fish of no inconsiderable bulk. The cranial bucklers of ‘the larger Dipterians were ample enough to have covered the corresponding part in the skulls of our middle-sized market- ‘fish, such as the haddock and whiting ; the buckler of a Coc- ‘costeus of the extreme size would have covered, if a little altered in shape, the upper surface of the skull of a cod; but _ the cranial buckler of Asterolepis, from which the accom-

“panying woodcut was taken (fig. 28), would have considerably

CRANIAL BUCKLER OF ASTEROLEPIS. (One-fifth nat. size, linear.)

more than covered the corresponding part in the skull of a large horse; and I have at least one specimen in my collec- tion whicl. would have fully covered the front skull of an elephant. In the smaller specimens, the buckler somewhat resembles a labourer’s shovel divested of its handle, and sorely rust-eaten along its lower or cutting edge. It consisted of

70 THE ASTEROLEPIS,

plates, connected at the edges by flat squamous sutures, or, as a joiner might perhaps say, glued together in bevelled joints. And, in consequence of this arrangement, the same ~ plates which seem broad on the exterior surface appear com- — paratively narrow on the interior one, and vice versa: the occipital plate (a), which, running from the nape along the centre of the buckler, occupies so considerable a space on its outer surface, exhibits inside a superficies reduced at least one-half. Like nine-tenths of its contemporaries, the Astero- — lepis exhibits the little central plate between the eyes; but — the eye-orbits, unlike those of the Coccosteus, and of all the Dipterian genera, which were half-scooped out of the cranial buckler, half-encircled by detached plates, were placed com- pletely within the field of the buckler,—a circumstance in which they resemble the eye orbits of the Pterichthys, and, among existing fish, those of the sea-wolf. The character- istic is also a distinctive one in Cuvier’s second family of the Acanthopterygii,—‘ the fishes with hard cheeks.” A deep line immediately over the eyes, which, however, indicated no suture, but seems to have been merely ornamental, forms a sort of rudely tatooed eyebrow ; the marginal lines parallel to the lateral edges of the buckler were also mere tatooings ; but all the others indicated joints which, though more or less anchylosed, had a real existence. So flat was the surface, that the edge of a ruler rests upon it, in my several speci- mens, both lengthwise and across ; but it was traversed by two flat ridges, which, stretching from the corners of the la- tero-posterior, 7.¢. parietal plates (6, b), converged at the little plate between the eyes; while along the centre of the de- pressed angle which they formed, a third ridge, equally flat with the others, ran towards the same point of convergence from the nape. The three ridges, when strongly relieved by a slant light, resemble not inadequately an impression, on a large scale, of the Queen’s broad arrow.

ITS STRUCTURE, BULK, AND ASPECT. 71

4 The inner surface of the cranial buckler of Asterolepis (fig. 29),—that which rested on the cartilaginous box which form-

INNER SURFACE OF CRANIAL BUCKLER OF ASTEROLEPIS. (One-fifth nat. size, linear.)

ed the creature’s interior skull,—stands out in bolder relief from the stone than its outer surface, and forms a more pic- ' turesque object, like the inner surfaces of the bucklers of _ Coccosteus and Péerichthys, but much more thickly than these, it was traversed by minute channelled markings, somewhat resembling those strize which may be detected in the flatter bones of the ordinary fishes, and which seem in these to be mere interstices between the osseous fibres. And in the plates, as in the bones, they radiate from the centres of ossi- fication, which are comparatively dense and massy, towards the thinner overlapping edges. These radiating lines are equally well marked in the cerebral bones of the human foetus. The three converging ridges on the outer surface we find on the inner surface also,—the lateral ones a little bent in the middle, but so directly opposite those outside, that the thick-

72 THE ASTEROLEPIS,

ening of the buckler which takes place along their line is at least as much a consequence of their inner as of their outer elevation over the general platform. A fourth bar ran trans-— versely along the nape, and formed the cross beam on which the others rested ; for the three longitudinal ridges may be properly regarded as three strong beams, which, extending - from the transverse beam at the nape to the front, where they converged like the spokes of a wheel at the nave, gave to the cranial roof a degree of support of which, from its great flatness, it may have stood in need. In cranial bucklers in which the average thickness of the plates does not exceed three eighth parts of an inch, their thickness in the centre of the ridges exceeds three quarters. The head of the largest — crocodile of the existing period is defended by an armature greatly less strong than that worn by the Asterolepis of the Lower Old Red Sandstone. Why this ancient ganoid should have been so ponderously helmed we can but doubtfully guess : we only know, that when nature arms her soldiery, ( there are assailants to be resisted, and a state of war to be maintained. The posterior central plate, the homologue ap- parently of the occipital bone, was curiously carved into an © ornate massive leaf, like one of the larger leaves of a Corin- — thian capital, and terminated beneath, where the stem should — have been, in a strong osseous knob, fashioned like a pike- — head. Two plates immediately over it, the homologues of — the superior frontal bone, with the little plate which, perched atop in the middle, lay between the creature’s eyes, resem- bled the head and breast in the female figure at least not less closely than those of the “lady in the lobster ;” the pos- terior frontal plates in which the outer and nether half of the eye-orbits were hollowed formed a pair of sweeping wings ; and thus in the centre of the buckler we are presented with the figure of an angel, robed and winged, and of which the large sculptured leaf forms the body, traced in a style in no

ITS STRUCTURE, BULK, AND ASPECT. 73

ee more rude than we might expect to see exemplified _ on the lichen-encrusted shield of some ancient tombstone of : ‘that House of Avenel which bore as its arms the effigies of the Spectre Lady. Children have a peculiar knack in de- _ tecting such resemblances ; and the discovery of the angel in

_ * The gap shown in the cranial buckler, in advance of the little plate _ between the eyes (fig. 29), I was unable to fill from actual observation _ at the time when the drawing was made ; and as I was unwilling to _ yenture on an arbitrary restoration, I suffered the space to remain un- occupied in the print, as in the specimen from which it had been taken. I succeeded, however, shortly after, in disinterring from the rocks of _ Thurso « well-marked detached specimen of the keystone-shaped plate _ by which the gap had been filled ; and in the course of the following _ winter I received from my friend Mr Dick a fine cranial buckler, nearly _ ¢ntire, in which the plate occupied its proper place. It will be seen Brom the accompanying wood-cut (fig. 30), which represents the little

Fig. 30.

_ detached plate on both sides, that it was not without its share of nice carpentry,—scarping and mitring, as a joiner would say,—on the edges which came in contact with the three adjacent plates. I may be per-

“mitted to record here a brief anecdote connected with this subject, illus- trative of the quickness of eye possessed by one of the most distinguished of English geologists. The gap in the print had struck the eye of Pro- fessor Sedgwick as unnatural: it was not the proper finish, he argued ; and when in autumn last (that of 1850) he visited my collection, accom- panied by Sir Roderick Murchison and Dr John Fleming, he brought the volume with him to compare the print with the original. Ere his visit,

_ however, I had procured both the detached plate figured above and the specimen from Mr Dick, which exhibited it lying in its proper place ; and I referred him to the latter as the true authority for determining how nature had given the last finish to the cranial buckler of the A sterolepis.

_ * Ay!” he exclaimed, as he eagerly knelt down to examine the specimen,

_ and passed his fingers over the keystone-like plate,—‘‘ Ay, thisis a finish

__ of the right kind !—this will do.”

‘ very considerably they differ from one another in their lines

74 THE ASTEROLEPIS,

It is on this inner side of the cranial buckler, where th are no such pseudo-joinings indicated as on the external sur- face, that the homologies of the plates of which it is composed can be best traced. It might be well, however, ere setting one’s self to the work of comparison, to examine the skulls of a few of the osseous fishes of our coasts, and to mark how

of suture and their general form. The cerebral divisions of the conger-eel, for instance, are very unlike those of the had-. dock or whiting ; and the sutures in the head of the gurnard are dissimilarly arranged from those in the head of the perch. And after tracing the general type in the more anomalous’ forms, and finding, with Cuvier, that in even these the “skull consists of the same bones, though much subdivided, as the skulls of the other vertebrata,” we will be the better qualified for grappling with the not greater anomalies which occur in the cranial buckler of the Asterolepis. The occipital plate,

be _—

PLATES OF CRANIAL BUCKLER OF ASTEROLEPIS, A, a, a (fig. 31), occupies its ordinary place opposite the centre of the nape ; the two parietals, B, B, rest beside it in

ITS STRUCTURE, BULK, AND ASPECT. 75

‘their usual ichthyic position of displacement ; the superior rontal we find existing, as in the young of many animals, in two pieces, O, C ; the nasal plate 1*, placed immediately in dvance of it, is flanked, as in the cod, by the anterior front- Js, D, D ; the posterior frontals, F, F, which, when viewed, as in the print, from beneath, seem of considerable size, and deseribe laterally and posteriorly about one-half the eye-orbits, have their area on the exterior surface greatly reduced by the overriding squamose sutures of the plates to which they join ; and lastly, two of these overlying plates, E, E,—which, “occurring in the line of the lateral bar or beam, are of great “strength and thickness, and lie for two-thirds of their length along the parietals, and for the remaining third along the su- erior frontals,—represent the mastoid bones. Such, so far -as I have been yet able to read the cranial buckler of the Asterolepis, seem to be the homologies of its component plates. ; There were no parts of the animal more remarkable than “its jaws. The under jaws,—for the nether maxillary con- _ sisted, in this fish, as in the placoid fishes, and in the quad- _ rupeds generally, of two pieces joined in the middle,—were, like those of the Holoptychius, boxes of bone, which enclosed central masses of cartilage. The outer and under sides were ‘thickly covered with the characteristic star-like tubercles ; _ and along the upper margin or lip there ran a thickly-set row _ of small broadly-based teeth, planted as directly on the edge Fig. 32.

ae ARS i

: PORTION OF UNDER JAW OF ASTEROLEPIS (OUTER SIDE). a= (One-half nat. size).

he

76 THE ASTEROLEPIS,

of the exterior plate as iron spikes on the upper edge of gate (fig. 32). Mr Parkinson expresses some wonder, in his work on fossils, that, in a fine ichthyolite in the British Mu seum, not only the teeth should have been preserved, but also the lips ; but we now know enough of the construction of the ancient ganoids to cease wondering. The lips were formed of as solid bone as the teeth themselves, and had as fair a chance of being preserved entire ; just as the metallic rim of a cogged wheel has as fair a chance of being preserved as the metallic cogs that project from it. Immediately be- hind the front row,—in which the teeth present the ordinary ichthyic appearance,—there ran a thickly-set row of huge rep- tile teeth, based on an interior platform of bone, which formed the top of the cartilage-enclosing box composing the jaw. These were at once bent outwards and twisted laterally, some- what like nails that have been drawn out of wood by the claw of a carpenter’s hammer, and bent awry with the wrench (fig. 33). They were furrowed longitudinally from point to

|

5 ‘

Fig. 33.

ae eS le en ee

PORTION OF UNDER JAW OF ASTEROLEPIS (INNER SIDE). (One-half nat. size.)

oase by minute thickly-set strie ; and were furnished late- rally, in most of the specimens, though not in all, with two sharp cutting edges. The reptile had as yet no existence in | creation ; but we see its future coming symbolized in the den-

ITS STRUCTURE, BULK, AND ASPECT. 77

on of this ancient ganoid: it, as it were, shows us the sodile lying entrenched behind the fish. The interior re of these reptile teeth is very remarkable. In the ritudinal section we find numerous cancelli, ranged length- se along the outer edges, but much crossed, net-like, within, —greatly more open towards the base than at the point,— and giving place in the centre to a hollow space, occasionally traversed by a few slim osseous partitions. In the transverse ection these cancelli are found to radiate from the open cen- tre towards the circumference, like the spokes of a wheel from ‘the nave; and each spoke seems as if, like Aaron’s rod, it r had become instinct with vegetative life, and had sprouted into branch and blossom. Seen in a microscope of limited field, that takes in, as in the accompanying print (fig. 34), | Fig. 34.

PORTION OF TRANSVERSE SECTION OF REPTILE TOOTH OF ASTEROLEPIS. a. Nat. size. b. Mag. twelve diameters.

not more than a fourth part of the section, the appearance presented is that of a well-trained wall-tree. And hence the

78 THE ASTEROLEPTS.

generic name Dendrodus, given by Professor Owen to teet found detached in the deposits of Moray, when the crea to which they had belonged were still unknown,—a name, however, which will, I suspect, be found synonymous rather with that of a family than of a genus ; for, so far as I hay yet examined, I find that the dendrodic or tree-like tooth was, in at least the Old Red Sandstone, a characteristic of all the Celacanth family. I may mention, however, as a curious subject of inquiry, that the Celacanths of the Coal Measures seem to have had their reptile teeth formed of pure ivory,— a substance which I have not yet detected among the reptile- fish of the Old Red. Towards the base of the reptile teeth of Asterolepis, the interstices between the branches greatly widen, as in the branches of a tree in winter divested of its foliage (fig. 35, c); the texture also opens towards the base in the fish-teeth outside, in which, however, the pattern in the trans- verse section is greatly less complex and ornate — than that which the reptile teeth exhibit.

When cut across near

the point, they appear

Fig. 35.

A. Section of jaw o

: ‘ . 4

c. Reptile tooth as shown in section. each as a thick rin g a, b, and c. Row of ichthyic teeth in der- , | ; mal plate of jaw. (0), traversed by lines |

B. Magnified representatives of ichthyic that radiate towards the teeth, a and b, in A.

centre ; when cut across about half-way down, they somewhat resemble, seen under a — high magnifying power, those cast-iron wheels on wkich the engineer mounts his railway carriages (a). In the longitu- dinal section their line of junction with the jaw is marked — by numerous openings, but by no line of division, and they appear as thickly dotted by what were once canaliculi, or

ITS STRUCTURE, BULK, AND ASPECT. 79

life-points, as any portion of the dermal bone on which they est,

It seems truly wonderful, when one considers it, to what

" minute and obscure ramifications that variety of pattern which nature so loves to maintain is found to descend. It descends in the fishes, both recent and extinct, to even the microscopic structure of their teeth ; and we find, in consequence not less variety of figure in the sliced fragments of the teeth of the ichthyolites of a single formation, than in the carved _ blocks of an extensive calico print-yard. Each species has ” its own distinct pattern, as if, in all the individuals of which " it consisted, the same block had been employed to stamp it ; b' and each genus its own general type of pattern, as if the same radical idea, variously altered and modified, had been

Ek

& wrought upon in all. In the Dendrodic (Celacanth ?) family, _ for instance, it is the radical type, that from a central nave there should radiate, spoke-like, a number of arborescent "branches ; but in the several genera and species of the fa- _ mily, the branches belong, if I may so express myself, to 5 different shrubs, and present dissimilar outlines. It has f appeared to me that at least a preswmption against the transmutation of species might be based on those inherent _ peculiarities of structure which are thus found to pervade _ the entire texture of the framework of animals. If we find _ erections differing from one another merely in external form, we have no difficulty in conceiving how, by additions and alterations, they might be brought to exhibit a perfect uni- formity of plan and aspect : transmutation,—development,— progression—(if one may use such terms),—seem possible in such circumstances. But if the buildings differ from each other, not only in external form, but also in every brick and beam, bolt and nail, no mere scheme of external alteration could ever induce a real resemblance. Every brick woula have to be taken down and every beam and bolt removed.

80 THE ASTEROLEPIS,

TLe problem could not be wrought by the remodelling an old house: the only mode of solving it would be by the erection of a new: one. There is one important characteristic of the jaws of this ancient ganoid, which, although common to the jaws of some of the other and better-known Paleozoic Celacanths, such as the Holoptychius, seems to have hitherto escaped the notice of ichthyologists. Cuvier, in his description of the generic peculiarities of the alligator, specifies, as one of the most re- markable, a certain mechanical arrangement through which the fourth tooth in the lower jaw is received, when the niouth closes, into a deep cavity hollowed in the upper jaw for its” reception. A similar peculiarity occurs in the jaws of the Lepidosteus, and forms one of the links with the Saurians which establish its herpetological relationship. ‘ The inter- maxillary of the Lepidosteus,” says Agassiz, “is a small bone, — pierced with two holes for the admission of the anterior pro-— jecting teeth of the lower jaw.” Now, it is an interesting circumstance, that in the Asterolepis, the huge reptile teeth | which stand up over and behind the ichthyic ones were re- | ceived, as in the alligators and the Lepidosteus, into deep — cavities hollowed in the opposite jaws ; but the arrangement, — instead of being restricted to two teeth, as in the recent rep- tile, or to a small group of teeth, as in the existing reptile- | fish, pervaded the entire jaw. All the large teeth had deep cavities hollowed to receive them, as the scabbard receives the sword ; and these scabbard-like hollows occurred in most cases so close beside the reptile teeth of the opposite jaw, that each tooth formed one of the sides of each hollow ; and the base of the teeth springing from the same level as the bottom of the hollows, bore the appearance of teeth placed — in sockets twice too big for them.* I may add, that there

* Some of the reptile teeth of the Holoptychii of the Coal Measures, as shown in specimens from Gilmerton and Burdie House, had great depth

IS STRUCTURE, BULK, AND ASPECT, 81

"were certain curious irregularities of dentition in the Aster- lewis, which seemed to have had a considerable range, and " which make the jaws of one individual differ a good deal in ? ppearance from those of another of the same species. In

- arce a line apart. The double tooth formed in this manner, _ when, as in the figured specimen (fig. 36), unaccompanied by : Fig. 36.

UNDER JAW OF YOUNG ASTEROLEPIS (INNER SIDE). (Nearly nat. size.)

_ a recipient pit, must have been accommodated in the oppo- site jaw by a recipient pit unaccompanied by a tooth; and _ thus the pit without tooth and the double tooth without pit were answering and mutually accommodating irregularities. _ There are instances, however, in which the double tooth had

of apparent socket; and a reptilian relationship has been deduced from _ this peculiarity. The deduction, however, though apparently just, would be perhaps more direct were it founded rather on the existence of the re- cipient hollow, than of the socket beside the hollow; for the depth of the socket seems to have been dependent on the depth of the hollow, and _ proportioned to it. If the reptile tooth rose high over the edge of the jaw in which it was placed, it was necessary that the recipient hollow in the opposite jaw should be correspondingly deep,—just as a long sword _ requires a deep scabbard to sheath it in; and if the hollow was deep, the socket of the tooth that stood up beside it, and whose base descended to _ itz level, had to be correspondingly deep also.

F

82 THE ASTEROLEPIS,

a recipient pit for the accommodation of a tooth in tne oppo- site jaw, immediately behind it. ‘Taken altogether, the alli- gator-like teeth, with the alligator-like pits hollowed for their reception, in the jaws of this ancient fish, bear decided evi- dence to its reptilian character and standing.

There was another striking peculiarity of the jaws of Aster- olepis, exemplified in the fine specimen figured here, and in some others in my collection, which extended also to the creature’s palate, and which, in a certain degree, we find ex- emplified in the jaws and palates of some of the existing placoids. In most of the placoids, the teeth which are ranged along the jaw or palate, and the shagreen points spread over the skin, seem to be equally of dermal origin, and can be | stripped off with the integuments on which they rest. And so nearly do they approach in character, that there are cases in which they can scarce be distinguished ;—the teeth may be taken for shagreen points, or the shagreen points for teeth. This is strikingly the case in Cestracion Phillippi (the Port Jackson shark). We find immediately within the more cha- racteristic pavement teeth of the animal, osseous points of an irregularly cruciform shape, that might be mistaken for the osseous points, also irregularly cruciform, that form the sha- green which covers its back and sides; and the palate of Squalina (the angel-fish) bristles as thickly with a shagreen hardly distinguishable from that which the creature wears outside, as any part of its body. Now, encrusting the palate of Dipterus, immediately between the angular patches of teeth, we find exactly the same glossy enamel as that which covers its dermal plates and scales; the skin within the mouth, if one may so speak, so completely corresponds with the skim outside, that we find it bearing the same rich gloss, and punctulated with the same microscopic tubes. There was, we find, within the mouth of Asterolepis a similar repro- duction of dermal peculiarities. It was lined with osseous

ITS STRUCTURE, BULK, AND ASPECT. 83

plates, identical in their character with those which covered the head externally, and, like them too, thickly fretted with : ubercles, which, in the older and larger individuals, assumed ‘the normal star-like character, and in both young and old manifested a tendency, where they approached the true teeth, to assume, as in fig. 36, tooth-like forms, Fig. 37 represents

PALATAL PLATE OF ASTEROLEPIS.

(One-fourth nat. size, linear.)

| the palatal plate of Asterolepis, roughened with tubercles | somewhat larger than those of the external plates, but as | _ much of the same type as these, as the palatal shagreen of 5 | Cestracion or Squalina is of the same type as that which covers its back and sides. This tendency of dermal tuber- cles to assume in some of the ancient ganoids the form of

t teeth, and of teeth to assume in some of the existing placoids _ the appearance of dermal shagreen, throws light on a class of what would be otherwise very puzzling peculiarities in the ie dental structure exhibited by not a few of the Old Red Sand- % stone ichthyolites. The teeth of the genera Coccosteus, As- i? _terolepis, Diplopterus, and Cheirolepis, and at least the ichthyic ' i. teeth of Asterolepis, Holoptychius, and Glyptolepis, seem to be

84 THE ASTEROLEPIS,

scarce less mere continuations of the osseous plates on whic they are based, than the external tubercles of these sam plates. An entirely dissimilar state of things obtains among our ordinary fishes of the present time: the teeth are of a different formation from the bone on which they rest, and, in at least their earlier stages of growth, wholly independent of it; but be it remembered that, as in the existing placoids teeth and shagreen are alike of dermal origin, so in not a few of the ancient ganoids teeth and tubercles were alike o dermo-osseous origin, The plates on which they grew acted as portions of jaws and palates; but they also represented skin, and differed very materially, in consequence, from the skin-covered jaws of the earlier ganoids. |

Of the upper maxillary bones of the Asterolepis, I only know that a considerable fragment of one of the pieces, r cognised as such by Agassiz, has been found in the neigh- bourhood of Thurso by Mr Dick, unaccompanied, however, by any evidence respecting its place or function. It exhibits none of the characteristic tubercles of the dermal plates, but is simply a long bent bone, resembling somewhat less than the half of an ancient bow of steel or horn,—such a bow as that which Ulysses bended in the presence of the suitors. By some of the Russian geologists this bone was at first regarded as a

Fig. 38.

_MAXILLARY BONE ? (One-fourth nat. size, linear.)

portion of the arm or wing of some gigantic Pterichthys. In the accompanying print (fig. 38), I have borrowed the general

i: ITS STRUCTURE, BULK, AND ASPECT. 85 outline from that of a specimen of Professor Asmus, of which ‘a cast may be seen in the British Museum ; while the shaded

“portion represents the fragment found by Mr Dick. The

_intermaxillary bones, like the dermal plates of the lower jaw,

: were studded by star-like tubercles, and bristled thickly along

their lower edges with the ichthyic teeth, flanked by teeth of

"the reptilian character. The opercules of the animal consist-

"ed, as in the sturgeon, of single plates (fig. 39) of great mas-

siveness and size, thickly tubercled

outside, without trace of joint or su-

_ ture, and marked on their under sur-

- face by channelled lines, that radiate,

_as in the other plates, from the centre

of ossification. That space along the

nape which intervened between the

_ opercules, was occupied, as in the

_ Dipterus and Diplopterus, by three NER SURFACE OF OPER-

: CULUM OF ASTEROLEPIS. plates, which covered rather the an- ae

_ terior portion of the body than the Uhan oe

- posterior portion of the head, and which, in the restoration

of Osteolepis (fig. 13), appear as the plates, 9, 9,9. I can

_ say scarce anything regarding the lateral plates which lay

between the intermaxillaries and the cranial buckler, and

which exist in the Osteolepis, fig. 13, as the plates 2, 4, 5, 6,

-_ and 7; nor do I know how the snout terminated, save that

in a very imperfect specimen it exhibits, as in the Diplopterus

and Osteolepis, a rounded outline, and was set with teeth. That space comprised within the arch of the lower jaws, in which the hyoid bone and branchiostegous rays of the os- seous fishes occur, was filled by a single plate of great size and strength, and of singular form (fig. 40); and to this plate, existing as a steep ridge running along the centre of the in- terior surface, and thickening into a massy knob at the an- terior termination, that. nail-shaped organism which I have

Fig. 39.

Se ee ee, a eo a SS Se Se

86 THE ASTEROLEPIS,

described as one of the most characteristic bones of the Ag terolepis, belonged. In the Osteolepis, the space correspond-

Fig. 40.

HYOID PLATE.

(One-ninth nat. size, linear.)

ing to that occupied by this hyoid plate was filled, as shown ~ in fig. 14, by five plates of not inelegant form ; and the di- —

visions of the arch resembled those of a small Gothic window, in which the single central mullion parts into two branches

atop. In the Holoptychius and Glyptolepis there were but — two plates ; for the central mullion, 4. e. line of division, did — not branch atop ; and in the Asterolepis, where there was no — line of division, the strong nail-like bone occupied the place of the central mullion. The hyoidal armature of the latter — fish was strongest in the line in which the others were weakest. — Each of the five hyoid plates of the Osteolepis, or of the two —

plates of the Glyptolepis or Holoptychius, had its own centre

of ossification ; and in the single plate of Asterolepis, the ~

centre of ossification, as shown by the radiations of the fibre, was the nail-head. This head, placed in immediate contact with the strong boxes of bone which composed the under jaw, just where their central joining occurred, seems to have lent them a considerable degree of support, which at such a juncture may have been not unnecessary. In some of the

nail-heads, belonging, it is probable, to a different species of — Asterolepis from that in which the nail figured in page 7, and —

j

ITS STRUCTURE, BULK, AND ASPECT. 87

_ the plate in the opposite page, occurred,— Fig. 41. _ for its general form is different (tig. 41),— _ there appear well-marked ligamentary im- pressions, closely resembling that little " spongy pit in the head of the human thigh- _ bone to which what is termed the round _ ligament is attached, The entire hyoid- _ plate, viewed on its outer side, resembles F in form the hyoid-bone,—or cartilage " rather,—of the spotted dog-fish (Scylliwm F _stellare) ; but its area was at least a hun- dred times mere extensive than in the largest Scylliwm, and, like all the dermal plates of the Asterolepis, it was thickly “Att OF _ fretted by the characteristic tubercles. In (One-half nak, ates} the ray, as in the sharks, the piece of thin cartilage of which this plate seems the homologue is a flat, semi-transparent disc ; and there is no part of the animal in which the progress of those bony molecules which encrust _ the internal framework may be more distinctly traced, as if __ in the act of creeping over what they cover, in slim threads or shooting points, and much resembling new ice creeping in a frosty evening over the surface of a pool.

The two angular terminations of the hyoidal plate, a, a, fig. 40, were received, laterally and posteriorly, into angular grooves in a massive bone of very peculiar shape (fig. 42), of which the tubercled portion, a, a, seems to have swept for- wards in the line of the lower jaw, forming the rounded edge where the flat under part of the creature’s head merged into the lateral part of it, as the bottom of a portmanteau merges into its sides; while the delicately grooved projection, 6, struck across towards the point of the hyoidal nail. At the termination of this transverse projection nearest the side of the head, and where there runs towards it through the tu-

. ae cf :

88 THE ASTEROLEPIS,

bercles a deeply tatooed line, ¢, there occurs what seems to be a socket, regarding the use of which I am unable to form —

Fig. 42.

NON-DESCRIPT LATERO-HYOIDAL PLATE OF ASTEROLEPIS. (One-third nat. size.)

a conjecture. There are, besides, certain difficulties which the structure of this portion of the Asterolepis raises, that I am at present unable to lay ; but I can at least record the evidence slowly and hesitatingly rendered by the rocks re- garding it, though I cannot in every case comprehend, as a whole, the meaning which that evidence bears.

That suite of shoulder-bones that in the osseous fishes forms the belt or frame on which the opercules rest, and furnishes the base of the pectorals, was represented in the Asterolepis, as in the sturgeon, by a ring of strong osseous plates, which, in one of the two species of which trace is to be found among the rocks of Thurso, were curiously fretted on their external surfaces, and in the other species comparatively smooth. The largest, or coracoidian plate of the ring, as it occurs in the more ornate species (fig. 43), might be readily enough mis- taken, when seen with only its surface exposed, for the ich- thyodorulite of some large fish, allied, mayhap, to the Gyr- acanthus formosus of the Coal Measures ; but when detached

ITS STRUCTURE, BULK, AND ASPECT. 89

‘from the stone, the hollow form and peculiar striz of the in- ior surface serve to establish its true character as a dermal

Fig. 43.

SHOULDER (7. €. CORACOID ?) PLATE OF ASTEROLEPIS. (One-third nat. size, linear.)

plate. The diagonal furrowings which traversed it, as the _ twisted flutings traverse a Gothic column moulded after the _ type of the Apprentice Pillar in Roslin Chapel, seem to have -underlaid the edge of the opercule ; at least I find a similar arrangement in the shoulder-plates of a large species of Dip- lopterus, which are deeply grooved and furrowed where the _opercule rested, as if with the design of keeping up a com- _ munication between the branchie and the external element, even when the gill-cover was pressed closely down upon them. _ And,—as in these shoulder-plates of the Diplopterus the fur- _ rows yield their place beyond the edge of the opercule to the punctulated enamel common to the outer surface of all the _ creature’s external plates and scales,—we find them yielding their place in the shoulder-plates of the Asterolepis to the starred tubercles. A few detached bones, that bear on their outer surfaces the dermal markings, must have belonged to that angular- shaped portion of the head which intervened between the cranial buckler and the intermaxillary bone; but the key for assigning to them their proper place is still to find’; and _I suspect that no amount of skill on the part of the compa- rative anatomist will ever qualify him to complete the work of restoration without it. I have submitted to the reader _ the cranial bucklers of five several genera of the ganoids of

the Old Red Sandstone ; but no amount of study bestowed

90 THE ASTEROLEPIS,

on these would enable even the most skilful ichthyologist to restore a siath; nor is the lateral area of the head, which was, I find, variously occupied in each genus, less difficult to restore than the buckler which surmounted it. Two of the more entire of these dermal bones I have figured (fig. 44, a : and 6) in the hope of assisting future inquirers, who, were

Fig 44.

DERMAL BONES OF ASTEROLEPIS. (One-third nat. size, linear.) they to pick up all the other plates, might yet be unable, .acking the figured ones, to complete the whole. The cu- riously-shaped plate a, represented in its various sides by the figures 1, 2, 3, is of an acutely angular form in the trans- verse section (the external surface, 1, forming an angle which varies from thirty to forty-five degrees with the base, 3); and as it lay, it is probable, when in its original place, im-— mediately under the edge of the cranial buckler, it may have — served to commence the line of deflection from the flat top of — the head to the steep descent of the sides, just as what are technically termed the spwr-stones in a gable-head serve to commence the line of deflection from the vertical outline of — the wall to the inclined line of the root, or as the spring- stones of an arch serve to commence the curve. A few in-

ITS STRUCTURE, BULK, AND ASPECT. 91

rng bones in my possession are curious, but exceedingly wzling. The bone a, fig. 45 (of which I possess two speci-

CLAVICLE AND LATERO-CEREBRAL PLATE OF ASTEROLEPIS. (One-half nat. size.)

_ parts of the same individual, occurring, the one in its right "side, the other in its left), apparently occupied the place in “the Asterolepis of that osseous style which, in fishes such as _ the haddock and cod, we find attached to the suite of shoulder- ~ bones, and which, according to Cuvier, is the analogue of the - coracoidian bone, and, according to Professor Owen, the ana- ) ; logue of the clavicle. It curiously exemplifies how thoroughly . some of the bones in this ancient fish entered into the com- r position of at once the dermal and the internal skeleton ; for _ while the tubercled portion of the upper part or head of the _ style was unequivocally dermal, the lower or shank portion of _ it, which must have traversed the muscles of the abdomen, was, as shown by its channelled markings, as certainly inter- nal. Of the bone 8, I only know that it belonged to the side _ of the head.* Fig. c, 46, which is also a fragment, though a

+

. * In the earliest editions of this work, the place of the print fig. 45 _ was occupied by the subjoined wood-cut (fig. 47). I have since ascer-

ee

92 THE ASTEROLEPIS,

more considerable one, bears in its thicke: and straighter edge © a groove like that of an ichthyodorulite, which, however, —

INTERNAL BONES OF ASTEROLEPIS, (One-third nat. size, linear.)

the bone itself in no degree resembles.. Fig. d is a flat bone,

of a type common in the skeleton of fishes, but which in —

4 Fig. 47.

i| a b

INTERNAL BONES OF ASTE- ROLEPIS.

tained, however, that the two fragments of | bone which the latter presents belonged, not —

to the Asterolepis, but to some large unnamed, — undescribed ganoid, its contemporary. The —

bone a, similar in character and function to

the corresponding bone a in fig. 45, seems to |

have been the clavicle of the unknown fish;

while the bone 6,—a mere fragment broken ~ at both ends, but exhibiting, in a state of good — keeping, lateral expansions like those of an —

ancient halbert,—formed, in probably the

same animal, the analogue of part of that

beam-like series of bones (consisting of the

sub-occipital bone, the sphenoid bone, and the — vomer) which compose in the ordinary fishes — (One-half nat. size, linear.) the base of the skull, .

ITS STRUCTURE, BULK, AND ASPECT. 93

nammals we find exemplified in but the scapulars. It seems, | at ce these, to have furnished the base to which some suite of _ moveable bones was articulated,—in all likelihood that pro- ‘portion of the carpal bonelets of the pectoral fins which are ‘attached, in the osseous fishes, to its apparent homologue the 3 radius. Fig. e, aslim light bone, which narrows and thickens F in the centre, and flattens and broadens at each end, was pro- ; f pably a scapula or shoulder-blade,—a bone which in most _ fishes splices on, as a sailor would say, by squamose jointings to the coracoidian bone at the one end, and the super-scapu- ~ lar bone at the other. As indicated by its size, it must have . belonged to a small individual ; it is, however, twice as long,

. and about six times as bulky, as the scapula of a large cod. Of the bone represented in fig. 48, I have determined,

from a Cromarty specimen, the place and use: it formed the

Fig. 48.

ISCHIUM OF ASTEROLEPIS. (One-half nat. size, linear.)

interior base to which one of the ventral fins was attached. In all fishes the bones of the hinder extremities are inade- quately represented : in none do we find the pelvic arch com- plete ; and to that nether portion of it which we do find re- presented, and which Professor Owen regards as the homo- logue of the os ischiwm or hip-bone, the homologues of the metatarsal and toe-bones are attached, to the exclusion of the bones of the thigh and leg. In the Abdominales,—fishes such as the salmon and carp,—that have the ventrals placed behind the abdomen, in the position analogous to that in which the

SS SSS

94) THE ASTEROLEPIS,

hinder legs of the reptiles and mammals occur, the ischiatic bones generally exist as flat triangular plates, with their heads either turned inwards and downwards, as in the herring, or

outwards and downwards, as in the pike ; whereas, in some

of the cartilaginous fishes, such as the rays and sharks, they exist as an undivided cartilaginous band, stretched trans-— versely from ventral to ventral. And such, with but an up-— ward direction, appears to have been their position in the Asterolepis, They seem to have united at the narrow neck ~ A, over the middle of the lower portion of the abdomen ; —

and to the notches of the flat expansion B,—notches which exactly resemble those of the immensely developed carpal bones of the ray,—five metatarsal bones were attached, from which the fin expanded. It is interesting to find the num- ber in this ancient representative of the vertebrata restricted to five,—a number greatly exceeded in most of the existing fishes, but which is the true normal number of the vertebrate sub-kingdom, as shown in all the higher examples, such as man, the guadrwmana, and in most of the carnaria. The form of this bone somewhat resembles that of the analogous bone in those fishes, such as the perch and gurnard, cod and haddock, which have their ventrals suspended to the scapu- lar belt ; but its position in the Cromarty specimen, and that of the ventrals in the various specimens of the Celacanth fa-

mily in which their place is still shown, forbids the suppo- — sition that 7 was so suspended,—a circumstance in keeping —

with all the existing geological evidence on the subject, which

agrees in indicating, that of the low type of fishes that have, — monster-like, their feet attached to their necks, the Old Red —

Sandstone does not afford a trace. This inferior type, now by far the most prevalent in the ichthyic division of the ani- mal kingdom, does not seem to have been introduced until near the close of the Secondary period, long after the fish had been degraded from its primal place in the fore-frant of crea-

——— s

——

-

ITS STRUCTURE, BULK, AND ASPECT. 95

ion. ‘In one of my specimens a few fragments of the rays “ave preserved (fig. 49, 0.) They are ; a. . " Sient Fig. 49. about the eighth part of an inch in dia- fe

meter ; depressed in some cases in the aS centre, as if, over the internal hollow i =.

_ formed by the decay of the cartilaginous centre, the bony crust of which they are "composed had given way ; and, like the b. Single joint of ray of _ rays of the thornback, they are thickened AE

at the joints, and at the processes by which they were at- tached to the ischiatic base. It may be proper I should here _ state, that of some of the internal bones figured above I have _ no better evidence that they belonged to the Asterolepis, than that they occur in the same beds with the dermal plates which _ bear the characteristic star-like markings,—that they are of

Fig. 50.

a. Single joint of ray of Thornback.

COPROLITES OF ASTEROLEPIS. . (Nat. size.*) * One of the Thurso coprolites in my possession is about one-fourth

longer than the larger of the two specimens figured here, and nearly thrics as broad.

96 THE ASTEROLEPIS,

very considerable size,—and that they formed no part of the known fishes of the formation.

On exactly the same grounds I infer, that certain large coprolites of common occurrence in the Thurso flagstones, which contain the broken scales of Dipterians, and exhibit a curiously-twisted form (fig. 50), also belonged to the Astero- lepis ; and from these, that the creature was carnivorous in its habits,—an inference which the character of its teeth fully corroborates ; and farther, that, like the sharks and rays, and some of the extinct Enaliosaurs, it possessed the spiral dispo- 4 sition of intestine. Paley, in his chapter on the compensa- tory contrivances palpable in the structure of various animals, — refers to a peculiar substitutory provision which occurs in a certain amphibious animal described in the Memoirs of the French Academy. “The reader will remember,” he says, | ““what we have already observed concerning the intestinal canal,—that its length, so many times exceeding that of the | body, promotes the extraction of the chyle from the aliment, by giving room for the lacteal vessels to act upon it through — a greater space. This long intestine, whenever it occurs, is in other animals disposed in the abdomen from side to side, © in returning folds. But in the animal now under our notice — the matter is managed otherwise. The same intention is me- chanically effectuated, but by a mechanism of a different kind. The animal of which I speak is an amphibious quadruped, which our authors call the alopecias or sea-fox. The intes- tine is straight from one end tothe other ; but in this straight, and consequently short intestine, is a winding, cork-screw, spiral passage, through which the food, not without several circumvolutions, and, in fact, by a long route, is conducted to its exit. Here the shortness of the gut is compensated by the obliquity of the perforation.” This structure of intes- — tine, which all the true piacoids possess, and at least the Sturiones among existing ganoids, seems to have been an ex-

—-

OO, A ey ER et Nt mn

ITS STRUCTURE, BULK, AND ASPECT. 97

eeedingly common one during both the Paleozoic and Se- “eondary periods. It has left its impress on all the better pre- served coprolites of the Coal Measures, so abundant in the ‘shales of Newhaven and Burdie House, and on those of the : jias and Chalk. It seems to be equally a characteristic of weil nigh all the bulkier coprolites of the Old Red Sandstone. * In these, however, it manifests a peculiar trait, which I have failed to detect in any of the recent fishes ; nor have I yet seen it indicated, in at least the same degree, by the Carboni- _ferous or Secondary coprolitic remains. In the bowels which “moulded the coprolites of Lyme-Regis, of the Chalk, and of the Newhaven and Granton beds, a single screw must have “winded within the cylindrical tube, as a turnpike stair winds within its hollow shaft ; and such also is the arrangement in the existing sharks and rays; whereas the bowels which ~moulded the coprolites of the Old Red Sandstone must have been traversed by triple or quadruple screws laid closely to- gether, as we find the stalk of an old-fashioned wine-glass traversed by its thickly-set spiral lines of thread-like china, _ And so, while on the surface of both the Secondary and Car- boniferous coprolites there is space between the screw-like lines for numerous cross markings that correspond to the thickly-set veiny branches which traverse the sides of the re- cent placoid bowel, the entire surface of the Old Red copro- | lites is traversed by the spiral markings. Is there nothing strange in the fact that, after the lapse of mayhap millions

of years,—nay, it is possible, millions of ages,—we should be _thus able to detect at once general resemblance and special

* In two of these, in a collection of several score, I have failed 'to detect the spiral markings, though their state of keeping is de- _tidedly good. There are other appearances which lead me to suspect

that the Asterolepis was not the only large fish of the Lower Old Red Sandstone ; but my facts on the subject are too inconclusive to _ justify aught more than sedulous inquiry. (First Edition. See Note, _p. 92.) a

98 THE ASTEROLEPIS,

dissimilarity in even the most perishable parts of the most ancient of the ganoids ?

I must advert, in passing, to a peculiarity exemplified in } the state of keeping of the bones of this ancient ganoid, in © at least the deposits of Orkney and Caithness. The original — animal matter has been converted into a dark-coloured bitu-— men, which in some places, where the remains lie thick, per- — vades the crevices of the rocks, and has not unfrequently been mistaken for coal. In its more solid state it can hardly be distinguished, when used in sealing a letter,—a purpose which — it serves indifferently well,—from black wax of the ordinary © quality ; when more fluid, it adheres scarce less strongly to the hands than the coal-tar of our gas-works and dockyards. Underneath a specimen of Asterolepis first pointed out to me in its bed among the Thurso rocks by Mr Dick, and which, at my request, he afterwards raised and sent me to Edinburgh, packed up in a box, there lay a quantity of thick tar, which — stuck as fast to my fingers, on lifting out the pieces of rock, : as if I had Jaid hold of the planking of a newly tarred yawl. — What had been once the nerves, muscles, and blood of this — ancient gancid still lay under its bones, and reminded me of the appearance presented by the remains of a poor suicide, } whose solitary grave, dug in a sandy bank in the north of Scotland, had been laid open by the encroachments of a river, The skeleton, with pieces of the dress still wrapped round it, lay at length along the section ; and, for a full yard beneath, © the white dry sand was consolidated into a dark-coloured pitchy moss, by the altered animal matter which had escaped © from it percolating downwards, in the process of decay. :

In consequence of the curious chemical change which has — thus taken place in thé animal juices of the Asterolepis, its” remains often occur in a state of beautiful preservation : the pervading bitumen, greatly more conservative in its effects than the oils and gums of an old Egyptian undertaker, has

f

ITS STRUCTURE, BULK, AND ASPECT. 99

_ maintained in their original integrity every scale, plate, and bone. They may have been much broken ere they were first ~ committed to the keeping of the rock, or in disentangling them _ from its rigid embrace ; but they have, we find, caught no _ harm when under its care. Ere the skeleton of the Bruce, _ disinterred after the lapse of five centuries, was re-committed _ to the tomb, such measures were taken to secure its preser- _ yation, that, were it to be again disinterred, even after as many more centuries had passed, it might be found retaining unbroken _ its gigantic proportions. There was molten pitch poured over _ the bones, in a state of sufficient fluidity to permeate all the | pores, and fill up the central hollows, and which, soon har- _ dening around them, formed a bituminous matrix, in which _ they may lie unchanged for a thousand years. Now, exactly such was the process to which nature resorted with these gigantic skeletons of the Old Red Sandstone. Like the bones _ of the Bruce, they are bones steeped in pitch ; and so tho- roughly is every pore and hollow still occupied, that, when _ east into the fire, they flame like torches. Though black as _ jet, they still retain, too, in a considerable degree, the pecu- liar qualities of the original substance. The late Mr George Sanderson of Edinburgh, one of the most ingenious lapidaries in the kingdom, and a thoroughly intelligent man, made se- _ veral preparations for me, for microscopic examination, from _ the teeth and bones ; and though they were by far the oldest vertebrate remains he had ever seen, they exhibited, he in- formed me, in the working, more of the characteristics of re- _ cent teeth and bone than any other fossils of the kind he had ever operated upon. Recent bone, when in the course of being _ reduced on the wheel to the degree of thinness necessary to secure transparency, is apt, under the heat induced by the _ friction, to acquire a springy elasticity, and to start up from _ the glass slip to which it had been cemented ; whereas bone _ in the fossil state usually lies as passive, in such circumstances,

Sy Se te le oly se

100 THE ASTEROLEPIS,

as the stone which envelopes it. Mr Sanderson was, how: ever, surprised to find that the bone of the Asterolepis stii retained its elasticity, and was scarce less liable, when heated, to start from the glass,—a peculiarity through which he at first lost several preparations. I have seen a human bone which had for ages been partially embedded in a mass of adi pocere, partially enveloped in the common mould of a church- yard, exhibit two very different styles of keeping. In the adipocere it was as fresh and green as if it had been divested of the integuments only a few weeks previous ; whereas the portion which projected into the mould had become brittle and porous, and presented the ordinary appearance of an old’ churchyard bone. And what the adipocere had done for the human bone in this case, seems to have been done for the bone of the Asterolepis by the animal bitumen.

The size of the Asterolepis must, in the larger specimens, have been very great. In all those ganoidal fishes of the Old Red Sandstone that had the head covered with osseous plates, we find that the cranial buckler bore a certain definite proportion—various in the several genera and species—to the length of the body. The drawing-master still teaches his pupils to regulate the proportions of the human figure by the seven head-lengths which it contains ; and perhaps shows them how an otherwise meritorious draftsman,* much em- ployed about half an age ago in drawing for the wood-engraver, used to render his figures squat and ungraceful by making them a head too short. Now, those ancient ganoids which possessed a cranial buckler may, we find, be also measured by head-lengths. Thus, in the Coccosteus decipiens, the length of the cranial buckler from nape to snout equalled one-fifth of the entire length of the creature from snout to tail. The en-. tire length of the Glyptolepis was equal to about five one-half

* The late Mr John Thurston.

ITS STRUCTURE, BULK, AND ASPECT. 101

imes that of its cranial buckler. The Pterichthys was formed Bin nearly the same proportions. The Diplopterus was fully _ seven times the length of its buckler ; and the Osteolepis from six and a half to seven. In all the cranial bucklers of the Asterolepis yet found, the snout is wanting, The very fine ecimen figured in page 71 (fig. 29) terminates abruptly at _ the little plate between the eyes ; the specimen figured in

age 69 (fig. 28) terminates at the upper line of the eye.

_ creature were regulated. We can, however, very nearly ap- _ proximate to it. A hyoid plate in my collection (fig, 51) is, _ I find, so exactly proportioned in size to the cranial buckler ? (fig. 29), that it might have belonged to the same individual ; and by fitting it in its proper place, and then making the ne- cessary allowance for the breadth of the nether jaw, which swept two-thirds around it, and was surmounted by the snout,

we ascertain that the buckler, when entire, must have been,

HYOID PLATE OF THURSO ASTEROLEPIS.* (One-half the nat. size, linear.)

* The shaded plate (a), accidentally presented in this specimen, be- fongs to the upper part of the head. It is the posterior frontal plate F, which half-encircled the eye-orbit (see fig. 31) ; and I have introduced it into the print here, as in none of the other prints, or of my other spe- cimens, is its upper surface shown.

102 THE ASTEROLEPTS,

as nearly as may be, a foot in length. If the Asterolepis was formed in the proportions of the Coccosteus, the buckler (fig. 29) must have belonged to an individual five feet in length ; if in the proportions of the Pterichthys or Glyptolepis, to an individual five and a half feet in length ; and if in those of the Diplopterus or Osteolepis, to an individual of from six and a half to seven feet in length. Now I find that the — hyoid plate can be inscribed—such is its form—in a semi- circle, of which the nail-shaped ridge in the middle (if we © strike off a minute portion of the sharp point, usually want- — ing in detached specimens) forms very nearly the radius, and — of which the diameter equals the breadth of the cranial buck- ler, along a line drawn across at a distance from the nape equal to two-thirds of the distance between the nape and the eyes. Thus, the largest diameter of a hyoid plate which be- longed to a cranial buckler a foot in length is, I find, equal — to seven one-quarter inches, while the length of its nail somewhat exceeds three five-eighth inches. The nail of the — Stromness specimen measures five and a half inches. It must have run along a hyoid plate eleven inches in trans. verse breadth, and have been associated with a cranial buck- — ler eighteen one-eighth inches in length ; and the Asterolepis to which it belonged must have measured from snout to tail, if formed, as it probably was, in the proportions of its brother Celacanth the Glyptolepis, eight feet three inches ; and if in those of the Diplopterus, from nine feet nine to ten feet six inches. This early ganoid was at least as bulky as a large porpoise.

It was small, however, compared with specimens of the — Asterolepis found elsewhere. The hyoid plate figured in page — 86 (fig. 40),—a Thurso specimen which I owe to the kind © ness of Mr Dick,—measures nearly fourteen inches, and the — cranial buckler of the same individual, fifteen one-fourth — inches, in breadth. The latter, when entire, must have mea-

— 2

ITS STRUCTURE, BULK, AND ASPECT. 103

‘sured twenty-three one-half inches in length ; and the fish to which it belonged, if formed in the proportions of the Glyp- tolepis, ten feet six inches ; and if in those of the Dzplopterus, _ from twelve feet five to thirteen feet eight inches in length. _ Did the shield still exist in its original state as a buckler of _ tough, enamel-crusted bone, it might be converted into a . ‘Highland target, nearly broad enough to cover the ample _ chest of a Rob Roy or Allan M‘Aulay, and strong enough to - dash aside the keenest broadsword. Another hyoid plate { found by Mr Dick measures sixteen one-half inches in breadth ; F and a cast in the British Museum, from one of the Bahia ; “specimens of Professor Asmus (fig. 52), twenty-four inches. _ The individual to which this last plate belonged must, if built _ in the shorter proportions, have measured eighteen, and if in the longer, twenty-three feet in length. The two hyoid

Fig. 52.

HYOID PLATE OF RUSSIAN ASTEROLEPIS. (One-twelfth the nat. size, linear.)

plates of the specimen of Holoptychius in the British Musewa measure but four and a half inches along that transverse line in which the Russian Asterolepis measures two feet, and the largest Thurso specimen sixteen inches and a half. The maxillary bone of a cod-fish two and a half feet from snout to tail measures three inches in length. One of the Russian

104 THE ASTEROLEPIS,

maxillary bones in the possession of Professor Asmus meu sures in length twenty-eight inches. And that space cir-— cumscribed by the sweep of the lower jaw, which it took, in | the Russian specimen, a hyoid plate twenty-four inches in : breadth to fill, could be filled in the two-and-a-half-feet cod — by a plate whose breadth equalled but an inch and a half. © Thus, in the not unimportant circumstance of size, the ancient : ganoids, instead of taking their places, agreeably to the de- — mands of the development hypothesis, among the sprats, — sticklebacks, and minnows of their class, took their place — among its huge basking sharks, gigantic sturgeons, and bulky — sword-fishes. They were giants, not dwarfs.

But what of their organization ? Were they fishes low or high in the scale? On this head we can, of course, deter- mine merely by the analogies which their structure exhibits — to that of fishes of the existing period ; and these point in three several directions ;—in two of the number, directly on — genera of the high ganoid order ; and in the third, on the still higher placoids and enaliosaurs. No trace of vertebrae has yet been found ; and so we infer—lodging, however, a precautionary protest, as the evidence is purely negative, and therefore in some degree inconclusive—that the vertebral co- lumn of the Asterolepis was, like that of the sturgeon, carti- laginous. Respecting its external covering, we positively — know, as has been already shown, that, like the Lepidosteus of America and the Polypterus of the Nile, it was composed of strong plates and scales of solid bone ; and regarding its dentition, that, as in these last genera, and even more de- cidedly than in these, it was of the mixed ichthyic-reptilian character,—an outer row of thickly-set fish teeth being back- ed by an inner row of thinly-set reptile teeth. And its form of coprolite indicates the spiral disposition of intestine com- — mon to the rays and sharks of the existing period, and of | the ichthyosauri of the Secondary ages. Instead of being,

=

ITS STRUCTURE, BULK, AND ASPECT. 105

as the development hypothesis would require, a fish low in _ its organization, it seems to have ranged on the level of the _ highest ichthyic-reptilian families ever called into existence. - Had an intelligent being, ignorant of what was going on upon "earth during the week of creation, visited Eden on the morn- _ ing of the sixth day, he would have found in it many of the ‘inferior animals, but no trace of man. Had he returned EI again in the evening, he would have seen, installed in the _ office of keepers of the garden, and ruling with no tyrant sway as the humble monarchs of its brute inhabitants, two Rtsture human creatures, perfect in their organization, and y arrived at the full stature of their race. The entire evidence ' _ regarding them, in the absence of all such information as that - imparted to Adam by Milton’s angel, would amount simply _ to this, that in the morning man was not, and that in the b evening he was. There of course could not exist, in the cir- ' cumstances, a single appearance to sanction the belief that _ the two human creatures whom he saw walking together among the trees at sunset had been “developed from infu- sorial points,” not created mature. The evidence would, on the contrary, lie all the other way. And in no degree does _ the geologic testimony respecting the earliest ganoids differ _ from what, in the supposed case, would be the testimony of _ Eden regarding the earliest men. Up to a certain point in the geologic scale we find that these ganoids are not ; and when they at length make their appearance upon the stage, they enter large in their stature and high in their organiza tion.

&

106 FISHES OF THE SILURIAN ROCKS,

FISHES OF THE SILURIAN ROCKS, UPPER AND LOWER.*

THEIR RECENT HISTORY, ORDER, AND SIZE.

But the system of the Old Red Sandstone represents the se- cond, not the first, great period of the world’s history. There was a preceding period at least equally extended, perhaps — greatly more so, represented by the Upper and Lower Silu- vian formations. | And what is the testimony of this morn- ing period of organic existence, in which, so far as can yet ~ be shown, vitality in the planet which man inhabits, and of whose history and productions he knows anything, was first associated with matter? May not the development hypothesis find a standing in the system representative of this earliest age of creation, which it fails to find in the system of the Old — Red Sandstone ? | It has been confidently asserted, not merely that it may, but that it does. Ever since the publication, in 1839, of Sir Roderick Murchison’s great work on the Silurian system, it had been known that the remains of fishes occur in a bed of —

* This is the chapter referred to in the prefatory remarks as having been intended to be remodelled by the author. Those portions which are — no longer in accordance with fact are enclosed in brackets: the other — parts may be accepted as correct. —L. M. q

UPPER AND LOWER. 107

_ the “Ludlow Rock,’—one of the most modern deposits of the Upper Silurian division ; [and subsequent discoveries, both in England and America, had shown that even the base of this division has its ichthyic organisms. But for year 2 after year, the lower half of the system—a division more _ than three thousand feet in thickness—had failed, though _ there were hands and eyes busy among its deposits, to yield _ any vertebrate remains. During the earlier half of the first e Bgreat period of organic existence, though the polyparia, ra- . diata, articulata, and mollusca existed, as their remains tes- z tified, by myriads, fish had, it was held, not yet entered upon _ the scene; and the assertors of the development theory founded largely on the presumed fact of their absence. “It _ is still customary,” says the author of the “ Vestiges of Crea- _ tion,” in his volume of “ Explanations,” “to speak of the _ earliest fauna as one of an elevated kind. When rigidly ' examined, it is not found to be so. JIN THE FIRST PLACE, IT CONTAINS NO FISH. There were seas supporting crustacean and molluscan life, but wtterly devoid of a class of tenants who seem able to live in every example of that element which supports meaner creatures. This single fact, that only in- vertebrated animals now lived, is surely in itself a strong proof that, in the course of nature, tyme was necessary for the creation of the superior creatures. And if so, it undoubted- ly is a powerful evidence of such a theory of development as that which I have presented. If not, let me hear an equally plausible reason for the great and amazing fact, that seas were for numberless ages destitute of fish. I fix my opponents down to the consideration of this fact, so that no diversion respecting high molluscs shall avail them.” And how is this bold challenge to be met ?]

lt might be rationally enough argued in the case, that the author of the “ Vestiges” was building greatly more on a piece of purely negative evidence,—the presumed absence of

-the course of geological discovery, fully established, that fishes

108 FISHES OF THE SILURIAN ROCKS,

fish from the Lower Silurian formations,—than purely nega. tive evidence is, from its nature as such, suited to bear ; that only a very few years had passed since it was known that ver- tebrate remains occurred in the Upper Silurian, and only a few more since they had been detected in the Old Red Sand- stone ; nay, that within the present century their frequent occurrence in even the Cval Measures was scarce suspected ; and that, as his argument, had it been founded twelve years — ago on the supposed absence of fishes from the Upper Silu- rian, or twenty years ago on the supposed absence of fishes from the Old Red Sandstone, would have been quite as plausible in reference to its negative data then as to its negative data now, so it might now be quite as erroneous as it assuredly would have been then. Or it might be argued, that the fact of the absence of fish from the Lower Silurians, even were it really a fact, would be in no degree less reconcileable with the theory of creation by direct act, than with the hypothesis of gradual development, The fact that Adam did not exist during the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth days of the introductory week of Scripture narrative, — furnishes no argument whatever against the fact of his crea- tion on the sixth day. And the remark would of course equally apply to the non-existence of fishes during the Lower Silurian period, had they been really non-existent at the time, and to their sudden appearance in that of the Upper. [But the objection admits of a greatly more conclusive answer, — “‘T fix my opponents down,” says the author of the ‘ Ves-

tiges,” ‘to the consideration of this fact,” 7 ¢ that of the — absence of fishes from the earliest fossiliferous formations. — And I, in turn, fix you down, I reply, to the consideration ; of the antagonist fact, not negative, but positive, and now, in —

ont ‘ies

were notabsent from the earliest fossiliferous formations. From —

none of the great geological formations were fishes absent,—

UPPER AND LOWER. 102

- not even from the formations of the Cambrian division. “The Lower Silurian,” says Sir Roderick Murchison, in a communi- _ cation with which, in 1847, he honoured the writer of these _ chapters, “is no longer to be viewed as an invertebrate pe- riod ; for the Onchus (species not yet decided) has been found _ in the Llandeilo Flags and in the Lower Silurian rocks of -_ Bala. In one respect I am gratified by the discovery ; for _ the form is so very like that of the Onchus Murchisoni of the | Upper Ludlow rock, that it is clear the Silurian system is _ one great natural-history series, as is proved, indeed, by all its other organic remains.” It may be mentioned further, : in addition to this interesting statement, that the Bala spine was detected in its calcareous matrix by the geologists of the _ Government Survey, and described to Sir Roderick as that of an Onchus, by a very competent authority in such matters, —Professor Edward Forbes ; and that the annunciation of the existence of spines of fishes in the Llandeilo Flags we owe to one of the most cautious and practised geologists of the present age,—Professor Sedgwick of Cambridge.

So much for the fact of the existence of vertebrata in the Lower Silurian formations, and the argument founded on their presumed absence. Let me now refer—their presence being determined—to the tests of size and organization. Were these Silurian fishes of a bulk so inconsiderable as in any degree to sanction the belief that they had been developed shortly before from microscopic points? Or were they of a struc- ture so low as to render it probable that their development was at the time incomplete? Were they, in other words, the embryos and fetuses of their class? Or did they, on the contrary, rank with the higher and larger fishes of the pre- sent time ?

It is of importance that not only the direct bearing, but also the actual amount, of the evidence in this case should be fairly stated. So far as it extends, the testimony is clear ;

110 FISHES OF THE SILURIAN ROCKS,

but it does not extend far. All the vertebrate remains yet | detected in the Silurian system, if we except the debris of

the Upper Ludlow bone-bed, might be sent through the Post- Ofltice in a box scarcely twice the size of a copy of the “ Ves-

tiges.” The naturalist of an exploring party, who, in cross- -

ing some unknown lake, had looked down over the side of

his canoe, and seen a few fish gliding through the obscure — depths of the water, would be but indifferently qualified, from —

what he had witnessed, to write a history of all its fish. Nor, were the some six or eight individuals of which he had caught

a glimpse to be of small size, would it be legitimate for him to infer that only small-sized fish lived in the lake ; though, — were there to be some two or three large ones among them, ~

he might safely affirm the contrary. Now, the evidence re- garding the fishes of the Silurian formation very much resem- bles what that of the naturalist would be, in the supposed case, regarding the fishes of the unexplored lake ; with, how- ever, this difference, that as the deposits of the ancient sys- tem in which they occur have been examined for years in various parts of the world, and all its characteristic organ- isms, save the ichthyic ones, found in great abundance and fine keeping, we may conclude that the fish of the period

were comparatively few. The paleontologist, so far as the ~

question of number is involved, is in the circumstances, not of the naturalist who has only once crossed the unknown lake, but of the angler who, day after day, casts his line into some inland sea abounding in shell-fish and crustacea, and, after the lapse of months, can scarce detect a nibble, and, after the lapse of years, can reckon up all tho fish which he has caught as considerably under a score. The existence of this great division of the animal kingdom, like that of the earlier rep- tiles during the Carboniferous period, did not form a promi- nent characteristic of those ages of the earth’s history in which they began to be. ]

i

eeedingly fragmentary condition,—for the materials of the

UPPER AND LOWER. 1llt

_ The earliest aiscovered vertebral remains of the system, _ —those of the Upper Ludlow rock,—were found in digging the foundations of a house at Ludford, on the confines of - Shropshire, and submitted, in 1838, by Sir Roderick Mur- _ chison to Agassiz, through the late Dr Malcolmson of Madras. f I used at the time to correspond on geological subjects with ~ Dr Malcolmson,—an accomplished geologist and a good man, Boo too early lost to science and his friends,—and still remember , the interest which attached on this occasion to his communi- ‘ cation bearing the Paris post-mark, from which I learned for

| the first time that there existed ichthyic fragments greatly _ older than even the ichthyolites of the Lower Old Red Sand-

[ tone, and which made me acquainted with Agassiz’s earliest formed decision regarding them. Though existing in an ex-

thin dark-coloured layer in which they had lain seemed as if

_ they had been triturated in a mortar,—the ichthyologist suc-

ceeded in erecting them into six genera ; though it may be very possible,—as some of these were formed for the recep-

| tion of detached spines, and others for the reception of de-

tached teeth,—that, as in the case of Dipterus and Asterolepis,

_ the fragments of but a single genus may have been multiplied

into two genera or more. And minute scale-like markings, which mingled with the general mass, and were at first re-

garded as the impressions of real scales, have been since re-

cognised as of the same character with the scale-like markings of the Seraphim of Forfarshire, a huge crustacean. Even ad- mitting, however, that a set of teeth and spines, with perhaps the shagreen points represented in page 27, fig. 2, 6, in addi- tion, may have all belonged to but a single species of fish, there seem to be materials enough among the remains found, for the erection of two species more. And we have evidence that at least two of the three kinds were fishes of the placoid _ order (Onchus Murchisoni and Onchus tenuistriatus), and—

112 FISIIES OF THE SILURIAN ROCKS,

as the supposed scales must be given up—no good evidence that the other kind was not. The ichthyic remains of the Silurian system next discovered were first introduced to the notice of geologists by Professor Phillips, at the meeting of the British Association in 1842.* They occurred, he stated, — in a quarry near Hales End, at the base of the Upper Lud- low rock, immediately over the Aymestry Limestone, and were so exceedingly diminutive, that they appeared to the naked eye as mere discoloured spots, but resolved under the microscope into scattered groupes of minute spines, like those — of the Chetracanthus, with what seemed to be still more mi- — nute scales, or perhaps—what in such circumstances could — scarce be distinguished from scales—shagreen points of the © scale-like type. [The next ichthyic organism detected in the Silurian rocks occurred in the Wenlock Limestone,—a con- — siderably lower and older deposit,—and was first described in © the Hdinburgh Review for 1845 by a vigorous writer and masterly geologist (generally understood to be Professor Sedg- wick of Cambridge), as “a characteristic portion of a fish un-

* « Mr Phillips proceeded to describe some remains of a small fish resembling the Chetracanthus of the Old Red Sandstone, scales and spines of which he had found in a quarry at Hales End, on the western side of the Malverns. The section presented beds of the Old Red Sandstone inclined to the west; beneath these were arenaceous beds of a lighter colour, forming the junction with Silurian shales ; these, again, passing on to calcareous beds in the lower part of the quarry, containing the corals and shells of the Aymestry Limestone, of their agreement with which stronger evidence might be obtained elsewhere. He had found none of these scales in the junction beds or in the Upper Ludlow shales; but about sixty or one hundred feet lower, just above the Aymestry Limestone, his attention had been attracted to discoloured spots on the surface of the beds, which, upon microscopic examination, proved to be the minute scaies and spines before mentioned. These remains were only apparent on the surface, whilst the ‘ fish-bed’ of the Upper Ludlow rock, as it usually occurred, was an inch thick, con! ting of innumerable small teeth and spines.”—Report, in “ Athenzsum” for 1842, of the Proceedings of the Twelfih Meeting of British Aapcighion ( Manchester ),

UPPER AND LOWER. Lio

_ doubtedly belonging to the Cestraciont family of the placoid order.” In the American Journal of Science for 1846, Pro- fessor Silliman figured, from a work of the States’ Surveyors, _ the defensive spine of a placoid found in the Onondago Lime- _ stone of New York,—a rock which occurs near the base of _ the Upper Silurian system, as developed in the Western world ;* and in the same passage he made reference to a mutilated spine detected in a still lower American deposit, _ —the Oriskany Sandstone. In the Geological Journal for * 1847 it was announced by Professor Sedgwick, that he had 4 found “ defences of fishes” in the Upper Llandeilo Flags, and L by Sir Roderick Murchison, that the “defence of an Onchus”

had been detected by the geologists of the Government sur- . vey, in the Limestone near Bala. Sir Roderick referred in _ the same number to the remains of a fish found by Profes- | sor Phillips in the Wenlock Shale. And such, up to the , present time, is the actual amownt of the evidence with which we have to deal, and the dates of its piecemeal production. Let us next consider the order of its occwrrence in the geolo- gic scale.

The better marked subdivisions of the Silurian system, as described in the great work specially devoted to it, may be regarded as seven in number. An eighth has since been added, by the transference of the tilestones from the lower part of the Old Red Sandstone group, to the upper part of the Silurian group underneath ; but in order the better to

* «This is the lowest position [that of the Onondago Limestone] in the State of New York in which any remains have been found higher in the scale of organized beings than Crustacea, with the excepticn of an imperfectly preserved fish-bone discovered by Hall in the Oriskany Sand- stone. That specimen, together with the defensive fish-bone found in

_ this part of the New York system, furnishes evidence of the existence of animals belonging to the class vertebrata during the deposition of the middle part of the protozoic strata.” —American Journal of Science and Arts for 1846, p. 63,

+: a

114

show how ichthyic discovery has in its slow course penetrated into the depths, I shall retain the divisions recognised as those of the system when that course began.

UPPER SILURIAN ROCKS.

LOWER SILURIAN ROCKS.

CAMBRIAN ROCKS.

a

—

=

FISHES OF THE SILURIAN ROCKS,

Upper Ludlow.

Aymestry Limestone.

Lower Ludlow.

Wenlock Limestone.

Wenlock Shale,

Caradoc Sandstone, &c.

Llandeilo Flags, &c.

Plynlimmon Group.

Bala Limestone.

Snowdon Group

1

Fish, 1845, (Sedgwick).

The highest or most

Fish, 1838, (Murchison). . Fish, 1842, (Phillips).

Fish, 1846, (Silliman).

Fish, 1847, (Phillips).

4

ae, Fish, 1847, (Sedgwick).

Fish, 1847, (Geologists — of Government Sur- | vey).

Fucoids.

i a ll

Upper Ludlow.

| Biimcetey Limestone. f Lower Ludlow.

BP Wertock Limeetone

. Wenlock Shales and Wool- hope Beds,

_ Llandovery Rocks, Upper and Lower.

f Caradoc or Bala Rocks

Llandeilo Flags,

Lingula Flags.

Cambrian Rocks,

UPPER AND LOWER. 11

10

vy

: . _Norr.— We insert the following table of the Upper and Lower Silurians _as they are now subdivided, with fish descending to the Lower Ludlow. We are indebted for it to the Rev. Mr Symonds of Pendock.—L, M.

Fish, 1838, (Murchison),

None found.

Fish, 1859, (Mr Lee of Caerleon),

Fish, none.

- hone,

none,

none.

none.

«. none

eee ; none,

i et i le

116 FISHES OF THE SILURIAN ROCKS,

modern Silurian deposit, then (No. 1 of the accompanying diagram), is the Upper Ludlow rock ; and it is in the su- perior strata of this division that the bone-bed discovered in 1838 occurs; while the exceedingly minute vertebrate re= mains described by Professor Phillips in 1842 occur in its base. The division next in the descending order is the Ay- mestry Limestone (No. 2); the next (No. 3) the Lower Lud- low rock; then (No. 4) the Wenlock or Dudley Limestone occurs ; and then, last and oldest deposit of the Upper Silu- rian formation, the Wenlock Shale (No. 5). It is in the fourth or Wenlock Limestone division that the defensive spine described in the Hdinburgh Review for 1845 as the oldest vertebrate organism known at the time was found ;* while the vertebrate organism found by Professor Phillips belongs to the fifth or base deposit of the Upper Silurian. Further, the American spines of Onondago and Oriskany, described in 1846, occurred in rocks deemed contemporary with those of the Wenlock division. We next cross the line which separates the base of the Upper from the top of the Lower Silurian deposits, and find a great arenaceous forma- tion (No. 6), known as the Caradoc Sandstones ; while the Llandeilo Flags (No. 7), the formation upon which the sand- stones rest, compose, according to the sections of Sir Rode- rick, published in 1839, the lowest deposit of the Lower Si-

; oy eos i lurian rocks, And it is in the upper part of this lowes member of the system that the ichthyic defences announce in 1847 by Professor Sedgwick occur. _ Vertebrate remai have uow been detected in the same relative position in th seventh and most ancient member of the system that they wer found to occupy in its first and most modern member te years ago. But thisis notall. Beneath the Lower Silurian division there occur vast fossiliferous deposits, to which th

7 * «The shales alternating with the Wenlock Limestone.” (Zdum burgh Review.) :

.

UPPER AND LOWER. 117

e “Cambrian System” was given, merely provisionally, by Sir Roderick, but which Professor Sedgwick still retains as representative of a distinct geologic period ; and it is in “these, greatly below the Lower Silurian base-line, as drawn in 1839, that the Bala Limestones occur. The Plynlimmon rocks (a),—a series of conglomerate, grauwacke, and slate _ beds, several thousand yards in thickness,—intervene between the Llandeilo Flags and the Limestones of Bala (6), And, | of consequence, the defensive spine of the Onchus, announced in 1847 as detected in these limestones by the geologists of _ the Government Survey, must have formed part of a fish that f perished many ages ere the oldest of the Lower Silurian for- “mations began to be deposited. ] Let us now, after this survey of both the amount of our _ materials and the order and time of their occurrence, pass _ on to the question of size, as already stated. Did the ich- _ thyic remains of the Silurian system, hitherto examined and _ described, belong to large or to small fishes? The question cannot be altogether so conclusively answered as in the case _ of those ganoids of the Lower Old Red Sandstone whose der- mal skeletons indicate their original dimensions and form. _In fishes of the placoid order, such as the sharks and rays, the dermal skeleton is greatly less continuous and persistent than in such ganoids as the Dipterians and Celacanths ; and _ when their remains occur in the fossil state, we can reason, in most instances, regarding the bulk of the individuals of which they formed part, merely from that of detached teeth or spines, whose proportion to the entire size of the ani- mals that bore them cannot be strictly determined. _ We can, indeed, do little more than infer, that though a large placoid may have been armed with but small spines or teeth, a small placoid could not have borne very large ones. And _ to this placoid order all the Silurian fish, from the Aymes- try Limestone to the Cambrian deposits of Bala inclusive,

118 FISHES OF THE SILURIAN ROCKS,

unequivocally belong. It is peculiarly the order of the

system, *

The Ludlow bone-bed contains not only defensive spines,

but also teeth, fragments of jaws, and shagreen points. Let

us, then, take the defensive spine as the part on which to

found our comparison. One of the best marked placoids -f the Upper Ludlow bone-bed is that Onchus Murchisoni to which the distinguished geologist whose name it bears refers, in his communication, as so nearly resembling the oldest pla- coid yet known,—that of the Bala Limestone. And the

living fishes with which the Onchus Murchisoni must be com- —

pared, says Agassiz, though “ the affinity,” he adds, “ may be rather distant,” are those of the genera “ Cestracion, Cen- trina, and Spinax.” I have placed before me a specimen of

recent Spimax, of a species well known to all my readers on © the sea-coast, the Spinaz Acanthias, or common dog-fish, so — tittle a favourite with our fishermen. It measures exactly —

two feet three inches in length ; and of the defensive spines of its two dorsals,—those spear-like thorns on the creature’s back immediately in advance of the fins, which so frequently wound the fisher’s hand,—the anterior and smaller measures

from base to point an inch and a half, and the posterior and —

larger two inches. I have also placed before me a specimen of Cestracion Phillippi (the Port-Jackson shark), a fish now recognised as the truest existing analogue of the Silurian pla- coids. It measures twenty-two three-fourth inches in length, and is furnished, like Spinaz, with two dorsal spines, of which

the anterior and larger measures from base to point one one-

half inch, and the posterior and smaller one one-fifth inch.

* It is to be regretted that the author had not the placo-ganoids of

the Upper and Lower Ludlow rocks to reason upon, as well as the pla- —

coids. But the inferences from the data he had,—the defensive spines and shagreen of the Upper Ludlow,—are not affected thereby, What

he would have added may be gathered from his remarks elsewhere upon |

the Cephalaspians.—L. M.

UPPER AND LOWER. 119

-

' But the defensive spine of the Onchus Murchisoni, as exhi- "ited in one of the Ludlow specimens, measures, though - mutilated at both ends, three inches and five-eighth parts in i length. Even though existing but as a fragment, it is, as such, _ nearly twice the length of the largest spine of the dog-fish unmutilated and entire, and considerably more than twice the length of the largest spine of the Port-Jackson shark. The _ spines detected by Professor Phillips, in an inferior stratum _of the same upper deposit, were, as has been shown, of microscopic minuteness ; and when they seemed to rest on _ the extreme horizon of ichthyic existence as the most an- cient remains of their kind, the author of the “ Vestiges” availed himself of the fact. He regarded the little crea- tures to which they had belonged as the fetal embryos, their class, or—to employ the language of the Edinburgh _ Reviewer—as “the tokens of Nature’s first and half-abortive _ efforts to make fish out of the lower animals.” From the later editions of his work the paragraph to which the Re- _ viewer refers has, I find, been expunged ; for the horizon has _ greatly extended, and what seemed to be its line of extreme distance has travelled into the middle of the prospect. But _ that the passage should have existed at all is a not uninstruc- tive circumstance, and shows how unsafe it is, in more than external nature, to regard the line at which, for the time, the _ landscape closes, and heaven and earth seem to meet, as in reality the world’s end. The Wenlock specimen,-—a group of palatal teeth,—though certainly not microscopic, is, I am informed by Sir Philip Egerton, of but small size ; whereas the contemporary spine of the Onondago Limestone, though comparatively more a fragment than the spine of the Upper Ludlow Onchus,—for it measures only three inches in length, —is at least five times as bulky as the largest spine of Spinax Acanthias. Representing one of the massier fishes disporting amid the some four or five small ones, of which, in my illustra-

120 FISHES OF THE SILURIAN ROCKS,

tion, the naturalist catches a glimpse in fording the unknown | iake, it at least serves to show that all the Silurian ichthyolites must not bedescribed assmall, seeing that not only might many of its undetected fish have been large, but that some of those

Fig. 53.

a. Posterior Spine of Spinax Acanthias. b. Fragment of Onondago Spine. (Natural Size.) |

which have been detected were actually so. Another Ameri-— can spine, of nearly the same formation,—for it occurs in a : limestone, varying from twenty to seventy feet in thickness, — which immediately overlies that of the Onondago deposit, — though still more fragmentary than the first, for its length is only two three-eighth inches,—maintains throughout a nearly equal thickness,—a circumstance in itself indicative of considerable size ; and in positive bulk it almost rivals the Onondago one. Of the Lower Silurian and Bala fishes no descriptions or figures have yet appeared. And such, up to the present time, is the testimony derived from this depart- ment of Geology, so far as I have been able to determine it, regarding the size of the ancient Silurian vertebrata. “ No organism,” says Professor Oken, “is, nor ever has one been — created, which is not microscopic.” The Professor's pupils — and abettors, the assertors of the development hypothesis, appeal to the geological evidence as altogether on thew sidé in the case; and straightway a few witnesses enter court. But,

UPPER AND LOWER. " 429%

lo! among the expected dwarfs, there appear individuals of more than the average bulk and stature.

Still, however, the question of organization remains. Did these ancient placoid fishes stand high or low in the scale ? According to the poet, “‘ What can we reason but from what we know?” We are acquainted with the placoid fishes of the present time ; and from these only, taking analogy as our _ guide, can we form any judgment regarding the rank and _ standing of their predecessors, the placoids of the geologie i periods. But the consideration of this question, as it is spe- cially one on which the later assertors of the development __ hypothesis concentrate themselves, I must, to secure the space necessary for its discussion, defer till my next chapter. Mean- _ while, I am conscious I owe an apology to the reader for what he must deem tedious minuteness of description, and a too prolix amplitude of statement. It is only by representing things as they actually are, and in the true order of their oc- currence, that the effect of the partially selected facts and ex- aggerated descriptions of the Lamarckians can be adequately met. ‘True, the disadvantages of the more sober mode are unavoidably great. He who feels himself at liberty to ar- range his collected shells, corals, and fish-bones into artisti- cally designed figures, and to select only the pretty ones, will be of course able to make of them a much finer show than he who is necessitated to represent them in the order and nu- merical proportions in which they occur on some pebbly beach washed by the sea. And such is the advantage, in a literary point of view, of the ingenious theorist, who, in making figures of his geological facts, takes no more of them than suits his purpose, over the man who has to communicate the facts as he finds them. But the homelier mode is the true one. “Could we obtain,” says a distinguished metaphysician, “a distinct and full history of all that has passed in the mind of a child, from the beginning of life and sensation till it grows up to

122 FISHES OF THE SILURIAN ROCKS, ETC.

the use of reason,—how its infant faculties began to work, — and how they brought forth and ripened all the various no- tions, opinions, and sentiments which we find in ourselves — when we come to be capable of reflection,—this would be a treasure of natural history which would probably give more — light into the human faculties than all the systems of philo- sophers about them since the beginning of the world. But — it is in vain,” he adds, “ to wish for what nature has not put within the reach of our power.” In like manner, could we — obtain, it may be remarked, a full and distinct account of a single class of the animal kingdom, from its first appearance till the present time, “this would be a treasure of natural history which would cast more light” on the origin of living existences, and the true economy of creation, than all the theories of all the philosophers “since the beginning of the world.” And in order to approximate to such a history as — nearly as possible,—and it does seem possible to approximate near enough to substantiate the true readings of the volume, and to correct the false ones,—it is necessary that the real vestiges of creation should be carefully investigated, and their — order of succession ascertained. .

HIGH STANDING OF THE PLACOIDS. 123

HIGH STANDING OF THE PLACOIDS.

OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED.

_ WE have seen that some of the Silurian placoids were large of size ; the question still remains, “‘ Were they high in in- telligence and organization ? | The Edinburgh Reviewer, in contending with the author _ of the “ Vestiges,” replies in the affirmative, by claiming for them the first place among fishes. “Taking into account,” he says, “the brain and the whole nervous, circulating, and _ generative systems, they stand at the highest point of a na- tural ascending scale.” They are fishes, he again remarks, _ that rank among “ the very highest types of their class.” “The fishes of this early age, and of all other ages pre- vious to the Chalk,” says his entagonist, in reply, “are, for _ the most part, cartilaginous. The cartilaginous fishes— the Chondropterygii of Cuvier—are placed by that naturalist as a second series in his descending scale ; being, however, he says, ‘in some measure parallel to the first.’ How far this is different from their being the highest types of the fish class, need not be largely insisted upon. Linneus, again, was so impressed by the low characters of many of this order, that he actually ranked them with worms. Some of the cartila- ginous fishes, nevertheless, have certain peculiar features of organization, chiefly connected with reproduction, in which

124 HIGH STANDING OF THE PLACOIDS.

they excel other fish ; but such features are partly partaken — of by families in inferior sub-kingdoms, showing that they cannot truly be regarded as marks of grade in their own class, When we look to the great fundamental characters, particu- larly to the framework for the attachment of the muscles, what do we find !—why, that of these placoids,—‘ the highest types of their class,’—it is barely possible to establish their being vertebrata at all, the back-bone having generally been too shght for preservation, although the vertebral columns of later fossil fishes are as entire as those of any other animals. — In many of them traces can be observed of the muscles having — been attached to the external plates, strikingly indicating their low grade as vertebrate animals. The Edinburgh Reviewer's ‘highest types of their class’ are in reality a separate series — of that class, generally inferior, taking the leading features of organization of structure as a criterion, but when details of organization are regarded, stretching farther, both downward and upward, than the other series ; so that, looking at one extremity, we are as much entitled to call them the lowest, — as the Reviewer, looking at another extremity, is to call them the ‘highest of their class.’ Of the general inferiority there can be no room for doubt. Their cartilaginous structure is, — in the first place, analogous to the embryonic state of verte- — brated animals in general. The maxillary and intermaxillary — bones are in them rudimental. Their tails are finned on the © under side only, —an admitted feature of the salmon in anem- — bryonic stage ; and the mouth is placed on the under side of — the head,—also a mean and embryonic feature of structure. These characters are essential and important, whatever the Edinburgh Reviewer may say to the contrary : they are the characters which, above all, I am chiefly concerned in look- ing to, for they are features of embryonic progress, and em- bryonic progress is the grand key to the theory of develop-

ment,”

OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED. 125

Such is the ingenious piece of special pleading which this most popular of the Lamarckians directs against the standing _ and organization of the earlier fishes. Let us examine it _ somewhat in detail, and see whether the slight admixture of _ truth which it contains serves to do aught more than to ren- _ der current, like the gilding of a counterfeit guinea spread _ over the base metal, the amount of error which lies beneath. _ I know not a better example than that which it furnishes, of

_ the entanglement and perplexity in which the meshes of an ar-

tificial classification, when converted, in argumentative pro- cesses, into symbols and abstractions, are sure to involve sub- jects simple enough in themselves.

Fishes, according to the classification of a preponderating majority of the ichthyologists that have flourished from the earliest times down to those of Agassiz, have been divided into two great series, the Ordinary or osseous, and the Chon- dropterygi or cartilaginous. And these two divisions of the class, instead of being ranged consecutively in a continuous line, the one in advance of the other, have been ranged in two parallel lines, the one directly abreast of the other. There is this further peculiarity in the arrangement, that the line of the cartilaginous series, from the circumstance that some of its families rise higher and some sink lower in the scale than any of the ordinary fishes, outflanks the array of the osseous series at both ends. The front which it presents contains fewer genera and species than that of the osseous division ; but, like the front of an army drawn out in single file, it ex. tends along a greater length of ground. And to this long- fronted series of the cartilaginous, or, according to Cuvier, Chondropterygian fishes, the placoid families of Agassiz belong, —among the rest, the placoids of the Silurian formations, Upper and Lower. But though all the placoids of this latter naturalist be cartilaginous fishes, all cartilaginous fishes are not placoids. The Stwrionide are cartilaginous, and are, as

126 HIGH STANDING OF THE PLACOIDS. .

such, ranked by Cuvier among the Chondropterygii, whereas © Agassiz places them in his ganoid order. Many of the ex- tinct fishes, too, such as the Acanthodei, Dipteride, Cephalas- pide, were, as we have seen, cartilaginous in their internal — framework, and yet true ganoids notwithstanding. The prin- ciple of Agassiz’s classification wholly differs from that of Cu- vier and the older ichthyologists ; for it is a classification © founded, not on the character of the internal, but on that of the cuticular or dermal skeleton. And while to the geologist — it possesses great and obvious advantages over every other,— — for of the earlier fishes very little more than the cuticular — skeleton survives,—it has this further recommendation to the — naturalist, that (in so far at least as its author has been true to his own principles), instead of anomalously uniting the highest and lowest specimens of their class,—the fishes that most nearly approximate to the reptiles on the one hand, and the fishes that sink furthest towards the worms on the other, —it gathers into one consistent order all the individuals of — the higher type, distinguished above their fellows by their development of brain, the extensive range of their instincts, and the perfection of their generative systems. Further, the history of animal existences, as recorded in the sedimentary - rocks of our planet, reads a recommendation of this scheme of classification which it extends to no other. We find that in the progress of creation the fishes began to be by groupes and septs, arranged according to the principle on which it erects its orders.* The placoids came first, the ganoids suc- ceeded them, and the ctenoids and cycloids brought up the rear. The march has been marshalled according to an ap- pointed programme, the order of which it is peculiarly the merit of Agassiz to have ascertained.

* We now need to reverse this order, in so far as the placoids and ganoids are concerned, although they may be almost considered—as we think they will be ultimately found to be—contemporaries.—L. M.

OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED. 127

_ Now, may I request the reader to mark, in the first place, _ that what we have specially to deal with at the present stage _ of the. argument are the placoid fishes of the Silurian forma- _ tion. May I ask him to take note, in the second, that the _ long-fronted Chondropterygian series of Cuvier, though it in- _ cludes, as has been already said, the placoid order of Agassiz, _ —just as the red-blooded division of animals includes the _ bimana and quadrumana,—is no more to be regarded as iden- | tical with the placoids, than the red-blooded animals are to be regarded as identical with the apes or with the human fa- mily. It simply includes them in the character of one of the _ three great divisions into which it has been separated,—the division ranged, if I may so express myself, on the extreme

_ right of the line; its middle portion, or main body, being

composed of the Stwriones,—a family on the general level of the osseous fishes ; while, ranged on the extreme left, we find the low division of the Suctorti, 7. e. Cyclostomi, or lam- preys. But with the middle and lower divisions we have at present nothing to do; for of neither of them, whether Sturiones or Suctorii, does the Silurian system exhibit a trace. Further be it remarked, that the scheme of classi- fication which gives an abstract standing to the Chondrop- terygit is in itself merely a certain perception of resemblance which existed in certain minds, having cartilage for its gene- ral idea ; just as another certain perception of resemblance in one other certain mind had cuticular skeleton for its ge- neral idea, and as yet another perception of resemblance in yet other certain minds had red blood for its general idea. As shown by the disparities which obtain among the sec- tion which the scheme serves to separate from the others, it no more determines rank or standing than that greatly more ancient scheme of classification into “ ring-streaked and spotted,” which served to distinguish the flocks of the pa- triarch Jacob from those of Laban his father-in-law, but

128 HIGH STANDING OF THE PLACOIDS.

which did not distinguish goats from sheep, nor sheep from cattle.

The effect of introducing, after this manner, generalizations made altogether irrespective of rank, and avowedly without reference to it, into what are inherently and specifically gues- tions of rank, admits of a simple illustration.

Let us suppose that it was not with the standing of the Silurian placoids that we had to deal, but with that of the mammals of the recent period, including the guadrumana, — and even the bimana, and that we had ventured to describe them, in the words of the Edinburgh Reviewer, as “the very highest types of their class” What would be thought of the reasoner who, in challenging the justice of the estimate, would argue that these creatures, men as well as monkeys, belonged simply to that division of red-blooded animals which — includes, with the bimana and quadrumana, the frog, the gudgeon, and the earthworm ?—a division, he might add, © “which, when details of organization are regarded, stretches - farther, both downward and upward,” than that division of the white-blooded animals to which the crab, the spider, the — cuttle-fish, and the dragon-fly belong ; “‘so that, looking at one extremity [that occupied by the earthworm], any one is as much entitled to call the red-blooded animals the lowest divi- sion, as any other, looking at another extremity, is to call them — the highest division, of animals.” What, it might well be asked in reply, has the earthworm, with its red blood, to do in a ques- tion respecting the place and standing of the bimana? Or what, in the parallel case, have the Suctorii—the worms of Linnzus—to do ina question respecting the place and standing ~ of the real placoids? True it is that, according to one principle of classification, now grown somewhat obsolete, men and earth- worms are equally red-blooded animals ; true it is that, accord-— ing to another principle of classification, the placoids of Agas- — siz and the cartilaginous worms of Linnzus are equally Chon-—

OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED, 129

| dropterygu. The bimana and the earthworm have their red _ blood in common ; the glutinous hag and the true placoids have as certainly their internal cartilage in common ; and if the fact of the red blood of the worm lowers in no degree the _ rank of the bimana, then, on the same principle, the fact of _ the internal cartilage of the glutinous hag cannot possibly de- ' tract from the standing of the true placoid. In both cases _ they are creatures that entirely differ,—the earthworms from _ the bimana, and the cartilaginous worms from the placoids ; and the classification which tags them together, whether it be that of Aristotle or that of Cuvier, cannot be converted into _ asort of minus quantity, of force enough to detract from the _ value and standing of the bimana in the one case, or of the _ true placoids in the other. It is in no degree derogatory to the human family that earthworms possess red blood ; it is in no degree derogatory to the true placoids that the Suctorw possess cartilaginous skeletons.

Let the reader now mark the use which has been made, by the author of the “ Vestiges,” of the name and authority of Linneus. “ Linnzus,” he states, “was so impressed by the low character of many of this order (the Chondropterygi), that he actually ranked them with worms.” Now, what is the fact here? Simply that Linnzus had no such general order as the Chondropterygit in his eye at all. Though chiefly remarkable as a naturalist for the artificialness of his ‘classifications, his estimate of the cartilaginous fishes was re- markable—though carried too far in its extremes, and in some degree founded in error—for an opposite quality. It was an estimate formed, in the main, on a natural basis, Instead of taking their cartilaginous skeleton into account, he looked chiefly at their standing as animals; and, struck with that extent of front which they present, and with both their superiority on the extreme right, and their inferiority on the extreme left, to the ordinary fishes, he erected them

I

150 HIGH STANDING OF THE PLACOIDS,

into two separate orders, the one lower and the other higher than the members of the osseous line. And so far was he from regarding the true placoids,—those Chondropterygit which to an internal skeleton of cartilage add external plates, points, or spines of bone,—as low in the scale, that he ac- tually raised them above fishes altogether, by erecting them — into an order of reptiles,—the order Amphibia Nantes. Surely, if the name of Linnzus was to be introduced into this con- troversy at all, it ought to have been in connection with this special fact ; seeing that the point to be determined in the question under discussion is simply the place and standing of that very order which the naturalist rated so high,—not the place and standing of the order which he degraded. It so happens that there is one of the Chondropterygii which, so far from being a true placoid, does not possess a single osseous plate, point, or spine : it is a worm-like creature, without eyes, withoutmoveable jaws, without vertebral joints, without scales, always enveloped in slime, and greatly abhorred by our Scotch boatmen of the Moray Frith, who hold that it burrows, like the grave-worm, in the decaying bodies of the dead. And this creature, “the glutinous hag,” or, according to north- country fishermen, the “ramper-eel,” or “ poison-ramper, ” was regarded by Linnzus as belonging, not to the class of fishes, but to the vermes. Now, this is the special fact with which, in the development controversy, the author of the “ Vestiges” connects the name of the Swedish naturalist ! All the fish of the Silurian system belonged to that true pla- coid order which Linnzus, impressed by its high standing, erected into an order, not of worms, but of reptiles. He ele- vated A, the true placoid, while he degraded B, the glutinous hag. But it was necessary to the argument of the author of the ‘‘ Vestiges” that the earliest existing fish should be repre- sented as fish low in the scale; and so he has cited the name and authority of Tinneus in its bearing against the glutinous

OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED, 13}

hag B, as if it had borne against the standing of the true pla- _coid A. The Patagonians are the tallest and bulkiest men _ in the world, whereas their neighbours the Fuegians are a slim and diminutive race. And if, in some controversy raised _ regarding the real size of the more gigantic tribe, they were _ to be described as the “very tallest types of their class, any _ statement in reply, to the effect that some trustworthy voyager had examined certain races of the extreme south of America, _ and had found that they were both short and thin, would be neither relevant in its facts nor legitimate in its bearing. But _ if the controversialist who thus strove to strengthen his case "by the voyager’s authority was at the same time fully aware _ that the voyager had seen not only the diminutive Fuegians, but also the gigantic Patagonians, and that he had described these last as very gigantic indeed, the introduction of the _ statement regarding the smaller race, when he wholly sank _ the statement regarding the larger, would be not merely very irrelevant in the circumstances, but also very unfair. Such, _ however, is the style of statement to which the author of the _ “Vestiges” has (I trust inadvertently) resorted in this con- troversy.

Jt is not uninstructive to mark how slowly and gradually the naturalists have been groping their way to a right classi- fication in the ichthyic department of their science, and how it has been that identical perception of resemblance, having cartilage for its general idea, to which the author of the “Vestiges” attaches so much importance, has served main- ly to retard their progress. Not afew of the more distin- guished among their number deemed it too important a _ distinction to be regarded as merely secondary ; and so long as it was retained as a primary characteristic, the fishes failed to range themselves in the natural order ;—dissimilar tribes were brought into close neighbourhood, while tribes nearly allied were widely separated, It failed, as has been shown,

132 HIGH STANDING OF THE PLACOIDS.

to influence Linnzeus ; and though he no doubt pressed his

peculiar views too far when he degraded the glutinous hag —

into a worm, and elevated the sharks and rays into reptiles, it is certainly worthy of remark, that, in the scheme of clas- sification which is now regarded as the most natwral,—that of Professor Muller, modified by Professor Owen,—the ich- thyic worms of the Swede are placed in the first and lowest order of fishes,—the Dermopteri,—and the greater part of his ichthyic reptiles, in the eleventh and highest,—the Plagios- tomi. Cuvier yielded, as has been shown, to the idea of re- semblance founded on the material of the ichthyic framework, and so ranged his fishes’ into two parallel lines. Professor Oken, after first enunciating as law that “the characteristic organ of fishes is the osseous system,” confessed the “ great difficulty” which attaches to the question of skeletal “ tex-

SE

ture or substance,” and finally gave up the distinction founded ~

on it as obstinately irreducible to the purposes of a natural classification. ‘‘ The cartilaginous fishes,” he says, “ appear to belong to each other, and are also usually arranged together ; yet amongst them we find those species, such as the lampreys, which obviously occupy the lowest grade of all fishes, while the sharks and rays remind us of the Reptilia.” And so, sink- ing the consideration of texture altogether, he placed the fa- mily of the lamprey, including the glutinous hag, at the bot- tom of the scale, and the sharks and rays at the top. Agassiz’s system, peculiarly his own, has had the rare merit, as I have shown, of furnishing a key to the history of the fish in its several dynasties, which we may in vain seek in any other. His divisions,—if, retaining his strongly-marked placoids and ganoids as orders stamped in the mint of nature, we throw

his perhaps less obviously divisible ctenoids and cycloids into —

one order, the corneous or horn-covered,—are scarcely less

representative of periods than those great classes of the ver- — tebrata, mammals, birds, reptiles, and fishes,-—which we find —

OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED, 133

not less regularly ranged in their order of succession in the geologic record than in the “Animal Kingdom” of Cuvier, _ —a shrewd corroboration, in both cases, I am disposed to think, of the rectitude of the arrangement. What seems to be the special defect of his system is, that, having erected his four orders, and then finding a certain number of residuary _ families that, on his principle of cuticular character, stubbornly refused to fall into any determinate place, he distributed them _ among the others, with reference chiefly to the totally dis- | tinct principle of Cuvier. Thus the Suctorii, soft, smooth, F slimy-skinned fishes, that do not possess a single placoid cha- - racter, and are not true placoids, he has yet placed in his pla- _ coid order, influenced, apparently, by the “ perception of re- _ semblance that has cartilage for its central idea ;’ and the effect has been a massing into one anomalous and entangled group the fishes of the first period of geologic history, with fishes of which we do not find a trace save in the existing scene of things, and of the highest families of their class with families that occupy the lowest place. But we live in an age in which even the benefactors of the world of mind cannot make false steps with impunity ; and so, while Agassiz’s three ichthyic orders will continue to be recognised by the paleon- tologist as the orders of three great geologic periods, the Suc- torw have already been struck from off his higher fishes by the classification of Muller and Owen, and carried to that lowest point in the scale (indicated by Linneus and Oken) which their inferior standing renders so obviously the natural one. Some of my readers may perhaps remember how finely Bacon, in his “ Wisdom of the Ancients,” interprets the old mytho- logic story of Prometheus. Prometheus, says the philosopher, had conferred inestimable favours on men, by moulding their forms into shape, and bringing them fire from heaven ; and yet they complained of him and his teachings to Jupiter. And the god, instead >f censuring their ingratitude, was

134 HIGH STANDING OF THE PLACOIDS.

pleased with the complaint, and rewarded them with gifts. — In putting nature to the question, it is eminently wholesome —

to be doubting, cross-examining, complaining ; ever demand-

ing of our masters and benefactors the philosophers, that they —

should reign over us, not arbitrarily and despotically,

‘* Like the old kings, with high exacting looks, Sceptred and globed,”

but like our modern constitutional monarchs, who govern by law ; and, further, that an appeal from their decisions on all

subjects within the jurisdiction of Nature should for ever lie —

open to Nature herself. The seeming ingratitude of such a course, if the “complaints” be made in a right spirit and on proper grounds, Jupiter always rewards with gifts.

Let us now see for ourselves, in this spirit, whether there

may not be something absolutely derogatory, in the existence

of a cartilaginous skeleton, to the creatures possessing it ; or whether a deficit of internal bone may not be greatly more than neutralized, as it assuredly must have been in the view of Linneus, Muller, and Owen, by a larger than ordinary share of a vastly more important substance. |

4

THE PLACOID BRAIN 133

THE PLACOID BRAIN.

. EMBRYONIC CHARACTERISTICS NOT NECESSARILY OF A LOW ORDER.

_ Twat special substance according to whose mass and degree of development all the creatures of this world take rank in the scale of creation, is not bone, but brain. Were animals to be ranged according to the solidity of their bones, the class of birds would be assigned the first place ; the family of the Felide, including the tiger and lion, the second; and the other terrestrial carnivora the third. Man and the herbivo- rous animals, though tolerably low in the scale, would be in advance of at least the reptiles. Most of these, however, Would take precedence of the sagacious Delphinide ; the osse- ous fishes would come next in order ; the true placoids would follow, succeeded by the Stwriones ; and the Suctori, 1. e. Cyclostomi or lampreys, would bring up the rear. There would be evidently no order here: the utter confusion of such an arrangement, like that of the bits of a dissected map flung carelessly out of its box by a child, would of itself demon- strate the inadequacy and erroneousness of the regulating principle. But how very different the appearance presented, when for solidity of bone we substitute development.of brain! Man takes his proper place at the head of creation ; the lower

136 THE PLACOID BRAIN.

mammalia follow,—each species in due order, according to its —

modicum of intelligence ; the birds succeed the mammalia ; the reptiles succeed the birds ; the fishes succeed the reptiles ; next in the long procession come the invertebrate animals; and these, too, take rank, if not according to their develop- ment of brain proper, at least according to their development of the substance of brain. The occipital nervous ganglion of the scorpion greatly exceeds in size that of the earthworm ; and the occipital nervous ring of the lobster, that of the in- testinal ascaris. At length, when we reach the lowest or acrite division of the animal kingdom, the substance of brain altogether disappears. It has been calculated by naturalists, that in the vertebrata, the brain in the class of fishes bears an average proportion to the spinal cord of about two to one ; in the class of reptiles, of about two and a half to one; in the class of birds, of about three to one ; in the class of mam- mals, of about four to one; and in the high-placed, sceptre- bearing human family, a proportion of not less than twenty- three to one. It is palpably according to development of brain, not development of bone, that we are to determine points of precedence among the animals,—a fact of which no one can be more thoroughly aware than the author of the “‘ Vestiges” himself. Of this let me adduce a striking in- stance, of which I shall make further’ use anon.

** All life,” says Oken, “ is from the sea ; none from the continent. Man also is a child of the warm and shallow parts of the sea in the neighbourhood of the land.” Such also was the hypothesis of Lamarck and Maillet. In follow- ing up the view of his masters, the author of the “ Vestiges” fixes on the Delphinide as the sea-inhabiting progenitors of the simial family, and, through the simial family, of man. For that highest order of the mammalia to which the Simi- ade (monkeys) belong, “ there remains,” he says, “ a basis. in the Delphinide, the last and smallest of the cetacean tribes.

eee ee

THE PLACOID BRAIN. 137

_ This affiliation has a special support in the brain of the dol- phin family, which is distinctly allowed to be, in proportion to general bulk, the greatest among mammalia next to the ourang-outang and man. We learn from Tiedemann, that each of the cerebral hemispheres is composed, as in man and the ‘monkey tribe, of three lobes,—an anterior, a middle, and a posterior ; and these hemispheres present much more nume- - rons circumvolutions and grooves than those of any other ‘ animal, Here it might be rash to found anything upon tne ancient accounts of the dolphin,—its familiarity with man, and its helping him in shipwreck and various marine disas- ters; although it is difficult to believe these stories to be al- _ together without some basis in fact. There is no doubt, how- ever, that the dolphin evinces a predilection for human society, and charms the mariner by the gambols which it performs beside his vessel.”

Here, then, the author of the “ Vestiges” palpably founds on a large development of brain in the dolphin, and on the manifestation of a correspondingly high order of instincts ; and this altogether irrespective of the structure or composi- tion of the creature’s internal skeleton. The substance to which he looks as all-important in the case is brain, not bone. For were he to estimate the standing of the dolphin, not by its brain, but by its skeleton, he would have to assign to it a place, not only noé in advance of its brethren the mam- malia of the sea, but even in the rear of the reptiles of the sea, —the marine tortoises, or turtles,—and scarce more than abreast of the osseous fishes. ‘“‘ Fishes,” says Professor Owen, in his ‘ Lectures on the Vertebrate Animals,” “ have the least proportion of earthy matter in their bones ; birds the largest. The mammalia, especially the active, predatory species, have more earth, or harder bones, than reptiles. In each class, however, there are differences in the density of bone among its several members. For example. in the fresh-

138 THE PLACOID BRAIN.

water fishes, the bones are lighter, and retain more animal ©

matter, than in those which swim in the denser sea, And in the dolphin, a warm-blooded marine animal, they differ little in this respect from those of the sea-fish” Such being the fact, it is surely but fair to inquire of the author of the “ Vestiges,” why he should determine the rank and standing of the Delphinide according to one set of principles, and the rank and standing of the placoids according to another and entirely different set? If the Delphinide are to be placed high in the scale, notwithstanding the softness of their skele- tons, simply because their brains are large, why are the pla- coids to be placed low in the scale, notwithstanding the largeness of their brains, simply because their skeletons are soft? It is not too much to demand that, on the principle which he himself recognises as just, he should either degrade the dolphin or elevate the placoid. For it is altogether inad- missible that he should reason on one set of laws when the exigencies of his hypothesis require that creatures with soft skeletons should be raised in the scale, and on another and entirely different set when its necessities demand that they should be depressed.

But do the placoids possess in reality a large development of brain? I have examined the brains of almost all the com- mon fish of our coast, both osseous and cartilaginous,—not, I fear, with the skill of a Tiedemann, but all the more intel- ligently in consequence of what Tiedemann had previously done and written ; and so I can speak with some little con- fidence on the subject, so far at least.as my modicum of ex- perience, thus acquired, extends, Of all the common fish of the Scottish seas, the spotted or lesser dog-fish bears, in proportion to its size, the largest brain ; the gray or picked dog-fish ranks next in the degree of development; the rays, in their various species, follow after ; and the osseous fishes compose at least the great body of the rear; while still

THE PLACOID BRAIN. 139

_ farther behind there lags a hapless class,—the Suctorii,—one of which, the glutinous hag, has scarce any brain, and one, the Amphiowus or lancelet, wants brain altogether. I have } : compared the brain of the spotted dog-fish with that of a _ young alligator, and have found that in scarce any percep- _ tible degree was it inferior in point of bulk, and very slightly _ indeed in point of organization, to the brain of the reptile. _ And the instincts of this placoid family,—one of the truest existing representatives of the placoids of the Silurian sys- tem* to which we can appeal,—correspond, we invariably find, with their superior cerebral development. I have seen _ the common dog-fish, Spinaz Acanthias, hovering in packs _ in the Moray Frith, some one or two fathoms away from the side of the herring-boat, from which, when the fishermen were engaged in hauling their nets, I have watched them, and have admired the caution which, with all their ferocity of disposition, they rarely failed to manifest ;—how they kept aloof from the net, even more warily than the cetacea them- selves,—though both dog-fish and cetacea are occasionally entangled ; and how, when a few herrings were shaken loose from the meshes, they at once darted upon them, exhibiting for a moment, through the green depths, the pale gleam of their abdomens, as they turned upon their sides to seize the desired morsels,—a motion rendered necessary by the posi- tion of the mouth in this family ; and how next, their object accomplished, they fell back into their old position, and waited on as before. And I have been assured by intelligent fisher- men, that at the deep-sea white-fishing, in which baited hooks, not nets, are employed, the degree of shrewd caution exer-

* The Silurian placoids are most adequately represented by the Ces- tracion of the southern hemisphere ; but I know not that of the peculiar character and instincts of this interesting placoid,—the last of its race,— there is anything known. For its form and general appearance see fig 55, page 151. :

140 \ THE PLACOLD BRAIN,

cised by these creatures seems more extraordinary still The hatred which the fisher bears to them arises not more from the actual amount of mischief which they do him, than from the circumstance that, in most cases, they persist in doing it with complete impunity to themselves. I have seen, said an” observant Cromarty fisherman to the writer of these chapters, a pack of dog-fish watching beside our boat, as we were haul- ing our lines, and severing the hovked fish, as they passed — them, at a bite, just a little above the vent, so that they themselves escaped the swallowed hook ; and I have frequently lost in this way no inconsiderable portion of a fishing. I have observed, however, he continued, that when a fresh pack — of hungry dog-fish came up, and joined the pack that had been robbing us so coolly, and at their leisure, a sudden rash- — ness would seize the whole ; the united packs would become ~ a mere heedless mob, and, rushing forward, they would swal- — Jow our fish entire, and be caught themselves by the score and the hundred. We may see something very similar to © this taking place among the shrewder mammalia, When — pug refuses to take his food, his mistress straightway calls — upon the cat, and, quickened by the dread of the coming — rival, he gobbles up his rations at once, With the compara- tively large development of brain, and the corresponding ma- nifestation of instinct, which the true placoids exhibit, we find other unequivocal marks of a general superiority to their class, In their reproductive organs they rank, not with the common ~ fishes, nor even with the lower reptiles, but with the Chelo- nians and the Sauria. Among the rays, as among the higher animals, there are individual attachments formed between male and female: their eggs, unlike the mere spawn of the — osseous fishes, or of even the Batrachians, are, like those of — the tortoise and the crocodile, comparatively few in number, and of considerable size ; their young, too, like the young of

birds and of the higher reptiles, pass through no such me- —

ee ee

THE PLACOID BRAIN. 141

tamorphosis as those of the toad und frog, or of the amphibia generally. And some of their number,—the common dog- fish, for instance,—are ovoviviparous, bringing forth their young, like the common viper and the viviparous lizard, alive and fully formed. “But such features,” says the author of the “ Vestiges,” _ referring chiefly to certain provisions connected with the re- productory system in the placoids, “are partly partaken of by _ families in inferior sub-kingdoms, showing that they cannot _ truly be regarded as marks of grade in their own class.” | Nay, single features do here and there occur in the inferior _ sub-kingdoms, which very nearly resemblesingle features in the placoid character and organization,—which even very nearly resemble single features in the human character and organi- zation ; but is there any of the inferior sub-kingdoms in which there occurs such a collocation of features? or does such a collocation occur in ‘any class of animals,—setting the pla- eoids wholly out of view,—which is not a high class? Nay, further, does there occur in any of the inferior sub-kingdoms, —existing even as a single feature,—that most prominent, leading characteristic of this series of fishes,—a large brain ? But is not the “ cartilaginous structure” of the placoids analogous to the embryonic state of vertebrated animals in general? Do not the other placoid peculiarities to which the author of the “ Vestiges” refers,—such as the heterocer- cal or one-sided tail, the position of the mouth on the under side of the head, and the rudimental state of the maxillaries and intermaxillaries,—bear further analogies with the em- bryouic state of the higher animals? And is not “ embyro- nic progress the grand key to the theory of development ?” Let us examine this matter. ‘These are the characters,” says this ingenious writer, “which, above all, I am chiefly concerned in looking to; for they are features of embryonic progress, and embryonic progress is the grand key to the

142 THE PLACOID BRAIN.

theory of development.” Bold assertion, certainly ; but, then, assertion is not argument! The statement is not a reason for the faith that is in the author of the “ Vestiges,” but simply an avowal of it; it is simply a confession, not a de- fence, of the Lamarckian creed; and, instead of being ad- mitted as embodying a first principle, it must be put strin- gently to the question, in order to determine whether it con- tain a principle at all.

In the first place, let us remark, that the cartilaginous — structure of the placoids bears no very striking analogy to the cartilaginous structure of the higher vertebrata in the em- bryonic state. In the case of the Delphinide, with their soft akeletons, the analogy is greatly more close. Bone consists of animal matter, chiefly gelatinous, hardened by a diffusion — of inorganic earth. In the bones of young and fetal mam- — malia, inhabitants of the land, the gelatinous prevails ; in the old and middle-aged there is a preponderance of the earth. Now, in the bones of the dolphin there is comparatively little earth. The analogies of its internal skeleton bear, not on the skeletons of its brethren the mature full-grown mam- — mals of the land, but on the skeletons of their immature or foetal offspring. But in the case of the true placoids that ana- logy is faint indeed. Their skeletons contain true bone: the vertebral joints of the sharks and rays possess each, as has been shown, an osseous nucleus, which retains, when sub- jected to the heat of a common fire, the complete form of the joint ; and their cranial framework has its surface always covered over with hard osseous points. But, though their skeletons possess thus their modicum of bone, unlike those of embryonic birds or mammals, they contain, in what is pro- perly their cartilage, no gelatine. The analogy signally fails in the very point in which it has been deemed specially to exist. The cartilage of the Chondropterygit is a substance so essentially different from that of young or embryonic birds

THE PLACOID BRAIN. 143

_ and mammals, and so unique in the animal kingdom, that the heated water in which the one readily dissolves has no _ effect whatever upon the other. It is, however, a curious cir- cumstance, exemplified in some of the shark family,* though Ma it merely serves, in its exceptive character, to establish the " general fact, that while the rays of the double fins, which _ answer to the phalanges, are all formed of this indissoluble _ cartilage, those rays which constitute their outer framework, _ with the rays which constitute the framework of all the single } fins, are composed of a mucoidal cartilage, which boils into _ glue. At certain definite lines a change occurs in the tex- ture of the skeleton ; and it is certainly suggestive of thought, _ that the difference of substance which the change involves distinguishes that part of the skeleton which is homologically representative of the skeletons of the higher vertebrata, from that part of it which is peculiar to the creature as a fish, viz. the dorsal and caudal rays, and the extremities of the double fins. These emphatically ichthyic portions of the animal may be dissipated by boiling, whereas what Linnzeus would perhaps term its reptilian portion abides the heat with- out reduction.

But is not the one-sided tail, so characteristic of the sharks, and of almost all the ancient ganoids, also a characteristic of the young salmon just burst from the egg? Yes, assuredly ; and, so far as research on the subject has yet extended, of not only the salmon, but of a@l/ the other osseous fishes in their foetal state. The salmon, on its escape from the egg, is a little monster of about three-quarters of an inch in length, with a huge heart-shaped bag, as bulky as all the rest of its hody, depending from its abdomen. In this bag provident nature has packed up for it, in lieu of a nurse, food for five weeks ; and, moving about everywhere in its shallow pool,

* Such as the dog-fishes, picked and spotted.

144 THE PLACOID BRAIN.

with its provision-knapsack slung fast to it, it reminds one disposed to be fanciful, save that its burden is on the wrong side, of Scottish soldiers of the olden time summoned to attend their king in war,— ** Each on his back, a slender store, His forty days’ provision bore, As ancient statutes tell.”

Around that terminal part of the creature’s body traversed

by the caudal portion of the vertebral column, which com- mences in the salmon immediately behind the ventrals, there runs at this period, and for the ensuing five weeks in which it does not feed, a membranous fringe or fin, which exactly resembles that of the tadpole, and which, existing simply- as an expansion of the skin, exhibits no marks or rays. In the

place of the true caudal fin, however, we may detect, with | the assistance of a lens, an internal framework with two well- — marked lobes, and ascertain, further, that this tail is set on awry,—the effect of a slight upward bend in the creature's body. And when viewed in a strong light as a transparency, we perceive that the spinal cord takes the same upward bend, and, as in the sturgeon, passes in an exceedingly attenuated form into the upper lobe. What may be regarded as the de- — sign of the arrangement is probably to be found in the pecu- — liar form given to the little creature by the protuberant bag in front. A wise instinct teaches it, from the moment of its exclusion from the egg, to avoid its enemies. In the instant the human shadow falls upon its pool, we see it darting, with singular alacrity, into some recess at the sides or bottom ; and in order to enable it to do so, and to steer itself aright,—as, like an ill-trimmed vessel, deep in the water a-head, the ba- lance of its body is imperfect,—there is, if I may so express myself, a heterocercal peculiarity of helm required. It has got an irregularly-developed tail to balance an irregularly- — developed body, as skiffs Jean on the one beam and full on.

THE PLACOID BRAIN. 145

the other require, in rowing, a cast of the rudder to keep them strai ght in their course. _ Sinking altogether, however, the final cause of the pecu- liarity, and regarding it simply as a fetal one, that indicates a certain stage of imperfection in the creature in which it s, on what principle, I ask, are we to infer that what is a sign of immaturity in the young of one set of animals, is a mark of inferior organization in the adult forms of another set? The want of eyes in any of the animal families, or the _ want of organs of progression, or a fixed and sedentary con- % dition, like that of the oyster, are all marks of great infe- * ‘Yiority. And yet, if we admit the principle, that what are _ evidences of immaturity in the young members of one family _ are signs of inferior organization in the fully-grown members of another, it could easily be shown that eyes and legs are _ defects, and that the unmoving oyster stands higher in the seale than the ever-restless fish or bird. The immature Z7'w- bularia possess locomotive powers, whereas in their fully de- _ veloped state they remain fixed to one spot in their convoluted tubes. The immature Zepas is furnished with members well adapted for swimming, and with which it swims freely ; as it _ rises towards maturity, these become blighted and weak ; and, when fully grown,—fixed by its fleshy pedicle to the rock or - floating log to which it attached itself in its transition state, _ —it is no longer able to swim. The immature Balanus is _ furnished with two eyes: in its state of maturity these are extinguished, and it passes its period of full development in _ darkness. Further, it is not generally held that in the human family a white skin is a decided mark of degradation, but _ rather the reverse ; and yet nothing can be more certain than that the negro foetus has a white skin. Since eyes, and or- gans of progression, and a power of moving freely, and a white _ skin, are mere embryonic peculiarities in the Balanus, the Lepas, the Tubularia, and the negro, and yet are in themselves, K

146 THE PLACOID BRAIN.

when found in the mature animal, evidences of a high, not” of a low standing, on what principle, I ask, are we to infe that the peculiarity of a heterocercal tail, embryonic in the salmon, is, When found in the mature placoid, an evidence, - not of a high standing, but of alow? Every true analogy in the case favours an exactly opposite view. In the hetero cercal or one-sided tail, the vertebral joints gradually dimi- nish, as in the tails of the Sawria and Ophidia, till they termi- nate in a point ; whereas the homocercal tail common to the osseous fishes exhibits no true analogy with the tails of the higher orders. Its abruptly terminating vertebral column, immensely developed posterior processes, and broadly ex- panded osseous rays, seem to be simply a few of the many marks of decline and degradation which fishes, the oldest of the vertebrata, exhibit in this late age of the world, and which,

Fig. 54.

a. Tail of Spinax Acanthias. b. Tail of Ichthyosaurus Tenutrostris (Buckland),

THE PLACOID BRAIN. 147

n at least the earlier geologic periods, when they were greatly _ younger as a class, they did not betray. In illustration of this view, I would fain recommend to the reader a simple experiment. Let him procure the tail of a common dog-fish (fig. 54 a), and, cutting it across about half an inch above where the caudal fin begins, let him boil it ‘smartly for about half an hour. He will first see it swell, and then burst, all around those thinner parts of the fin that are traversed by the caudal rays,—wholly mucoidal, as shown by _ this test, in their texture, and which yield to the boiling water, as if formed of isinglass. They finally dissolve, and drop _ away, with the surrounding cuticular integument ; and then _ there only remains, as the insoluble framework of the whole, : _ the bodies of the vertebree, with their neural and heemal pro- ‘cesses. The tail has now lost much of its ichthyic character, _ and has acquired, instead, a considerable degree of resemblance - to the reptilian tail, as exemplified in the saurians. I have introduced into the woodcut, for the purpose of comparison, the tail of the ichthyosaurus (6). It consists, like the other, _ of a series of gradually diminishing vertebra, and must have also supported, says Professor Owen, a propelling fin, placed _ vertically, as in the shark, which, however, from its perish- able nature, has in every instance disappeared in the earth, _as that of the dog-fish disappears in the boiling water. It will be seen that its processes are comparatively smaller than those of the fish, and that the bodies of its vertebrae are shorter and bulkier; but there is at least a general corre- _ spondence of the parts; and were the tail of the crocodile, of which the vertebral bodies are slender and the processerg large, to be substituted for that of the enaliosaur here, the zorrespondence would be more marked still. After thus de- veloping the tail of the reptile out of that of the fish,—as the _ Trish magician of the tale developed young ladies out of old _ women,-—simply by boiling, let the reader proceed to a second

148 THE PLACOID BRAIN.

stage of the experiment, and see whether he may not be able still further to develope the reptilian tail so obtained into that of the mammal, by burning. Let him spread it out on a piece of iron hoop, and thrust it into the fire ; and then, after exposure for some time to a red heat has consumed and dissipated its merely cartilaginous portions, such as the neural — and heemal processes, with the little pieces which form the sides of the neural arch, and left only the whitened bodies of the vertebre, let him say whether the bony portion which remains does not present a more exact resemblance to the © mammiferous tail,—that of the dog, for example,—than any- thing else he ever saw. The Lamarckians may well deem it an unlucky circumstance, that one special portion of their theory should demand the depreciation of the heterocereal tail, seeing that it might be represented with excellent effect in another, as not merely a connecting link in the upward march of progression between the tail of the true fish and that of the true reptile, but as actually containing in itself, —as the © caterpillar contains the future pupa and butterfly,—the ele- ments of the reptilian and mammiferous tail. If there be any virtue in analogy, the heterocercal tail is, I repeat, of a decidedly higher type than the homocercal one. It furnishes’ the first known example in the vertebrata of those coceygeal © vertebre diminishing to a point, which characterize not only all the higher reptiles, but also all the higher mammals, and © which we find represented by the Os coccygis in man himself, — But to this special point I shall again refer. i

With regard to that rudimentary state of the ovesptildl 5 framework of the placoids to which the author of the “ Ves- — tiges” refers, it may be but necessary to say that, notwith- standing the simplicity of their box-like skulls, they bear in — their character, as cases for the protection of the brain, at least — as close an analogy to the skulls of the higher animals as — those of the osseous fishes, which consist usually of the extra- —

THE PLACOID BRAIN. 149

ordinary number of from sixty to eighty bones,—a mark— he author of the “ Vestiges” himself being judge in the case __—ather of inferiority than the reverse. ‘ Elevation is marked in the scale,” we find him saying, “by an animal exchanging a multiplicity of parts serving one end, for a _ smaller number.” The skull of a cod consists of about thrice as many separate bones as that of aman. But I do not well see that in this case the fact either of simplicity in excess or _ of multiplicity in excess can be insisted upon in either direc-

f tion, as a proper basis for argument. Nearly the same re- ‘ % ;

_ mark applies to the maxillaries as to the skull. The under __ jaw in man consists of a single bone ; that of the thornback _ — if we do not include the two suspending ribs, which belong _ equally to the upper jaw—of two bones (the number in well- _ nigh ..ll the mammiferous quadrupeds) ; that of the cod, of four _ bones, and, if we include the suspending ribs, of twelve. On what principle are we to hold, with one as the representative number of the highest type of jaw, that two indicates a lower standing than four, or four than twelve ? [In reference to the further statement, that in many of the ancient fishes “traces can be observed of the muscles having been attached to the _ external plates, strikingly indicating their low grade as ver- tebrate animals,” it may be answer enough to state, that the peculiarity in question was not a characteristic of the most ancient fishes,—the placoids of the Silurian system,—but of some ganoids of the succeeding systems. The reader may re- member, as a case in point, the example furnished by the nail- like bone of Asterolepis, figured in page 87, in which there exists depressions resembling that of the round ligament in the head of the quadrupedal thigh-bone.| And as for the re- mark that the opening of the mouth of the placoid, “on the under side of the head,” is indicative of a low embryonic con _ dition, it might be almost sufficient to remark, in turn, that the lowest family of fishes,—that to which the supposed worms

150 THE PLACOID .BRALN,

ot Linnzeus belong,—have the mouth not under, bus at the — anterior termination of the head,—in itself an evidence that the position of the mouth at the extremity of the muzzle, — common to the greater number of the osseous fishes, can be no very high character, seeing that the humblest of the Swe- tort possess it ; and that many osseous fishes, whose mouths open, not on the under, but the upper side of the snout, as in the distorted and asymetrical genus Platessa, are not only in no degree superior to their bony neighbours, and farinfe rior to the placoid ones, but bear, in direct consequence of the arrangement, an expression of unmistakeable stupidity. [The — objection, however, admits of a greatly more conclusive reply.

“This fish, to speak in the technical language of Agassiz,” says the Edinburgh Reviewer, in reference to the ancient ich- — thyolite of the Wenlock Shale, “undoubtedly belongs tothe Cestraciont family of the placoid order,—proving to demon- — stration that the oldest known fossil fish [1845] belongs to the highest type of that division of the vertebrata.” I may add, that the character and family of this ancient specimen was determined by our highest British authority in fossil ich- — thology, Sir Philip Egerton.] And it is in depreciation of — Professor Sedgwick’s statement regarding its high standing — that the author of the “ Vestiges” refers to the supposed in — feriority indicated by a mouth opening, not at the extremity — of the muzzle, but under the head. Let us, then, fully grant, — for the argument’s sake, that the occurrence of the mouthin the muzzle is a sign of superiority, and its occurrence under the head a mark of inferiority, and then ascertain how the fact stands with regard to the Cestracion. “The Cestracion — subgenus,” says Mr James Wilson, in his admirable trea tise on fishes, which forms the article IcHtHyoLoGy in the “Encyclopedia Britannica,” “ has the temporal aperture, the anal fin, and rounded teeth, of Squalus Mustelus ; but the mouth is TERMINAL, or AT THE EXTREMITY OF THE POINTED

THE PLACOID BRAIN, LE]

muzziE.” The accompanying figure (fig. 55), taken from a specimen of Cestracion in the collection of Professor John

Fig. 55.

PORT-JACKSON SHARK ( Cestracion Phillippi).

Fleming, may be recorded as of some little interest, both from its direct bearing on the point in question, and from the cir- cumstance that it represents, not inadequately for its size, the sole surviving species (Cestracion Phillippi) of the oldest ver- tebrate family of creation. With this family, so far as is yet known, ichthyic existence first began.* It does not appear that on the globe which we inhabit there was ever an ocean tenanted by living creatures at all that had not its Cestracion, —a statement which could not be-made regarding any other vertebrate family. In Agassiz’s “Tabular View of the Ge- nealogy of Fishes,” the Cestracionts, and they only, sweep across the entire geologic scale. And, as shown in the figure, the mouth in this ancient family, instead of opening, as in the ordinary sharks, under the middle of the head, to expose them to the suspicion of being creatures of low and embryonic cha- racter, opened in a broad, honest-looking muzzle, very much resembling that of the hog. The mouths of the most ancient placoids of which we know anything, did not, I reiterate, open under their heads.

* The reader now knows that with fishes akin to the Siluroids ichthyic existence began, or he may regard placoids and ganoids as contemporaries.

152 TIE PLACOID BRAIN.

But why introduce the element of embryonic progress iuto— this question at all? It is not a question of embryonic pro- gress. The very legerdemain of the sophist,—the juggling by which he substitutes his white balls for black, or converts — his pigeons into crows,—consists in the art of attaching the conclusions founded on the facts or conditions of one sul- —

ject, to some other subject essentially distinct in its nature.

Gestation is not creation. The history of the young of animals q

in their embryonic state is simply the history of the feeta. young ; just as the history of insect transformation, in which it has been held by good men, but weak reasoners, that there exists direct evidence of the doctrine of the Resurrection, is the history of insect transformation, and of nothing else, True, the human mind is so constituted that it converts all nature into a storehouse of comparisons and analogies ; and this fact of the metamorphosis of the creeping caterpillar, after first passing through an intermediate period of apparent death as an inert aurelia, into a winged imago, seems to have seized on the human fancy at a very early age, as won- derfully illustrative of life, death, and the future state. The

Egyptians wrapped up the bodies of their dead in the chrysalis 4 form, so that a mummy, in their apprehension, was simply a — human pupa, waiting the period of its enlargement ; and the ©

Greeks had but one word in their language for butterfly and

the soul. But not the less true is it, notwithstanding, that —

the facts of insect transformation furnish no legitimate key to the totally distinct facts of a resurrection of the budy, and of a life after death. And on what principle, then, are we to trace the origin of past dynasties in the changes of the foetus, if not the rise of the future dynasty in the transfor- mations of the caterpillar? ‘‘ These (embryonic) characters,” —that of the heterocercal tail, and of the mouth of the ordi- nary shark type,—“ are essential and important,” remarks the author of the “ Vestiges,’ “whatever the Edinburgh Re-

en

THE PLACOID BRAIN. 153

_ viewer may say to the contrary ;—they are the characters _ which, above all, I am chiefly concerned in looking to, for 4 yt they are the features of embryonic progress, and embryonic _ progress is the grand key to the theory of development.” _ Yes ; the grand key to the theory of fwtal development ; for ; embryonic progress 7s foetal development. But on what is _ the assertion based that they form a key to the history of _ creation? Aurelia are not human bodies laid out for the se- _ pulchre, nor are butterflies human souls ; as certainly gesta- tion is not creation, nor a life of months in the uterus a suc- cession of races for millions of ages outside of it. On what _ grounds, then, is the assertion made? Does it embody the result of a discovery, or announce the message of a revelation ? Did .he author of the “ Vestiges” find it out for himself, or did an angel from heaven tell it him? If it be a discovery, show us, we ask, the steps through which you have been con- ducted to it ; if arevelation, produce, for our satisfaction, the evidence on which it rests. For we are not to accept as data, in a question of science, idle comparisons or vague analogies, whether produced through the intentional juggling of the sophist, or involuntarily conjured up in the dreamy delirium of an excited fancy.

Jt is one of the difficulties incident to the task of replying to any dogmatic statement of error, that every mere annun- ciation of a false fact or false principle must be met by ela- borate counter-statement or carefully constructed argument, and that prolixity is thus unavoidably entailed on the contro- versialist who labours to set right what his antagonist has set wrong. The promulgator of error may be lively and enter- taining, whereas his painstaking confutator runs no small risk of being tedious and dull. May I, however, solicit the for- bearance of the reader, if, after already spending much time in skirmishing on ground taken up by the enemy,—one of the disadvantages incident to the mere defendant in a contro-

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154 THE PLACOID BRAIN.

versy of this nature,—I spend a little more in indica what I deem the proper ground on which the vtandngt of earlier vertebrata should be decided. ‘To the test of d nave already referred as all-important in the qu _ would now refer to the test of what may be termed hy gical symmetry of organization

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THE PROGRESS OF DEGRADATION, 158

THE PROGRESS OF DEGRADATION.

ITS HISTORY.

THovex all animals be fitted by nature for the life which their instincts teach them to pursue, naturalists have learned to recognise among them certain aberrant and mutilated forms, in which the type of the special class to which they belong seems distorted and degraded. They exist as the monster /amilies of creation, just as among families there appear from time to time monster endividuals,—men, for instance, with- out feet, or hands, or eyes, or with their feet, hands, or eyes grievously misplaced,—sheep with their fore legs growing out of their necks, or ducklings with their wings attached to their haunches. Among these degraded races, that of the footless serpent, which ‘‘ goeth upon its belly,” has been long noted by the theologian as a race typical, in its condition and nature, of an order of hopelessly degraded beings, borne down to the dust by a clinging curse ; and, curiously enough, when the first comparative anatomists in the world give ther readiest and most prominent instance of degradation among the denizens of the natural world, it is this very order of foot- less reptiles that they select. So far as the geologist yet knows, the Ophidians did not appear during the Secondary ages, when the monarchs of creation belonged to the reptilian

156 THE PROGRESS OF DEGRADATION.

division, but were ushered upon the scene in the times of the Tertiary deposits, when the mammalian dynasty had sup- planted that of the Iguanodon and Megalosaurus. Their ill- omened birth took place when the influence of their house was on the wane, as if to set such a stamp of utter hopeless- ness on its fallen condition, as that set by the birth of a worth- less or idiot heir on the fortunes of a sinking family. The degradation of the Ophidians consists in the absence of limbs, —an absence total in by much the greater number of their families, and represented in others, as in the boas and pythons, by mere abortive hinder limbs concealed in the skin ; but they are thus not only monsters through defect of parts, if I may so express myself, but also monsters through redundancy, as a vegetative repetition of vertebrz and ribs, to the num- ber of three or four hundred, forms the special contrivance by which the want of these is compensated. I am also dis- posed to regard the poison-bag of the venomous snakes as a mark of degradation ;—it seems, judging from analogy, to be a protective provision of a low character, exemplified chiefly in the invertebrate families,—ants, centipides, and mosquitos, —spiders, wasps, and scorpions. The higher carnivora are,

we find, furnished with unpoisoned weapons, which, like those

of civilized man, are sufficiently effective,—simply from the ex- cellence of their construction, and the power with which they are wielded,—for every purpose of assault or defence, It is only the squalid savages and degraded boschmen of creation that have their feeble teeth and tiny stings steeped in venom, and so made formidable. Monstrosity through displacement of parts constitutes yet another form of degradation ; and this form, united, in some instances, to the other two, we find cu- riously exemplified in the geological history of the fish,—a history which, with all its blanks and missing portions, is yet better known than that of any other division of the verte- brata. And it is, I am convinced, from a survey of the pro-

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THE PROGRESS OF DEGRADATION. 157

oe gress of degradation in the great ichthyic division,—a pro-

gress recorded, as “ with a pen of iron, in the rock for ever,”

| is —and not from superficial views founded on the cartilaginous

} 4 or non-cartilaginous texture of the ichthyic skeleton, that the Z standing of the kingly fishes of the earlier period is to be adequately determined. Any other mode of survey, save the parallel mode which takes development of brain into account, _ evolves, we find, nothing like principle, and lands the inquirer in inextricable difficulties and inconsistencies.

In all the higher non-degraded vertebrata we find a cer- tain uniform type of skeleton, consisting of the head, the ver-

_ tebral column, and four limbs ; and these last, in the various

symmetrical forms, whether exemplified in the higher fishes, the higher reptiles, the higher birds, the higher mammals, or in man himself, occur always in a certain determinate order. In all the mammals, the scapular bases of the fore limbs be- gin opposite the eighth vertebra from the skull backwards,

_ the seven which go before being cervical or neck vertebre ;

in the birds,—a division of the vertebrata that, from their peculiar organization, require longer and more flexible necks than the mammals,—the scapulars begin at distances from ‘the occiput varying, according to the species, from opposite the thirteenth to opposite the twenty-fourth vertebra ; and in the reptiles,—a division which, according to Cuvier, “ pre- sents a greater diversity of forms, characters, and modes of gait, than any of the other two,”—they occur at almost all points, from opposite the second vertebra, as in the frog, to opposite the thirty-third or thirty-fourth vertebra, as in some species of plesiosaurus. But in all,—whether mammals, birds, or undegraded reptiles, —they are so placed, that the creatures possess necks, of greater or less length, as an essential portion of their general type. The hinder limbs have also in all these three divisions of the animal kingdom their typical place. ‘They occur opposite, or very nearly opposite, the posterior

158 THE PROGRESS OF DEGRADATION.

termination of the abdominal cavity, and mark the line of separation between the vertebree of the trunk (dorsal, lum- bar, and sacral), and the third and last, or caudal division of the column,—a division represented in man by but four ver- tebre, and in the crocodile by about thirty-five, but which i is found to exist, as I have already said, in all the more perfect forms. The limbs, then, in all the symmetrical animals of the first three classes of the vertebrata, mark the three great divisions of the vertebral column,—the division of the neck, the division of the trwnk, and the division of the tail. Let us now inquire how the case stands with the fourth and lowest class,—that of the fishes.

In those existing placoids that represent the fishes of the

earliest vertebrate period, the places of the double fins,—pec- torals and ventrals,—which form in the ichthyiec class the true homologues of the limbs, correspond to the places which these occupy in the symmetrical mammals, birds, and reptiles, The scapular bases of the fore or pectoral fins ordinarily be- gin opposite the twelfth or fourteenth vertebra;* but they range, aS in man and the mammals, in a forward direction, so that the fins themselves are opposite the eighth or tenth. The pelvic bases of the ventral fins are placed nearly opposite the base of the abdomen, so that, as in all the symmetrical animals, the vent opens between, or nearly between, those hinder limbs which the bases support. In the rays, which, so far as is yet known, did not appear in creation until the Secondary ages had begun, the bases of the fore limbs, «. e. pectoral fins, are attached to the lower part of a huge cervi- cal vertebra, nearly equal in length to all the trunk vertebree united ; and in the Chimeride, which also first appear in the Secondary division, they are attached, as in the osseous fishes, to the hinder part of the head. But in the representatives

* The twelfth in Spinax Acanthias, and the fourteenth in pio Stellare.

THE PROGRESS OF DEGRADATION, 159

_ of all those Silurian placoids yet known, of which the family can be determined, or anything with safety predicated, the

- cervical division is found to occur as a series of vertebree :

they present in this, as in the hinder portion of their bodies, the homological symmetry of organization typical of that ver- tebral subkingdom to which they belong.

In the second great period of ichthyic existence,—that of the Old Red Sandstone,—we find the first example, in the class of fishes, of “ monstrosity through displacement of parts,” and apparently also—in at least two genera, though the evi- dence on this head be not yet quite complete—of “ monstro-

_ sity through defect of parts.” In all the ganoids of the pe-

riod, with (so far as we can determine the point) only two exceptions, the scapular bases of the fore limbs are brought forward from their typical place opposite the base of the cer- vical vertebra, and stuck on to the occipital plate. There occurs, in consequence, in one great order of the ichthyic class, such a departure from the symmetrical type as would take place in a monster example of the human family in whom the neck had been annihilated, and the arms stuck on to the back of the head. And in the genera Coccosteus and Pterich- thys we find the first example of degradation through defect. In the Pterichthys the hinder limbs seem wanting ; and in the Coccostews we find no trace of the fore limbs. The one resembles a monster of the human family born without hands; the other a monster born without feet. Ages and centu- ries pass, and long unreckoned periods come to a close ; and then, after the termination of the Paleozoic period, we see that change taking place in the form of the ichthyic tail to which I have already referred (and to which I must refer at least once more), as singularly illustrative of the progress of degradation. Yet other ages and centuries pass away, during which the reptile class attains to its fullest develop- ment, in point of size, organization, and numbers ; and then,

160 THE PROGRESS OF DEGRADATION,

after the times of the Cretaceous deposits have begun, we find yet another remarkable monstrosity of displacement in- troduced among all the fishes of one very numerous order, and among no inconsiderable proportion of the fishes of ano- ther. In the newly-introduced ctenoids (Acanthopterygit), and in those families of the cycloids which Cuvier erected into the order Malacopterygii sub-brachiati, the hinder limbs are brought forward, and stuck on to the base of the pre- viously misplaced fore limbs. All the four limbs, by a strange monstrosity of displacement, are crowded into the place o¢ the extinguished neck. And such, at the present day, is the prevalent type among fishes. Monstrosity through defect is also found to increase ; so that the snake-like apoda, or feet- wanting fishes, form a numerous order, some of whose genera are devoid, as in the common eels and the congers, of only the hinder limbs ; while in others, as in the genera Murena and Synbranchus, both hinder and fore limbs are wanting. In the class of fishes, as fishes now exist, we find many more evidences of the monstrosity which results from both the mis- placement and defect of parts, than in the other three classes of the vertebrata united ; and, knowing their geological his- tory better than that of any of the others, we know, in con- sequence, that the monstrosities did not appear early, but late, and that the progress of the race, as a whole, though it still retains not a few of the higher forms, has been a pro- gress, not of development from the low to the high, but of degradation from the high to the low.

The reader may mark for himself, in the flounder, plaice, or turbot,—fishes of a family of which there appears no trace in the earlier periods,—an extreme example of the degra- dation of distortion superadded to that of displacement. At a first glance the imbs seem to exhibit merely the amount of natural misarrangement and misorder common to the Acanthopterygit and Sub-brachiati ;—the bases of the pec-

THE PROGRESS OF DEGRADATION. 161

torals are stuck on to the head, and the base of the ventrals j | ttached to that of the pectorals. From the circumstance, _ however, that the creature is twisted half-round and laid on its side, we find that at least one of the pairs of double fins __ —the pectorals—perform the part of single fins,—one pro- | yecting from the animal’s superior, the other from its inferior _ side, in the way the anal and dorsal fins project from the __ upper and under surfaces of other fishes ; while its real dor- _ sal and anal fins, both developed very largely, and—in order __ to preserve its balance—in about an equal degree, and won- ? derfully correspondent in form, perform, from their lateral . . _ position, the functions of double fins, Indeed, at a first glance _ they seem the analogues of the largely-developed pectorals of _ a very different family of flat fishes,—the rays. It would _ appear as if single and double fins, by some such mutual _ agreement as that which, according to the old ballad, took _ place between the churl of Auchtermuchty and his wife, had _ wgreed to exchange callings, and perform each the work of the other. The tail, too, possesses, in consequence of the twist, not the vertical position of other fish-tails, but is spread out horizontally, like the tails of the cetacea. It is, however, in the head of the flounder and its cogeners that we find the more extraordinary distortions exemplified. In order to ac-: commodate it to the general twist, which rendered lateral | what in other fishes is dorsal and abdominal, and dorsal and abdominal what in other fishes is lateral, one-half its features had to be twisted to the one side, and the other half to the other. The face and cranium have undergone such a change as that which the human face and cranium would undergo were the eyes to be drawn towards the left ear, and the mouth towards the right. The skull, in consequence, exhibits in its fixed bones a strange Cyclopean character, unique among the families of creation : it has its one well-marked eye-crbit opening, like that of Polyphemus, direct in the middle of the i

162 THE PROGRESS OF DEGRADATION.

fore part of its head ; while the other, external to the era- nium altogether, we find placed among the free bones, direct ly over the maxillaries. And the wry mouth—+twisted in the opposite direction, as if to keep up such a balance of de- formity as that which the breast-hump of a hunchback forms to the hump behind—is in keeping with the squint eyes, The jaws are strangely asymmetrical. In symmetrical fishes the two bones that compose the anterior half of the lower jaw are as perfectly correspondent in form and size as the left hand or left foot is correspondent, in the human subject, to’ the right hand or right foot; but not such their character in the flounder. The one isa broad, short, nearly straight bone; the other is longer, narrower, and bent like a bow ; and while the one contains only from four to six teeth, the other con- tains from thirty to thirty-five. Scarcely in the entire ichthyic kingdom are there any two jaws that less resemble one ano- ther than the two hatves of the jaw of the flounder, turbot, or plaice. The intermaxillary bones are equally ill match- ed; the one is fully twice the size of the other, and con-- tains about thrice as many teeth. That bilateral symmetry — ; of the skeleton which is so invariable a characteristic of the © vertebrata, that ordinary observers, who have eyes for only the rare and the uncommon, fail to remark it, but which a Newton could regard as so wonderful, and so thoroughly in harmony with the uniformity of the planetary system, has scarce any place in the asymmetrical head of the flounder, There exists in some of our north country fishing villages an — ancient apologue, which, though not remarkable for point or meaning, at least serves to show that this peculiar example of distortion the rude fishermen of a former age were observ

ant enough to detect. Once on a time the fishes met, it is said, to elect a king; and their choice fell on the herring, — “ The herring king !” contemptuously exclaimed the flounder, a fish of consummate vanity, and greatly piqued on this oc

: |

my OS

THE PROGRESS OF DEGRADATION. 163

easion that its own presumed claims should have been over- : ‘ looked ; “ where, then, am 1?’ And straightway, in punish- ment of its conceit and rebellion, “its eyes turned to the back _ of its head.” Here is there a story palpably founded on the degradation of misplacement and distortion, which originated ages ere the naturalist had recognised either the term or the _ principle. bi It would be an easy matter for an ingenious theorist, not much disposed to distinguish between the minor and the _ master laws of organized being, to get up quite as unexcep- _ tionable a theory of degradation as of development. The one-eyed, one-legged Chelsea pensioner, who had a child, un ~ born at the time, laid to his charge, agreed to recognise his ‘relationship to the little creature, if, on its coming into the world, it was found to have a green patch over its eye, and 8 wooden leg. And in order to construct a hypothesis of _ progressive degradation, the theorist has but to take for _ granted the transmission to other generations of defects and ts Bp mipensatory redundancies at once as extreme and accidental _as the loss of eyes or limbs, and the acquisition of timber legs _ or green patches. ‘The snake, for instance, he might regard as a saurian, that, having accidentally lost its limbs, had exert- ed itself to such account throughout a series of generations, in _ making up for their absence, as to spin out for itself, by dint of writhing and wriggling, rather more than a hundred ad- _ ditional vertebrze, and to alter, for purposes of greater flexi- _ bility, the structure of all the rest. And as fishes, when nearly stunned by a blow, swim for a few seconds on their _ side, he might regard the flounders as a race of half-stunned fishes, previously degraded by the misplacement of their limbs, that, instead of recovering themselves from the blow given to

some remote parent of the family, had expended all their _ energies in twisting their mouths round to what chanced to _ be the under side on which they were laid, and their eyes to

164 THE PROGRESS OF DEGRADATION,

what chanced to be the upper, and that made their pecto serve for anal and dorsal fins, and their anal and dorsal serve for pectorals, But while we must recognise in natu certain laws of disturbance, if I may so speak, through which, within certain limits, traits which are the resultof habit or cir- cumstance in the parents are communicated to their offspring, we would err as egregiously, did we take only these into ac- count, without noting that infinitely stronger antagonist law of reproduction and restoration which, by ever gravitating to- wards the original type, preserves the integrity of races, as the astronomer would, who, in constructing his orrery, recognised only that law of propulsion through which the planets speed through the heavens, without taking into account that anta- gonist law of gravitation which, by maintaining them in their orbits, insures the regularity of their movements. The law of restoration would recover and right the stunned fish laid on its side ; the law of reproduction would give limbs to the offspring of the mutilated saurian. We have evidence, in the extremeness of the degradation in these cases, that it cannot. be a degradation hereditarily derived from accident. Nature is, we find, active, not in perpetuating the accidental wooden legs and green patches of ancestors in their descendants, but in restoring to the offspring the true limbs and eyes which the parents have lost. It is, however, not with a theory of hereditary degradation, but with a hypothesis of gradual deve- lopment, that I have at present to deal ; and what I have to. establish as proper to the present stage of my argument is, that this principle of degradation really exists, and that the | history of its progress in creation bears directly against the assumption that the earlier vertebrata were of a lower type than the vertebrata of the same ichthyic class which exist now. *

* Tt will scarce be urged against the degradation theory, that those races which, tried by the tests of defect or misplacement of parts, we - ceem degraded, are not less fitted for carrying on what in their own little —

=

ai

THE PROGRESS OF DEGRADATION, 165

_ The progress of the ichthyic tail, as recorded in geologic uistory, corresponds with that of the ichthyic limbs. And "as in the existing state of things we find fishes that nearly represent, in this respect, all the great geologic periods,—I say nearly, not fully, for I am acquainted with no fish ade- quately representative of the period of the Old Red Sand- ‘stone,—it may be well to cast a glance over the contemporary _ series, as illustrative of the consecutive one. In those placoids _ of the shark family that to a large brain unite homological | symmetry of organization, and represent the placoids of the _ first period, we find, as I have already shown, that the ver- tebre gradually diminish in the caudal division of the co- Iwmn, until they terminate in a point,—a circumstance in which they resemble not merely the betailed reptiles, but also a all the higher mammiferous quadrupeds, and even man him- self. And it is this peculiarity, stamped upon the less de- ft structible portions of the framework of the tail,—vertebree and processes,—rather than the one-sided or heterocercal form of the surrounding fin, composed of but a mucoidal substance, that constitutes its grand characteristic ; seeing

spheres is the proper business of life, than the non-degraded orders and families. The objection is, however, a possible one, and one which a single remark may serve to obviate. It is certainly true that the de- graded families are thoroughly fitted for the performance of all the work given themtodo. They greatly increase when placed in favourable cir- cumstances, and, when vigorous and thriving, enjoyexistence. Butthenthe same may be said of all animals, without reference to their place in the scale: the mollusc is as thoroughly adapted to its circumstances, and as fitted to accomplish the end proper to its being, as the mammiferous quadruped, and the mammiferous quadruped as man himself; but the fact of perfect adaptation in no degree invalidates the other not less cer- tain fact of difference of rank, nor proves that the mollusc is equal to the quadruped, or the quadruped to man. And, of course, the remark. equally bears on the reduced as on the unelevated,—on lowness of place when a result of degradation in races pertaining to a higher division of animals, as on lowness of place when a result of the humble standing of the division to which the races belong.

166 THE PROGRESS OF DEGRADATION.

that in some placoid genera, such as Scylliwm Stellare, the terminal portion of the fin is scarce less largely developed above than below, and that in others, as in most of the ray family, the under lobe of the fin is wholly wanting. In the sturgeon,—one of the few ganoids of the present time,—we become sensible of a peculiar modification in this heterocer-— cal type of tail; the lower lobe is, we find, composed, as in Spinax and Scyllium, of rays exclusively ; while through the — centre of the upper lobe there runs an acutely angular patch of lozenge-shaped plates, like that which runs through the cen- | tre of the double fins of Dipterus and some of the Celacanths. But while in the sharks the gradually diminishing vertebrae stand out in bold relief, and form the thickest portion of the tail, that which represents them in the sturgeon (the angular patch) is slim and thin,—slimmer in the middle than even at the sides ;—in part a consequence, no doubt, of the want, in this fish, of solid vertebra, but a consequence also of the extreme attenuation of the nervous cord, in its prolongation into the lobe of the fin. Further, the rays of the tail,— its peculiarly ichthyic portion, which are purely mucoidal in — Spinax, Scyllium, and Cestracion,—have become osseous in — the sturgeon. The fish has set and become jiwed, as cement sets in a building, or colours are fixed by a mordant, And it is worthy of special remark that, correspondent with the peculiarly ichthyic development of tail in this fish, we find the prevailing ichthyic displacement of the fore limbs, Again, — in the tail of Lepidosteus, another of the true ganoids which . still exist, the internal angle of the upper lobe wholly dis- :

appears, and with the internal angle the prolongation of the — nervous cord. Still, however, it is what the tail of the sturgeon would become were the angular patch to be oblite- — rated, and rays substituted instead ;—it is a tail set on awry. — And in this fish also we find the ichthyic displacement of — fore limb. One step more, and we arrive at the homocer-

THE PROGRESS OF DEGRADATION. 167

gal or equal-lobed tail, which seems to attain to its extreme ” type in those fishes in which, as in the perch and flounder, the last vertebral joint, either very little or very abruptly di- _ minished in size, expands into broad processes, without ho- _ mologue in the higher animals, on which the caudal rays rest as their bases. And in by much the larger proportion of _ these fishes all the four limbs are slung round the neck ;— ; ; they at once exhibit the homocercal tail in its broadest type, and displacement of limb in its most extreme form. ; Now, in tracing the geologic history of the ichthyic tail, P we find these several steps or gradations from the heterocercal 4 to the homocercal represented by periods and formations.* | The Silurian periods may be regarded as representative of that _ true heterocercal tail of the placoids exemplified in Spinax (page 146, fig. 54) and Cestracion (page 151, fig. 55). The whole caudal portion of this latter animal, commencing im- i mediately behind the ventrals, is, as becomes a true tail, slim, _ when compared with its trunk ; the vertebre are of very con- siderable solidity ; the rays mucoidal; and where the spinal column runs into the terminal fin, it takes such an upward turn as that which the horse-jockey imparts, by the process of nicking, to the tails of the hunter and the racehorse. And with the heterocercal tail, so true in its homologies to the tails of the higher vertebrata, we find associated, as has been shown, the true homological position of the fore limbs. With the commencement of the Old Red Sandstone the ganoidal tail first presents itself ; and we become sensible of a change in the structure of the attached fin, similar to that exempli- fied in the caudal rays of the sturgeon. As shown by the ir- _ regularly-angular patch of scales which in all the true Cela-

* Since ganoids have been found as early as placoids, and even ear- lier, the theory of these representative periods must be modified. How the matter will ultimately stand as regards the Cambrian and the two Silurians we uf course do not know —L. M.

168 THE PROGRESS OF DEGRADATION.

Fig. 56.

TAIL OF OSTEOLEPIS.

have possessed the gradually diminishing vertebree, or a di- minishing spinal cord, their analogue ; but the rays, fairly set, as their state of keeping in the rocks certify, exist as narrow oblong plates of solid bone; and their anterior edges are strengthened by a line of osseous defences, that pass from scales into rays. And in harmonious accompanimeut with this fairly stereotyped edition of the ichthyic tail, we find, in the fishes — in which it appears, the first instance of displacement of limb, —the bases of the pectorals being removed from their origi- - f nal position, and stuck on to the nape of the neck. It may be remarked in passing, that in the tails of two ganoidal — genera of this period,—the Coccosteus and Pterichthys,—the analogies traceable lie rather in the direction of the tails of — the rays than in those of the sharks ; and that one of these, the Coccosteus, seems, as has been already intimated, to have had no pectorals, while it is somewhat doubtful whether in the Pterichthys the pectorals were not attached to the shoulder, in- stead of the head. In the Carboniferous and Permian systems there occur, especially among the numerous species of the genus Paleoniscus, tails of the type exemplified by the internal

* The vertebral column in the genus Diplopterus ran, as in the placoid genus Scyllium, Dearly through the middle of the caudal fin.

THE PROGRESS OF DEGRADATION, 169

, angle of the tail of the sturgeon: the lozenge-shaped scales run in acutely angular patches through their upper lobes ; but such is their extreme flatness, as shown by the disposition of

_ the enamelled covering, that it appears exceedingly doubtful _ whether any vertebral column ran beneath ;—they seem but

to have covered greatly diminished prolongations of the spinal cord. In the base of the Secondary division,—another long stage towards the existing state of things,—we find, with the homocereal tail, which now appears for the first time, nume- rous tails like that of the Lepidosteus (fig. 57), of an inter- mediate type ;—they are rather tails set on awry than truly heterocercal. The diminished cord has disappeared from

Fig. 57.

TAIL OF LEPIDOSTEUS OSSEUS.

among the fin rays. In the numerous Lepidoid genus, and the genera Semionotus and T'etragonolepis,—all ganoidal fishes of the Secondary period,—this intermediate style is very marked ; while in their contemporaries of the genera Ureus, MUicrodon, and Pycnodus, we find the earliest examples of true homocereal tails. And in the ctenoids and cycloids of the Chalk the homocereal tail receives its fullest development. It finds bases for its rays in broad non-homological processes, that spread out behind abruptly-terminating vertebre (fig. 58), in the same period in which, by a strange process of de-

176 THE PROGRESS OF DEGRADATION.

gradation, the four ichthyic limbs are first gathered inte a i . cluster, and hung about the neck.* if

Fig. 58.

TAIL OF PERCH. * In the following diagram a few simple lines serve to exhibit the pro- gress of degradation. Fig. a represents the symmetrical placoids of the Silurian period, consisting of head, neck, body, tail, fore limbs and hinder limbs ; fig. b represents those heterocercal ganoids of the Old Red Sandstone, Coal Measures, and Permian system, in which the neck isex- tinguished, and the fore limbs stuck on to the occiput ; fig. c, those ho- mocercal ganoids of the Trias, Lias, Oolite, and Wealden, whose tails spread out into broad terminal processes, without homologue in the higher animals ; fig. d, those acanthopterygii of the Chalk that, in addition to the non-homological processes, have both fore limbs and hinder limbs stuck round the head ; while fig. e represents the asymmetrical platessa of the same period, with one of its eyes in the middle of its head, and the other thrust out to the side. [The first two figures may be now reasonably regarded as fase. rary.—Ed. ] Fig. 59. Silurian. Old Red, &c. Lias, dc. Cretaceous.

a — a a b Cc d e Placoid. Het. Ganoid. Hom. Ganoid. Ctenoid. Platessa.

Ep 7 4 > f co

Sept

THE PROGRESS OF DEGRADATION. 171

J am aware that by some very distinguished comparative anatomists, among the rest Professor Owen, the attachment, so common among fishes, of the scapular arch and the fore limbs to the occipital bone is regarded, not as a displacement, but as a normal and primary condition of the parts.* Recog- nising in the scapular bones the ribs of the occipital centrum, the anatomists of this school of course consider them, when found articulated to the occiput, as in their proper and ori- ginal place, and as in a state of natural dislocation when re- moved, as in all the reptiles, birds, and mammals, farther down. We find Professor Oken borrowing support to his hy- pothesis from this view. The limbs, he tells us, are simply ribs, that in the course of ages have been set free, and have become by development what they now are. And it is un-

- questionably a curious and interesting fact, that there are cer-

tain animals, such as the crocodile, in which every centrum of the vertebral column, and of every vertebra of the head, has its ribs or rib-like appendages, with the exception of the occipital centrum. And it is another equally curious fact, that there is another certain class of animals, such as the osseous horn-covered fishes, with the Sturionide, Salaman- droidei, and at least one genus among the placoids (the Chi- meeroidei), in which this occipital centrum bears as its ribs the scapular bones, with their appendages the fore limbs. It is the centrum without ribs that is selected in these animals as the centrum to which the scapular ris should be attached. Be it remembered, however, that while it is unquestionably the part of the comparative anatomist to determine the rela- tions and homologies of those parts of which all animals are composed, and to interpret the significancy in the scale of being of the various modes and forms in which they exist, it

* The geological ground must for the present be abandoned by those who do not adopt the views of Oken. Theirreasoning must be based on grounds similar to those reccgnised as sutiicient by Agassiz.— L. M.

172 THE PROGRESS OF DEGRADATION.

is as unquestionably the part of the geologist to declare their history, and the order of their succession in time. The ques- tions which fall to be determined by the geologist and ana- tomist are entirely different.. It is the function of the ana- tomist to decide regarding the high and the low, the typical and the aberrant ; and so, beginning at what is lowest or highest in the scale, or least or most symmetrical in type, he passes through the intermediate forms to the opposite ex- treme : and such is the order natural and proper to his science. It is the vocation of the geologist, on the other hand, to de- cide regarding the early and the late. It is with time, not with rank, that he has to deal. Nor is it in the least sur- prising that he should seem at issue with the comparative anatomist, when, in classifying his groupes of organized being according to the periods of their appearance, there is an order of arrangement forced upon him, different from that which, on an entirely different principle, the anatomist pursues. Nor can there be a better illustration of a collision of this kind than the one furnished by the case in point. That pe- culiarity of structure which, as the lowest in the vertebral skeleton, is to the comparative anatomist the primary and original one, and which, as such, furnishes him with his start- ing point, is to the geologist not primary, but secondary, simply because it was not primary, but secondary, in the order of its occurrence. It belongs, so far as we yet know, not to the first period of vertebrate existence, but to the second ; and appears in geologic history as does that savage state which certain philosophers have deemed the original condition of the human species, in the history of civilization, when read by the light of the Revealed Record, under the shadow of those gigantic ruins of the East that date only a few centuries after the Flood. It is found to be a degra- dation fixst introduced during the lapse of an intermediate -age,—not the normal condition which obtained during the

A “

THE PROGRESS OF DEGRADATION. 173

long cycles of the primal one. It indicates, not the starting point from which the race of creation began, but the stage of retrogradation beyond it at which the pilgrims who set out in a direction opposite to that of the goal first arrived.*

* T would, however, respectfully suggest, that that theory of cerebral vertebrz on which, in this question, the comparative anatomists proceed as their principle, and which finds as little support in the geologic record from the actual history of the fore limbs as from the actual history of the bones of the cranium, may be more ingenious than sound. Itis a shrewd circumstance, that the rocks refuse to testify in its favour. Agassiz, I find, decides against it on other than geological grounds ; and his con- clusion is certainly rendered not the less worthy of careful consideration by the fact that, yielding to the force of evidence, his views on the sub- ject have undergone a thorough change. He first held, and then rejected it. ‘*I have shared,” he says, ‘‘ with a multitude of other naturalists, the opinion which regards the cranium as composed of vertebre ; and I am consequently in some degree caled upon to point out the motives which have induced me to reject it.”

“*M. Oken,” he continues, ‘‘ was the first to assign this signification to the bones of the cranium. The new doctrine he expounded was received in Germany with great enthusiasm by the school of the philosophers of nature. The author conceived the cranium to consist of three [four] verte- bre, and the basal occipital, the sphenoid, and the ethmoid, were regarded as the central parts of these cranial vertebrae. On these alleged bodies of vertebree, the arches enveloping the central parts of the nervous system were raised, while on the opposite side were attached the inferior pieces, which went to form the vegetative arch destined to embrace the intes- tinal canal and the large vessels. It would be too tedious to enumerate in this place the changes which each author introduced, in order to modify this matter so as to make it suit his own views. Some went the length of affirming that the vertebra of the head were as complete as those of the trunk ; and, by means of various dismemberments, separations, and combinations, all the forms of the cranium were referred to the vertebra, by admitting that the number of pieces was invariably fixed in every head, and that all the vertebrata, whatever might be their organization in other respects, had in their heads the same number of points of ossifi- cation, At a later period, what was erroneous in this manner of regard- ing the subject was detected ; but the idea of the vertebra) composition of the head was still retained. It was admitted as a general iaw, that the cranium was composed of three primitive vertebra, as the embryo is of three blastodermic leaflets ; but that these vertebre, like the leaflets, existed only ideally, and that their presence, although easily demonstrated

174 ~ THE PROGRESS OF DEGRADATION.

This fact of degradation, strangely indicated in geologie ; . history, with reference to all the greater divisions of the ani- mal kingdom, has often appeared to me a surpassingly won-

in certain cases, could only be slightly traced, and with the greatest dif- ficulty, in other instances. The notion thus laid down of the virtual ex- istence of cranial vertebre did not encounter very great opposition: it could not be denied that there was a certain general resemblance between the osseous case of the brain and the rachidian canal ; the occipital, in particular, had all the characteristic features of a vertebra. But when- ever an attempt was made to push the analogy further, and to determine rigorously the anterior vertebre of the cranium, the observer found him self arrested by insurmountable obstacles, and he was obliged always to revert to the virtual existence.

‘In order to explain my idea clearly, let me have recourse to an ex- ample. It is certain that organized bodies are sometimes endowed with virtual qualities, which, at a certain period of the being’s life, elude dis- section, and all our means of investigation. It is thus that, at the mo- ment of their origin, the eggs of all animals have such a resemblance to each other that it would be impossible to distinguish, even by the aid of the most powerful microscope, the ovarial egy of a craw-fish, for exam- ple, from that of true fish. And yet who would deny that beings in every respect different from each other exist in these eggs? It is precisely be- cause the difference manifests itself at a later period, in proportion as the embryo develops itself, that we are authorized to conclude that, even from the earliest period, the eggs were different, —that each had virtual qualities proper to itself, although they could not be discovered by our senses. If, on the contrary, any one should find two eggs perfectly alike, and should observe two beings perfectly identical issue from them, he would greatly err if he ascribed to these eggs different virtual qualities. It is therefore necessary, in order to be in a condition to suppose that virtual properties peculiar to it are concealed in an animal, that these properties should manifest themselves once in some phase or other of its development. Now, applying this principle to the theory of cranial ver- tebre, we should say, that if these vertebre virtually exist in the adult, they must needs show themselves in reality at a certain period of de- velopment. If, on the contrary, they are found neither in the embryo nor the adult, I am of opinion that we are entitled likewise to dispute their virtual existence.

‘* Here, however, an objection may be made to me, drawn from the physiological value of the vertebrae, the function of which, as is well known, is, on the one hand, to furnish a solid support to the muscular contractions which determine the movements of the trunk, and, on the

TILE PROGRESS OF DEGRADATION. 175

derfal one. We can see but imperfectly in those twilight depths to which all such subjects necessarily belong ; and yet

at times enough does appear to show us what a very super-

ficial thing infidelity may be. The general advance in crea- tion has been incalculably great. The lower divisions of the vertebrata preceded the higher ;—the fish preceded the rep- tile, the reptile preceded the bird, the bird preceded the mam- miferous quadruped, and the mammiferous quadruped preceded man. And yet, is there one of these great divisions in which, in at least some prominent feature, the present, through this mysterious element of degradation, is not inferior to the past ?

other, to protect the centres of the nervous system, by forming a more or less solid case completely around them. The bodies of the vertebre are particularly destined to the first of these offices ; the neurapophyses to the second. What can be more natural than to admit, from the con- sideration of this, that in the head the bodies of the vertebrz diminish in proportion as the moving function becomes lost, while the neurapophyses are considerably developed for protecting the brain, the volume of which is very considerable, when compared with that of the spinal marrow ? Have we not an example of this fact in the vertebre of the tail, where the neurapophyses become completely obliterated, and a simple cylindri- cal body alone remains? Now, may it not be the case that, in the head, the bodies of the vertebrz have disappeared ; and that, in consequence, there is a prolongation of the cord only as far as the moving functions of the vertebre extend? There is some truth in this argument, and it would be difficult to refute it a priori. But it loses all its force the mo- ment that we enter upon a detailed examination of the bones of the head. Thus, what would we call, according to this hypothesis, the principal sphenoid, the great wings of the sphenoid, and the ethmoid, which form the floor of the cerebral cavity? It may be said they are apophyses. But the apophyses protect the nervous centres only on the side and above. It may be said that they are the bodies of the vertebre. But they are formed without the concurrence of the dorsal cord ; they cannot, there- fore, be the bodies of the vertebrae. It must therefore be allowed, that these bones at least do not enter into the vertebral type ; that they are in some measure peculiar. And if this be the case with them, why may not the other protective plates be equally independent of the vertebral type ; the more so because the relations of the frontals and parietals vary so much, that it would be almost impossible to assign to them a constant place ?”

176 THE PROGRESS OF DEGRADATION.

There was a time in which the ichthyic form constituted the — highest example of life ; but the seas during that period did — not swarm with fish of the degraded type. There was, in —

like manner, a time when all the carnivora and all the her-

bivorous quadrupeds were represented by reptiles ; but there — are no such magnificent reptiles on the earth now as reigned over it then. There was an after time, when birds seem to have been the sole representatives of the warm-blooded ani- — mals ; but we find, from the prints of their feet left in sand- — stone, that the tallest men might have

‘* Walked under their huge legs, and peeped about.”

Further, there was an age when the quadrupedal mammals were the magnates of creation; but it was an age in which © the sagacious elephant, now extinct save in the compara- — tively small Asiatic and African circles, and restricted to two species, was the inhabitant of every country of the Old World, from its southern extremity to the frozen shores of the north- ern ocean ; and when vast herds of a closely allied and equally colossal genus occupied its place in the new. And now, in the times of the high-placed human dynasty,—of those for- mally delegated monarchs of creation whose nature it is to look behind them upon the past, and before them, with min- gled fear and hope, upon the future,—do we not as certainly see the elements of a state of ever-sinking degradation, which is to exist for ever, as of a state of ever-increasing perfecti- bility, to which there is to be no end? Nay, of a higher race, of which we know but little, this much we at least know; that they long since separated into two great classes, — that of the “elect angels,” and of “ angels that kept not theiz first estate.”

| ¥

EVIDENCE OF THE SILURIAN MOLLUSCS. 177

EVIDENCE OF THE SILURIAN MOLLOSCS: OF THE FOSSIL FLORA.

ANCIENT TREE.

p Arr dwelling at such length on the earlier fishes, it may Seem scarce necessary to advert to their lower contemporaries BD the mollusca,—that great division of the animal kingdom _ which Cuvier places second in the descending order, in his

b survey of the entire series, and first among the invertebrates, - and which Oken regards as the division out of which the im-

mediately preceding class of the vertebral animals have been developed. “The fish,” he says, “is to be viewed as a mussel, from between whose shells a monstrous abdomen has grown

out.” There is, however, a peculiarity in the molluscan

group of the Silurian system, to which I must be permitted

| briefly to refer, as, to employ the figure of Sterne, it presents _ “two handles” of an essentially different kind, and, as in all _ such two-handled cases, the mere special pleader is sure tc

avail himself of only the handle which best suits his purpose for the time.

Cuvier’s first and highest class of the mollusca is formed of what are termed the Cephalopods,—a class of creatures

' possessed of great freedom of motion: they can walk, swim,

and seize their prey ; they have what even the lowest fishes, M

178 EVIDENCE OF THE SILURIAN MOLLUSUS.

such as the lancelet, want,—a brain enclosed in a cartilagi- — nous cavity in the head, and perfectly formed organs of sight ; they possess, too, what is found in no other mollusc,—organs of hearing ; and in sagacity and activity they prove more than matches for the smaller fishes, many of which they overmas- ter and devour. With this highest class there contrasts an exceedingly low molluscous class at the bottom of the scale, or, at least, at what is now the bottom of the scale ; for they constitute Cuvier’s fifth class; while his siath and last, the Cirrhopodes, has been since withdrawn from the molluscs altogether, and placed in a different division of the animal kingdom. And this low class, the Brachiopods, are creatures that, living in bivalve shells, unfurnished with spring hinges to throw them open, and always fast anchored to the same spot, can but thrust forth, through the interstitial chinks of their prison-houses, spiral arms, covered with cilia, and win- now the water for a living. Now, it so happens that the molluscan group of the Silurian system is composed chiefly of these two extreme classes. It contains some of the other forms ; but they are few in number, and give no character to the rocks in which they occur. There was nothing by which I was more impressed, in a visit to a Silurian region, than that in its ancient graveyards, as in those of the present day, though in a different sense, the high and the low should so invariably meet together. It is, however, not impossible that, in even the present state of things, a similar union of the extreme forms of the marine mollusca may be taking place in deep-sea deposits. Most of the intermediate forms pro- vided with shells capable of preservation, such as the shelled Gasteropoda and the Conchifers, are either littoral, or restricted to comparatively small depths ; whereas the Brachiopoda are deep-sea shells ; and the Cephalopoda may be found voyaging far from land, in the upper strata of the sea above them. Even in the seas that surround our own island. the Brachiopodous

EVIDENCE OF THE SILURIAN MOLLUSCS.

179

_ molluses,—terebratula and crania,—have been found, ever since deep-sea dredging became common, to be not very rare shells; and in the Mediterranean, where they are less rare ‘still, fleets of Argonauts, the representatives of a highly or- ganizec family of the Cephalopods, to which it is now believgd _ the bellerophon of the Paleozoic rocks belonged, may be seen _ skimming along the surface, with sail and oar, high over the _ profound depths in which they lie. And, of course, when _ death comes, that comes to high and low, the remains of both _ Argonauts and Brachiopods must lie together at the bottom, in beds almost totally devoid of the intermediate forms.

Now, the author of the “ Vestiges,” in maintaining his iF hypothesis, suspends it on the handle furnished him by the _ immense abundance of the Silurian Brachiopods. The Silu- ‘rian period, he says, exhibits “a scanty and most defective - development of life ; so much so, that Mr Lyell calls it, par _ excellence, the age of Brachiopods, with reference to the by “no means exalted bivalve shell-fish which forms its predomi- nant class. Such being the actual state of the case, I must ' persist in describing even the fauna of this age, which we now _ know was not the first, as, generally speaking, such a humble exhibition of the animal kingdom as we might expect, upon the development theory, to find at an early stage of the his- _ tory of organization.” The reader will at once discern the fallacy here. The Silurian period was peculiarly an age of _ Brachiopods, for in no other period were Brachiopods so nu- merous, specifically or individually, or of such size or import- ance ; whereas it was not so peculiarly an age of Cephalopods, for these we find introduced in still greater numbers during the Liasiec and Oolitic periods. _ In 1848, when Professor Edward Forbes edited the Paleontological Map of Britain and Treland, which forms one of the very admirable series of ~“Johnston’s Physical Atlas,” the Cephalopods of the Silu- rian rocks of England and Wales were estimated at forty-

180 EVIDENCE OF THE SILURIAN MOLLUSCS.

eight species, and the Brachiopods at one hundred and fifty ; whereas at the same date there were two hundred and five — Cephalopods of the Oolitic formations enumerated, and but fifty-four Brachiopods. It is the molluscs of the inferior, not — those of the superior class, that constitute (with their contem- — poraries the Trilobites) the characteristic fossils of the Silu- rian rocks ; and hence the propriety of the distinctive name — suggested by Sir Charles Lyell. But in the development — question, what we have specially to consider is, not the mwm- bers of the low, but the standing of the high. A country may | be distinctively a country of flocks and herds, or a country of — the carnivorous mammalia, or, like New South Wales or the Galapagos, a country of marsupial animals or of reptiles. Its human inhabitants may be merely a few hunters or shepherds, too inconsiderable in numbers, and too much like their breth- ren elsewhere, to give it any peculiar standing as a home of men. But in estimating the highest point in the scale to which the anima] kingdom has attained within its limits, it is of its few men, not of its many beasts, that we must take note. And the point to be specially decided regarding the organisms of the Silurian system, in this question, is, not the proportion in number which the lower forms bore to the higher, but the exact rank which the higher bore in the scale of existence. Did the system furnish but a single Cephalopod or a single fish, we would have as certainly to determine that the chain of being reached as high as the Cephalopod or the fish, as if the remains of these creatures constituted its most abundant fossils. The chain of animal life reached quite as high on the evening of the sixth day of creation, when the human family was restricted to a single pair, as it does now, when our statists reckon up by millions the inhabitants of the greater capitals of the world ; and the special pleader who, in asserting the contrary, would insist on determining the point, not by the rank of the men of Eden, but by the nwmber of :

EVIDENCE OF THE FOSSIL FLORA. 181

minnows or sticklebacks that swarmed in its rivers, might be $ nerhaps deemed ingenious in his expedients, but certainly not __very judicious in the use of them. It is worthy of remark, 4 owever, that the Brachiopods of those Paleozoic periods in _ which the group occupied such large space in creation, con- _ sisted of greatly larger and more important animals than any _ which it contains in the present day. It has yielded to what F geological history shows to be the common fate, and sunk into _ a state of degradation and decline.

_ The geological history of the vegetable, like that of the

_

,

_ animal kingdom, has been pressed into the service of the de- _ velopment hypothesis ; and certainly their respective courses, both in actual arrangement and in their relation to human _ knowledge, seem wonderfully alike. _ It is not much more _ than twenty years since it was held that no exogenous plant _ existed during the Carboniferous period. The frequent oc

currence of Coniferz in the Secondary deposits had been con _ clusively determined from numerous specimens ; but, found- ing on what seemed a large amount of negative evidence, it was concluded that, previous to the Liasic age, nature had failed to achieve a tree, and that the rich vegetation of the Coal Measures had been exclusively composed of magnificent immaturities of the vegetable kingdom,—of gigantic ferns and club-mosses, that attained to the size of forest trees, and of thickets of the swamp-loving horsetail family of plants, that well-nigh rivalled in height those forests of masts which darken the rivers of our great commercial cities. Such was the view promulgated by M. Adolphe Brongniart ; and it may be well to remark that, so far as the evidence on which it was based was positive, the view was sound. It is a fact that inferior orders of plants were developed in those ages in a style which in their present state of degradation they never exemplify : they took their place, not, as now, among the pig- mies and abortions of creation, but among its tallest and

182 EVIDENCE OF THE FOSSIL FLORA.

goodliest productions, It is, however, not a fact that they were the highest vegetable forms of their time. True exo- genous trees also existed in great numbers, and of vast size, In various localities in the coal-fields of both England and Scotland,—such as Lennel Braes and Allan Bank in Ber- wickshire, High-Heworth, Fellon, Gateshead, and Wideopen, near Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and in quarries to the west of the city of Durham,—the most abundant fossils of the system are | its true woods. In the quarry of Craigleith, near Edinburgh, three huge trunks have been laid open during the last twenty years, within the space of about a hundred and fifty yarax, and two equally massy trunks, within half that space, in the - neighbouring quarry of Granton,—all low in the Coal Mea-— sures. They lie diagonally athwart the strata, at an angle of about thirty, with the nether and weightier portion of their boles below, like snags in the Mississippi ; and we infer, © from their general direction, that the stream to which they reclined must have flowed from nearly north-east to south- west. The current was probably that of a noble river, which reflected on its broad bosom the shadow of many a stately tree. With the exception of one of the Granton specimens, which still retains its strong-kneed roots, they are all mere — portions of trees, rounded at both ends, as if by attrition or

decay ; and yet one of these portions measures about six feet

in diameter by sixty-one feet in length ; another four feet in

diameter by seventy feet in length ; and the others, of various — thickness, but all bulky enough to equal the masts of large

vessels, ranged in length from thirty-six to forty-seven feet. — It seems strange to one who derives his supply of domestic fuel from the Dalkeith and Falkirk coal-fields, that the Car- — boniferous flora could ever have been described as devoid of — trees. I can scarce take up a piece of coal from beside my : study fire without detecting in it fragments of carbonized — wood, which almost always exhibit the characteristic longi- |

EVIDENCE OF THE FOSSIL FLORA. 183

tudinal fibres, and not unfrequently the medullary rays. Even _ the trap-rocks of the district enclose, in some instances, their _ masses of lignite, which present, in their transverse sections, _ when cut by the lapidary, the net-like reticulations of the conifers. The fossil botanist who devoted himself chiefly to _ the study of microscopic structure would have to decide, _ from the facts of the case, not that trees were absent during _ the Carboniferous period, but that, in consequence of their having been present in amazing numbers, their remains had entered more palpably and extensively into the composition of coal than those of any other vegetable.* So far as is yet

known, they all belonged to the two great divisions of the coniferous family, araucarians and pines. The huge trees of Craigleith and Granton were of the former tribe, and approxi- mate more nearly to Altingia excelsa, the Norfolk Island pine,—a noble araucarian, that rears its proud head from a hundred and sixty to two hundred feet over the soil, and ex-

* It is stated by Mr Witham, that, ‘‘ except in a few instances, he had ineffectually tried, with the aid of the microscope, to obtain some insight into the structure of coal. Owing,” he adds, “to its great opacity, which is probably due to mechanical pressure, the action of chemical affinity, and the percolation of acidulous waters, all traces of organiza- tion appear to have been obliterated.” Ihave heard the late Mr Sander- son, who prepared for Mr Witham most of the specimens figured in his well-known work on the “‘ Internal Structure of Fossil Vegetables,” and from whom the materials of his statement on this point seem to have been derived, make a similar remark, It was rare, he said, to find a bit of coal that exhibited the organic structure. The case, however, is far otherwise ; and the ingenious mechanic and his employer were mis- led, simply by the circumstance that it is rare to find pieces of coal which exhibit the ligneous fibre existing in a state of keeping solid enough to stand the grinding of the lapidary’s wheel. The lignite usually occurs in thin layers of a substance resembling soft charcoal, at which, from the loose adhesion of the fibres, the coal splits at a stroke ; and as it cannot be prepared as a transparency, it is best examined by a Stanhope lens. It will be found, tried in this manner, that so far is vegetable fibre from being of rare occurrence in coal,-—our Scotch coal at least,—that almost every cubic inch contains its hundreds, nay, its thousands, of cells.

184 EVIDENCE OF THE FOSSIL FLORA,

hibits a green*and luxuriant breadth of foliage rare | the Coniferse,—than any other living tree,

Fig. 60.

ALTINGIA EXCELSA (NORFOLK ISLAND PINE). (From a young specimen in the Botanic Garden, Edinburgh.)

Beyond the Coal Measures terrestrial plants become ex- — tremely rare, The fossil botanist, on taking leave of the lower Carboniferous beds, quits the land, and sets out to sea ; and it seems in no way surprising that the specimens which he there adds to his herbarium should consist mainly of /uca- cee and Confervee. The development hypothesis can borrow no support from the simple fact, that while a high terrestrial vegetation grows upon dry land, only alge grow in the sea; and even did the Old Red Sandstone and Silurian systems furnish, as their vegetable organisms, fucoids exclusively, the evidence would amount to no more than simply this, that the land of the Paleozoic periods produced plants of the land, and the sea of the Palsozoic periods produced plants of the _ Bea, | |

EVIDENCE OF THE FOSSIL FLORA. 185

In the Upper Old Red Sandstone,—the formation of the Holoptychius and the Stagonolepis,—the only vegetable re- mains which I have yet seen are of a character so exceed- ingly obscure and doubtful, that all I could venture to premise regarding them is, that they seem to be the fragments of sorely comminuted fucoids. In the formation of the Middle (Lower) Old Red,—that of the Cephalaspis and the gigantic lobster of Carmylie,—the vegetable remains are at once more nume- rous and better defined. I have detected among the gray micaceous sandstones of Forfarshire a fucoid furnished with a thick, squat stem, that branches into numerous divergent leaf- lets or fronds, of a slim parallelogrammical, grass-like form, and which, as a whole, somewhat resembles the scourge of cords attached to a handle with which a boy whips his top. And Professor Fleming describes a still more remarkable ve- getable organism of the same formation, “which, occurring in the form of circular, flat patches, composed each of nume- rous smaller contiguous circular pieces, is altogether not unlike what might be expected to result from a compressed berry, such as the bramble or rasp.”* In the Lower (Middle) Old Red,—the formation of the Coccosteus and Cheiracanthus,— the remains of fucoids are more numerous still. There are gray slaty beds among the rocks of Navity, that owe their fissile character mainly to their layers of carbonized weed ; and “among the rocks of Sandy Bay, near Thurso,” says Mr

‘Dick, “the dark impressions of large fucoids are so nume- rous, that they remind one of the interlaced boughs and less bulky pine-trunks that lie deep in our mosses,” A portion cf a stem from the last locality, which I owe to Mr Dick, measures three inches in diameter ; but the ill-compacted

* The Parka decipiens, until of late doubtful whether animal or vege- table, but now—from being found constantly associated in the Upper Si- lurian and the Lower Old Red with the large crustacean the pterygotus —considered to be the egg-packet belonging to that creature.—L. M.

186 EVIDENCE OF THE FOSSIL FLORA. .

cellular tissue of the alge is but indifferently suited for pre servation ; and so it exists as a mere coaly film, scarcely half a line in thickness.

The most considerable collection of the Lower (Middle) Old Red fucoids which I have yet seen is that of the Rev. Charles Clouston of Sandwick, in Orkney,—a skilful culti- vator of geological science, who has specially directed his paleontological inquiries on the vegetable remains of the flag- stones of his district, as the department in which most re- mained to be done ; but his numerous specimens only serve to show what a poverty-stricken flora that of the ocean of the Lower (Middle) Old Red Sandstone must have been. I could detect among them but two species of plants,—the one an imperfectly preserved vegetable, more nearly resembling a club-moss than aught else which I have seen, but which bore on its surface, instead of the well-marked scales of the Lyco- podiacee, irregular rows of tubercles, that, when elongated in the profile, as sometimes happens, might be mistaken for minute, ill-defined leaves ; the other, a smooth-stemmed fu- coid, existing on the stone in most cases as a mere film, in which, however, thickly-set longitudinal fibres are occasionally traceable, and which may be always distinguished from the other by its sharp-edged outline, and from the circumstance that its stems continue to retain the same diameter for con- siderable distances, after throwing off at acute angles nume- rous branches nearly as bulky as themselves. In a Thurso specimen, about two feet in length, which I owe to the kind- ness of Mr Dick, there are stems continuous throughout, that, though they ramify in that space into from six to eight branches, are nearly as thick atop as at bottom. They are the remains, in all probability, of a long, flexible weed, that may have somewhat resembled those fucoids of the intertro- pical seas which, streaming slantwise in the tide, rise not un- frequently to the surface in from fifteen to twenty fathoms

EVIDENCE OF THE FOSSIL FLORA, 187

water; and as, notwithstanding their obscurity, they are among the most perfect specimens of their class yet found, and contrast with the stately araucarians of the Coal Mea-

Fig. 61.

FUCOIDS OF THE LOWER (MIDDLE) OLD RED SANDSTONE. a. Smooth-stemmed species. b. Tubercled species. (One sixth nat. size, linear.)

According to Sir Roderick Murchison, the roots of some Lycopodium, That on the following page probably roots of Lepidodendron.— L. M

188 EVIDENCE OF THE FOSSIL FLORA,

sures, in a style which cannot fail to delight the heart of }

every assertor of the development hypothesis, I present them to the reader from Mr Dick’s specimen, in a figure (fig. 61) which, however slight its interest, has at least the merit of being true. The stone exhibits specimens of the two species of Mr Clouston’s collection,—the sharp-edged, finely-striated weed, a, and that roughened by tubercles, 6 ; which, besides the distinctive character manifested on its surface, differs from the other in rapidly losing breadth with every branch which it throws off, and, in consequence, running soon to a point. The following cut (fig. 62) represents not inadequately the

Fig. 62.

a. Smooth-stemmed species. b. Zubercled species. (Natural size.)

cortical peculiarities of the two species when best pre- served. The surface of the tubercled one may perhaps re- mind the algologist of the knobbed surface of the thong or receptacle of Himanthalia lorea, a recent fucoid, common on the western coast of Scotland, but rare on the east.* An Orkney specimen lately sent me by Mr William Waitt, from

a quarry at Skaill, has much the appearance of one of the |

smaller ferns, such as the moor-worts, sea spleen-worts, or maiden-hairs. It exists as an impression in diluted black, on a ground of dark gray, and has so little sharpness of outline, that, like minute figures in oil-paintings, it seems more dis-

* It is Sir Roderick Murchison’s opinion that all the fossil ee of Caithness belonged to the land.—L. M.

a“ =

EVIDENCE OF THE FOSSIL FLORA. 189

} - tinct when viewed at arm’s length than when microscopically _ examined; but enough remains to show that it must have

ae Nie ae 7G CNT RA i : ~

FERN? OF THE LOWER (MIDDLE) OLD RED SANDSTONE. (Natural size. )

tion of this unique fossil in its state of imperfect keeping. i The vegetation of the Silurian system, from its upper beds ____ down till where we reach the zero of life, is, like that of the Old Red Sandstone, almost exclusively fucoidal. In the older fossiliferous deposits of the system in Sweden, Russia, the Lake Districts of England, Canada, and thé United States, fucoids occur, to the exclusion, so far as is yet known, of every other vegetable form ; and such is their abundance in some localities, that they render the argillaceous rocks in which they lie diffused capable of being fired as an alum slate, and exist in others as seams of a compact anthracite, occasionally used as fuel. They also occur in those districts of Wales in which the place and sequence of the various Silurian forma- tions were first determined, though apparently in a state of keeping from which little can be premised regarding their original forms. Sir Roderick Murchison sums up his notice

190 EVIDENCE OF THE FOSSIL FLORA.

of the vegetable remains of the system in the province whence it derives its name, by stating that he had submitted his specimens to “ Mr Robert Brown and Dr Greville, and that neither of these eminent botanists were able to say much more regarding them than that they were fucoid-like bodies.”

Such are the vegetable organisms of the Old Red Sand- stone and Silurian systems: they are the remains of the ancient marine plants of ancient marine deposits, and, as such, lend quite as little support to the development hypothesis as the recent alge of our existing seas. The case, stated in its most favourable form, amounts simply to this,—that at cer- tain early periods,—represented by the Upper and Lower Silurian and the Old Red deposits,—the seas produced sea- plants ; and that, at a certain later period,—that of the Car- boniferous system,—the land produced land-plants. But even this, did it stand alone, would be a zoo favourable state- ment. I have on one occasion seen the fisherman bring up with his nets, far in the open sea, a wild rose-bush, that, though it still bore its characteristicthorns, was encrusted with serpula, and laden with pendulous lobularia. It had been swept from its original habitat by some river in flood, that had undermined and torn down the bank on which it grew ; and, after floating about, mayhap for months, had become so saturated with water, that it could float no longer. And in that single rose-bush, dragged up to the light and air from its place among Sertularia, Flustra, Serpula, and the deep-sea fucoids, I had as certain an evidence of the existence of the aicotyledonous plant as if I had all the families of the Ro- saceee before me. Now, we are furnished by the more an- cient formations with evidence regarding the existence of a terrestrial vegetation such as that which the rose-bush in this case supplied. We cannot expect that the proofs should be numerous, In the chart of the Pacific attached to the better

EVIDENCE OF THE FOSSIL FLORA. 19}

editions of “ Cook’s Voyages,” there are several notes along the tract of the great navigator that indicate where, in mid ocean, trees, or fragments of trees, had been picked up. These entries, however, are but few, though they belong to all the three voyages together: if I remember aright, there are only five entries in all,—two in the Northern and three in the Southern Pacific. The floating shrub or tree, at a great dis- tance from land, is of rare occurrence in even the present scene of things, though the breadth of land be great, and trees numerous ; and in the times of the Silurian and Old Red Sandstone systems, when the breadth of land was ap- parently noé great, and trees and shrubs, in consequence, not

- numerous, it must have been of rarer occurrence still. We

learn, however, from Sir Charles Lyell, that in the “ Hamil- ton group of the United States,—a series of beds that cor- responds in many of its fossils with the Ludlow rocks of England,—-plants allied to the Lepidodendra of the Carboni- ferous type are abundant ; and that in the Lower Devonian strata of New York the same plants occur associated with ferns.” And I am.able to demonstrate, from an interesting fossil at present before me, that there existed in the period of the Lower Old Red Sandstone vegetable forms of a class greatly higher than either Lepidodendra or ferns.

In my little work on the Old Red Sandstone, I have re- ferred to an apparent lignite of the Old Red of Cromarty, which presented, when viewed by the microscope, marks of the internal fibre. The surface, when under the glass, re- sembled, I said, a bundle of horse-hairs lying stretched in parallel lines : and in this specimen alone, it was added, had I found aught in the Old Red Sandstone approaching to proof of the existence of dry land. About four years ago I had this lignite put stringently to the question by Mr Sanderson ; and deeply interesting was the result. I must first mention, however, that there cannot rest the shadow of a doubt re-

192 EVIDENCE OF THE FOSSIL FLORA

garding the place of the organism in the geologic scale.* It is unequivocally a fossil of the Lower (Middle) Old Red Sandstone. I found it partially embedded, with many other nodules half-disinterred by the sea, in an ichthyolitic deposit, a few hundred yards to the east of the town of Cromarty, which occurs more than four hundred feet over the Great Conglomerate base of the system. A nodule that lay imme- diately beside it contained a well-preserved specimen of the Coccosteus Decipiens ; and in the nodule in which the lignite itself is contained (fig. 64), the practised eye may detect a

LIGNITE OF THE LOWER (MIDDLE) OLD RED SANDSTONE. (One-third nat. size, linear.)

scattered group of scales of Diplacanthus, a scarce less cha- racteristic organism of the same formation. And what, asks the reader, is the character of this ancient vegetable,—the most ancient, by three whole formations, that has presented its internal structure to the microscope? Is it as low in

the scale of development as in the geological scale? Does —

this venerable Adam of the forest appear, like the Adam of

* Some remarks have been made in an Appendix to the ‘‘ Natural His- tory of the Vestiges of Creation” regarding this wood, and part of the foregoing chapter, for which see Appendix, Note D.

EVIDENCE OF THE FOSSIL FLORA. 193

the infidel, as a squalid, ill-formed savage, with a rugged shaggy nature, which it would require the suggestive neces- _ sities of many ages painfully to lick into civilization? Or

; does it appear rather like the Adam of the poet and the theo- = logian, independent, in its instantaneously-derived perfection, of all after development ?

‘7 ** Adam, the goodliest man of men since born % His sons.”

Is this tissue vascular or cellular, or, like that of some of the & cryptogamia, intermediate? Or what, in fine, is the nature _ and bearing of its mute but emphatic testimony on that doc- _ trine of progressive development of late so strangely resus- _ citated 2 In the first place, then, this ancient fossil is a true wood, i —a Dicotyledonous or Polycotyledonous Gymmnosperm, that, like the pines and larches of our existing forests, bore naked seeds, which, in their state of germination, developed either _ double lobes to shelter the embryo within, or shot out a fringe _ of verticillate spikes, which performed the same protective functions, and that, as it increased in bulk year after year, __ received its accessions of growth in outside layers, In the transverse section the cells bear the reticulated appearance which distinguish the conifere (fig. 65, a); the lignite had __ been exposed in its bed to a considerable degree of pressure ; | and so the openings somewhat resemble the meshes of a net that has been drawn a little awry ; but no general oblitera- tion of their original character has taken place, save in minute patches, where they have been injured by compression or the bituminizing process. All the tubes indicated by the open- ings are, as in recent conifers, of nearly the same size ; and though, as in many of the more ancient lignites, there are no indications of annual rings, the direction of the medullary | rays is distinctly traceable. The longitudinal sections are N

om

.

194 EVIDENCE OF THE FOSSIL FLORA.

rather less distinct than the transverse one: in the section parallel to the radius of the stem or bole, the circular dises

Fig. 65.

INTERNAL STRUCTURE OF LIGNITE OF LOWER (MIDDLE) OLD RED SANDSTONE. a. Transverse section. b. Longitudinal section (parallel to radius, or medullary rays}. c, Longitudinal section (tangental, or parallel to the bark ).

(Mag. forty diameters.)

the conifer were at first not at all detected ; and, as since shown by a very fine microscope, they appear simply as double and triple lines of undefined dots (6), that somewhat resemble the stippled markings of the miniature painter ; nor are the openings of the medullary rays frequent in the tangental sec- tion (i. ¢. that parallel to the bark) (c); but nothing can be better defined than the peculiar arrangement of the woody fibre, and the longitudinal form of the cells. ‘Such is the cha- racter of this, the most ancient of lignites yet found, that yields to the microscope the peculiarities of its original strue —

EVIDENCE OF THE FOSSIL FLORA. 195

We find in it an unfallen Adam,—not a half-deve- xd savage. * “The olive leaf which the dove brought to Noah established t least three important facts, and indicated a few more. It owed most conclusively that there was dry land, that there were olive trees, and that the climate of the surrounding re- gion, whatever change it might have undergone, was still fa- yourable to the development of vegetable life. And, further, 5 might be very safely inferred from it, that if olive trees jad survived, other trees and plants must have survived also ; and that the dark muddy prominences round which the kb _ ing currents’ were fast sweeping to lower levels, would soon pres ent, as in antediluvian times, their coverings of cheerful

_ * Ona point of such importance I find it necessary to strengthen my testimony by auxiliary evidence. The following is the judgment, on this _ ancient petrifaction, of Mr Nicol of Edinburgh,—confessedly one of our _ highest living authorities in that division of fossil botany which takes cognizance of the internal structure of lignites, and decides, from their _ anatomy, their race and family :—

a “ Edinburgh, 19th July 1845.

| Drar Str,—I have examined the structure of the fossil wood which _ you found in the Old Red Sandstone at Cromarty, and have no hesita- ie in stating, that the reticulated texture of the transverse sections, _ though somewhat compressed, clearly indicates a coniferous origin ; but . f] _as there is not the slightest trace of a disc to be seen in the longitudinal _ sections parallel to the medullary rays, it is impossible to say whether it ~ belongs to the pine or araucarian division. Iam, &c.,

¢ «¢Wiram Nico.”

It will be seen that Mr Nicol failed to detect what I now deem the

| | discs of this con:fer,—those stippled markings to which I have referred,

_ and which the engraver has indicated in no exaggerated style, in one of

ie the longitudinal sections (b) of the wood-cut given above. But even were

\P ‘this portion of the evidence wholly wanting, we would be left in doubt,

in consequence, not whether the Old Red lignite formed part of a true

- gymnospermous tree, but whether that tree is now represented by the

| pines of Europe and America, or by the araucarians of Chili and New

_ Zealand. Were I to risk an opinion in a department not particularly _ ‘wy province, it would be in favour of an araucarian relationship

196 EVIDENCE OF THE FOSSIL FLORA.

green. The olive leaf spoke not of merely a partial, but of a general vegetation. Now, the coniferous lignite of the Lower (Middle) Old Red Sandstone we find charged, like the olive leaf, with a various and singularly interesting evidence. It is something to know, that in the times of the Coccostews and Asterolepis there existed dry land, and that that land wore, as at after periods, its soft, gay mantle of green. It is some- thing also to know, that the verdant tint was not owing to” a profuse development of mere immaturities of the vege- table kingdom,—crisp, slow-growing lichens, or watery spore- propagated fungi, that shoot up to their full size in a night, —nor even to an abundance of the more highly organized families of the liverworts and the mosses. ‘These may have abounded then, as now, though we have not a shadow of evidence that they did. But while we have no proof what- ever of their existence, we have conclusive proof that there existed orders and families of a rank far above them. On the dry land of the Lower (Middle) Old Red Sandstone, on which, according to the theory of Adolphe Brongniart, nothing higher than a lichen or a moss could have been expected, the ship- carpenter might have hopefully taken axe in hand, to explore the woods for some such stately pine as the one described by Milton,—

‘¢ Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be tne mast Of some great admiral.”

Viewed simply in its picturesque aspect, this olive leaf of the Old Red seems not at all devoid of poetry. We sail up- wards into the high geologic zones, passing from ancient to still more ancient scenes of being ; and, as we voyage along, find ever in the surrounding prospect, as in the existing scene from which we set out, a graceful intermixture of land and water, continent, river, and sea. We first coast along the land of the Tertiary, inhabited by the strange quadrupeds of Cuvier, and waving with the reeds and palms of the "7

EVIDENCE OF THE FOSSIL FLORA, 197

; the land of the Wealden, with its gigantic iguanodon Bsiling amid its tree ferns and its cycades, comes next ; comes the green land of the Oolite, with its little ribactinlt insectivorous quadruped, its flying reptiles, its vast jungles of the Brora equisetum, and its forests of the Helmsdale pine ; _ and then, dimly as through a haze, we mark, as we speed on, the thinly scattered islands of the New Red Sandstone, and ick up in our course a large floating leaf, vei.ed like that of | Share, which not a little puzzles the botanists of the ex- _ pedition. And now we near the vast Carboniferous continent, ‘and see along the undulating outline, between us and the sky, Py he strange forms of a vegetation, compared with which that of every previously seen land seems stunted and poor. We Beco day after day along endless forests, in which gigantic " club-mosses wave in air a hundred feet over head, and skirt _ interminable marshes, in which thickets of reeds overtop the _mast-head. And, where mighty rivers come rolling to the we mark, through the long-retiring vistas which they open ‘into the interior, the higher grounds of the country covered ' with coniferous trees, and see doddered trunks of vast size, 4 like those of Granton and Craigleith, reclining under the banks _ in deep muddy reaches, with their decaying tops turned adown the current. At length the furthermost promontory of this long range of coast comes full in view: we near it,—we _ have come up abreast of it: we see the shells of the Moun- tain Limestone glittering white along its further shore, and _ the green depths under our keel lightened by the flush of innumerable corals ; and then, bidding farewell to the land for ever,—for so the geologists of but five years ago would have advised,—we launch into the unmeasured ocean of the Old Red, with its three consecutive zones of animal life. _ Not a single patch of land more do those geologic charts ex- | hibit which we still regard as new. The zones of the Silu- rian and Cambrian succeed the zones of the Old Red; and,

198 EVIDENCE OF THE FOSSIL FLORA.

darkly fringed by an obscure bank of cloud ranged along the — last zone in the series, a night that never dissipates settles — down upon the deep. Our voyage, like that of the old fabu- lous navigators of five centuries ago, terminates on the sea in ; a thick darkness, beyond which there lies no shore and there ~ dawns no light. And it is in the middle of this vast ocean, — just where the last zone of the Old Red leans against the — first zone of the Silurian, that we have succeeded in discover- | ing a solitary island unseen before,—a shrub-bearing land, — much enveloped in fog, but with hills that at least look green — in the distance. There are patches of floating sea-weed much — comminuted by the surf all around it; and on one project- — ing headland we see clear through our glasses a cone-bearing tree.

This certainly is not the sort of arrangement demanded by the exigencies of the development hypothesis. Who that has watched the progress of discovery for the last twenty years, and — seen the place of the earliest ichthyolite transferred from the Carboniferous to the Cambrian (Silurian) system, and that of — the earliest exogenous lignite from the Lias to the Devonian, - willnow venture to say that fossil wood may not yet be detected — as low in the scale as any vegetable organism whatever, or © fossil fish as low as the remains of any animal? But though — the response of the earlier geologic systems be thus unfavour- able to the development hypothesis, may not men such as the © author of the “ Vestiges” urge, that the geologic evidence, — taken as a whole, and in its bearing on groupes and periods, © establishes the general fact that the lower plants and animals — preceded the higher,—that the conifera, for instance, pre-_ ceded our true forest trees, such as the oak and elm,—that, i in like manner, the fish preceded the reptile, that the reptile ‘ preceded the bird, that the bird preceded the mammiferous — quadruped and the quadrumana, and that the mammiferous — guadruped and the quadrumana preceded man? Assuredly | ‘ ;

EVIDENCE OF THE FOSSIL FLORA. 199

yes! They may and do urge that Geology furnishes evidence ~ of such a succession of existences ; and the arrangement seems ‘at once a very wonderful and very beautiful one. Of that “great and imposing procession of being of which this world La has been the scene, the programme has been admirably mar- shalled. But the order of the arrangement in no degree jus- _ tifies the inference based upon it by the Lamarckian. The _ fact that fishes and reptiles were created on an earlier day 3 than the beasts of the field and the human family, gives no Ps ground whatever for the belief that “the peopling of the earth was one of a natural kind, requiring time,” or that the reptiles and fishes have been not only the predecessors, but also the & progenitors, of the beasts and of man. The geological phe- _ nomena, even had the author of the “ Vestiges” been con- 4 sulted in their arrangement, and permitted to determine their sequence, would yet have failed to furnish, not merely an } adequate foundation for the development hypothesis, but even a the slightest presumption in its favour. In making good the assertion, may I ask the reader to follow me through the de- - tails of a simple though somewhat lengthened illustration %

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200 SUPERPOSITION NOT PARENTAL RELATION,

SUPERPOSITION NOT PARENTAL RELATION.

THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE.

SEVERAL thousand years ago, ere the upheaval of the last of — our raised beaches, there existed somewhere on the British

toast a submarine bed, rich in sea-weed and the less destruc- _ tible zoophytes, and inhabited by the commoner crustaceze —

and molluscs. Shoals of herrings frequented it every autumn, — haunted by their usual enemies the dog-fish, the cod, and the porpoise ; and during the other seasons of the year it was — swum over by the ling, the hake, and the turbot. A con- siderable stream, that traversed a wide extent of marshy country, waving with flags and reeds, and in which the frog and the newt bred by millions, entered the sea a few hundred yards away, and bore down, when in flood, its modicum of — reptilian remains, some of which, sinking over the submarine bed, found a lodgment at the bottom. Portions of reeds and flags were also occasionally entombed, with now and then boughs of the pine and juniper, swept from the higher grounds. Through frequent depositions of earthy matter brought down by the streamlet, and of sand thrown up by the sea, a gra- dual elevation of the bottom went on, till at length the deep- sea bed came to exist as a shallow bank, over which birds of _

SUPERPOSITION NOT PARENTAL RELATION. 201

the wader family stalked mid-leg deep when plying for food ; and on one occasion a small porpoise, losing his way, and getting entangled amid its shoals, perished on it, and left his carcass to be covered up by its mud and silt. That elevation of the land, or recession of the sea, to which the country owes its last acquired marginal strip of soil, took place, and the shallow bank became a flat meadow, raised some six or eight feet above the sea-level. Herbs, shrubs, and trees, in course of time covered it over; and then, as century succeed- ed century, it gathered atop a thick stratum of peaty mould, embedding portions of birch and hazel bushes, and a few _ doddered oaks. When in this state, at a comparatively re- cent period, an Italian boy, accompanied by his monkey, was passing over it, when the poor monkey, hard wrought and ill fed, and withal but indifferently suited originally for brav- ing the rigours of a keen northern climate, lay down and died, and his sorrowing master covered up the remains. Not many years after, the mutilated corpse of a poor shipwrecked sailor was thrown up, during a night-storm, on the neigh- bouring beach : it was a mere fragment of the human frame, —a mouldering, unsightly mass, decomposing in the sun ; and a humane herd-boy, scooping out a shallow grave for it, immediately over that of the monkey, buried it up. Last of — all, a farmer, bent on agricultural improvement, furrowed the flat meadow to the depth of some six or eight feet, by a broad ditch, that laid open its organic contents from top ta bottom. And then a philosopher of the school of Maillet and Lamarck, who had chanced to come the way, stepped aside to examine the phenomena, and square them with his theory. First, along the bottom of the deep ditch, he detects ma- rine organisms of a low order, and generally of a small size. There are dark indistinct markings traversing the gray silt, which he correctly enough regards as the remains of fucoids ; and blent with these he finds the stony cells of dustra. the

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202 SUPERPOSITION NOT PARENTAL RELATION.

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calcareous spindles of the sea-pen, the spines of echinus, and the thin granular plates of the crustacea. Layers of mussel and pecten shells come next, mixed up with the shells of buccinum, natica, and trochus. Over the shells there occur defensive spines of the dog-fish, blent with the button-like, thorn-set boucles of the ray. And the minute skeletons of herrings, with the vertebral and cerebral bones of cod, rest over these in turn. He finds also well-preserved bits of reed, and a fragment of pine. Higher up, the well-marked bones of the frog occur, and the minute skeleton of a newt ; higher still, the bones of birds of the diver family ; higher still, the skeleton of a porpoise; and still higher he discovers that of a monkey, resting amid the decayed boles and branches of dicotyledonous plants and trees. He pursues his search, vastly delighted to find his doctrine of progressive develop- ment so beautifully illustrated ; and, last of all, he detects, only a few inches from the surface, the broken remains of the poor sailor. .And having thus collected his facts, he sets himself to collate them with his hypothesis. To hold that the zoophytes had been created zoophytes, the molluscs mol- luscs, the fishes fishes, the reptiles reptiles, or the man a man, would be, according to our philosopher, alike derogatory to the Divine wisdom and to the acumen and vigour of the human intellect : it would be “ distressing to him to be com- pelled to picture the power of God, as put forth in any other manner than in those slow, mysterious, universal laws, which have so plainly an eternity to work in ;” nor, with so large an amount of evidence before him as that which the ditch furnishes,—evidence conclusive to the effect that creation is but development,—does he find it necessary either to cramp his faculties or outrage his taste, by a weak yielding to the requirements of any such belief.

Meanwhile the farmer,—a plain, observant, elderly man, —comes up, and he and the philosopher enter into conversa-

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SUPERPOSITION NOT PARENTAL RELATION. 203

tion, “TI have been reading the history of creation in the side of your deep ditch,” says the philosopher, “and find the record really very complete. Look there,” he adds, pointing to the unfossiliferous strip that runs along the bottom of the bank; “there, life, both vegetable and animal, first began. It began, struck by electricity out of albumen, ‘as a congeries of minute globe-shaped atoms,—each a hollow sphere within a sphere, as in the well-known Chinese puzzle ; and from these living atoms were all the higher forms progressively developed. ‘The ditch, of course, exhibits none of the atoms with which being first commenced ; for the atoms don’t keep; —we merely see their place indicated by that unfossiliferous band at the bottom ; but we may detect immediately over it almost the first organisms into which—parting thus early into the two great branches of organic being—they were developed. There are the fucoids, first-born among vege- tables ; and there the zoophytes, well nigh the lowest of the animal forms. The fucoids are marine plants ; for, accord- ing to Oken, ‘all life is from the sea,—none from the Conti- nent ;? but there, a few feet higher, we may see the remains of reeds and flags,—semi-aqueous, semi-aerial plants, of the comparatively low monocotyledonous order into which the fucoids were developed ; higher still we detect fragments of pines, and, I think, juniper,—trees and shrubs of the land, of an intermediate order, into which the reeds and flags were developed in turn ; and in that peaty layer immediately be- neath the vegetable mould there occur boughs and trunks of blackened oak,—a noble tree of the dicotyledonous divi- sion,—the highest to which vegetation in its upward course has yet attained. Nor is the progress of the other great branch of organized being—that of the animal kingdom— less distinctly traceable. The zoophytes became crustacea and molluscs,—the crustacea and molluscs, dog-fishes and herrings,—the dog-fish, a low placoid, shot up chiefly into

204 SUPERPUSITION NOT PARENTAL RELATION

turbot, cod, and ling; but the smaller osseous fish was gra- dually converted into a batrachian reptile; in short, the herring became a frog,—an animal that still testifies to its ichthyological origin, by commencing life as a fish, Gradu- ally, in the course of years, the reptile, expanding in size and improving in faculty, passed into a warm-blooded porpoise ; the porpoise at length, tiring of the water as he began to know better, quitted it altogether, and became a monkey; and the monkey by slow degrees improved into man,—yes, into man, my friend, who has still a tendency, especially when just shooting up to his full stature, and studying the ‘Vestiges,’ to resume the monkey. Such, Sir, is the true history of creation, as clearly recorded in the section of earth, moss, and silt, which you have so opportunely laid bare, Where that ditch now opens, the generations of the man atop lived, died, and were developed. There flourished and de- cayed his great-great-great-great-grandfather the sea-pen,— his great-great-great-grandfather the mussel,—his great- great-grandfather the herring,—his great-grandfather the frog,—his grandfather the porpoise,—and his father the monkey. And there also lived, died, and were developed, the generations of the oak, from the kelp-weed and tangle to the reed and the flag, and from the reed and the flag, to the pine, the juniper, the hazel, and the birch,”

‘“‘ Master,” replies the farmer, “I see you are a scholar, and, I suspect, a wag. It would take a great deal of be- lieving to believe all that. In the days of my poor old neighbour the infidel weaver, who died of deliriwm tremens thirty years ago, I used to read Tom Paine; and, as I was a little wild at the time, I was, I am afraid, a bit of a sceptic. Tt wasn’t easy work always to be as unbelieving as Tom, especially when the conscience within got queasy; but it would be a vast deal easier, Master, to doubt with Tom than to believe with you. I am a plain man, but not quite a fool;

SUPERPOSITION NOT PARENTAL RELATION. 205

and as I have now been looking about me in this neighbour- hood for the last forty years, I have come to know that it gives no assurance that any one thing grew out of any other thing because it chances to be found atop of it, Master. See, yonder is Dobbin lying lazily atop of his bundle of hay ; and yonder little Jack, with bridle in hand, and he in a few mi- nutes will be atop of Dobbin. And all I see in that ditch, Master, from top to bottom, is neither more nor less than a certain top-upon-bottom order of things. I see sets of bones and dead plants lying on the top of other sets of bones and dead plants,—things lying atop of things, as I say, like Dob- bin on the hay and Jack upon Dobbin. I doubt not the sea was once here, Master, just as it was once where you see the low-lying field yonder, which I won from it ten years ago. I have carted tangle and kelp-weed where I now cut clover and rye-grass, and have gathered periwinkles where I now see snails. But it is clean against experience, as my poor old neighbour the weaver used to say,—against my experience, Master,—that it was the kelp-weed that became the rye- grass, or that the periwinkles freshened into snails. The kelp-weed and periwinkles belong to those plants and animals of the sea that we find growing in only the sea; the rye- grass and snails, to those plants and animals of the land that we find growing on only the land. It is contrary to all experience, and all testimony too, that the one passed into the other, and so I cannot believe it; but I do and must believe instead,—for it is not contrary to experience, and much according to testimony,—that the Author of all created both land-productions and sea-productions at the ‘ times before appointed,’ and ‘ determined the bounds of their ha- bitation.’ ‘By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God ; and I find I can be a believer on God’s terms at a much less expense of credulity than an infidel on yours.”

206 SUPERPOSITION NOT PARENTAL RELATION,

But in this form at least it can be scarce necessary that the argument should be prolonged.

The geological phenomena, I repeat, even had the author of the ‘‘ Vestiges” been consulted in their arrangement, and permitted to determine their sequence, would fail to furnish a single presumption in favour of the development hypo- thesis. Does the ditch-side of my illustration furnish it with -a single favouring presumption? The arrangement and se- quence of the various organisms are complete in both the zoological and phytological branch. The flag and reed suc- | ceed the fucoid ; the fir and juniper succeed the flag and reed ; and the hazel, birch, and oak, succeed the fir and juniper. In like manner, and with equal regularity, zoophytes, the radiata, the articulata, mollusca, fishes, reptiles, birds, and mammals, are ranged, the superior in succession over the inferior classes, in the true ascending order ; and yet we at once see that the evidence of the ditch-side, amounting in the aggregate to no more than this, that the remains of the higher lie over those of the lower organisms, gives not a shadow of support to the hypothesis that the lower produced the higher. For, ac- cording to the honest farmer, the fact that any one thing is found lying on the top of any other thing furnishes no pre- sumption whatever that the thing below stands in the rela- tion of parent to the thing above. And the evidence which the well-ranged organisms of the ditch-side do not furnish, the organisms of the entire geologic scale, even were they equally well ranged, would fail to supply. The fossiliferous portion of the ditch-side of my illustration may be, let us sup- pose, some five or six feet in thickness ; the fossiliferous por- tion of the earth’s crust must be some five or six méles in thickness, But the mere circumstance of space introduces no new element into the question, Equally in both cases the fact of superposition is not cdentical with the fact of pa- rental relation, nor even in any degree an analogous fact.

SUPERPOSITION NOT PARENTAL RELATION, 207

As, however, the succession of remains in the fossiliferous series of rocks is infinitely less favourable to the develop- ment hypothesis than that of the organisms of the ditch-side, it is not very surprising that the disciples of the development school should be now evincing a disposition to escape from the ascertained facts of Geology, and the legitimate conclu- sions based upon these, into unknown and unexplored pro- vinees of the science ; or that they should be found virtually urging, that though some of the ascertained facts may seem ‘to bear against them, the facts not yet ascertained may be found telling in their favour. Such, in effect, is the course taken by the author of the “ Vestiges,” in his “Explana- tions,’ when, availing himself of a difference of opinion which exists among some of our most accomplished geologists re- garding the first epochs of organized existence, he takes part with the section who hold that we have not yet penetrated to the deposits representative of the dawn of being, and that fossil-charged formations may yet be detected beneath the oldest rocks of what is now regarded as the lowest fossili- ferous system. Sir Charles Lyell and Mr Leonard Horner represent the abler and better-known assertors of this last view ; while Sir Roderick Murchison and Professor Sedgwick rank among the more distinguished assertors of the antago- nist one. It would be of course utterly presumptuous in the writer of these pages to attempt deciding a question regard- ing which such men differ; but in forming a judgment fer myself, various considerations incline me to hold that the point is now very nearly determined at which, to employ the language of Sir Roderick, “life was first breathed into the waters.’ The pyramid of organized existence, as it ascends into the by-past eternity, inclines sensibly towards its apex,— that apex of “ beginning” in which, on far other than geolo- gical grounds, it is our privilege to believe. The broad base of the superstructure, planted on the existing now, stretches

208 SUPERPOSITION NOT PARENTAL RELATION.

across the entire scale of life, animal and vegetable ; but it contracts as it rises into the past: man,—the quadrumana, —the quadrupedal mammal,—the bird,—and the reptile,— are each in succession struck from off its breadth, till we at length see it with the vertebrata, represented by only the fish, narrowing, as it were, to a point ; and though the clouds of the upper region may hide its extreme apex, we infer, from the declination of its sides, that it cannot penetrate much farther into the profound. When Steele and Addison were engaged in breaking up, piecemeal, their Spectator Club,— killing off good Sir Roger de Coverly with a defluction, mar- rying Will Honeycomb to his tenant’s daughter, and sending away Captain Sentry and Sir Andrew Freeport to their estates in the country,—it was shrewdly inferred that the ‘“ Specta- tor” himself was very soon to quit the field ; and the sudden discontinuance of his lucubrations justified the inference. And a corresponding style of reasoning, based on the corre- sponding fact of the breaking up and piecemeal disappearance of the group of organized being, seems equally admissible. It is somewhat difficult to conceive how at least many more volumes of the geologic record than the known ones could be got up without the clwb. Further, so far as yet appears, the fish must have lived in advance of the reptile during the three protracted periods of the Old Red Sandstone, the still more protracted period of the Silurian, and perhaps the more protracted period still of the Cambrian deposits ;— in all, apparently, a greatly more extended space than that in which the reptile lived in advance of the quadrupedal mammal, or the quadrupedal mammal lived in advance of man. On principles somewhat similar to those on which, with reference to the average term of life, the genealogist fixes the probable period of some birth in his chain of suc- cession of which he cannot determine the exact date, it seems natural to infer that the birth of the fish should have taken

SUPERPOSITION NOT PARENTAL RELATION. 209

od

j place at least not earlier than the times of the Cambrian _ There is another consideration, of at least equal, if not

greater weight. A general correspondence is found to ob- tain in widely-separated localities, in the organic contents of

that lowest band of the Lower Silurian or Cambrian system

: _ in which fossils have been detected. In Russia, in Sweden,

- in Norway, in the Lake district of England, and in the

_ United States, there are certain rocks which occupy relative- 4 ly the same place, and enclose what may be described gene- - rally as the same remains. They occur in Scandinavia as _ that “ fucoidal band” of Sir Roderick Murchison which forms __ the base of the vast Palseozoic basin of the Baite ; they exist _ in Cumberland and Westmoreland as the Skiddaw slates of __ Professor Sedgwick, and bear also their fucoidal impressions, dient with graptolites; they are present in North America as those Potsdam sandstones of the States’ geologists in which _ fucoids so abound, mixed with a minute lingula, that they _ impart to some portions of the strata a carboniferous charac- _ ter. But with these deep-lying beds in all these several lo- calities, thousands of miles apart, fossils cease. And why cease with them? In one locality the ancient ocean may ' have been of such a depth in the period immediately previous, _ and represented, in consequence, by the strata immediately _ beneath, that no animal could have lwed at its bottom,— _ though I do not well see why the remains of those animals _ who, like the shark and pilot-fish, are frequently seen swim- _ ming over the profoundest depths, might not, did such exist - at the time, be, notwithstanding, found at its bottom ; or in another locality every trace of organization in the nether rocks may have been obliterated, at some posterior period, _ by fire. ‘ But it is difficult to imagine that that uniform cessa- tion of organized life at one point which seems to have con- _ ducted Sir Roderick Murchison and Professor Sedgwick to 19]

210 SUPERPOSITION NOT PARENTAL RELATION,

their conclusion, should have been thus a mere effect of ac- cident. Accident has its laws, but uniformity is not one of them ; and should the experience be invariable, as it already seems extensive, that immediately beneath the fucoidal beds organic remains cease, I do not see how the conclusion is to be avoided, that they represent the period in which at least existences capable of preservation were first introduced. Every case of coincident cessation which has occurred since the de- termination of the second case must be reckoned, not simply as an additional unit in evidence, but, on the principles which determine mathematical probability, as a unit multiplied, first by the chances against its occurrence, regarded as a mere con- tingency in that exact formation, and second, by the sum of all the previous occurrences at the same point.

In this curious question, however, which it must be the part of future explorers in the geological field definitely to settle, the Lamarckian can have no legitimate stake. It is but natural that, in his anxiety to secure an ultimate retreat for his hypothesis, he should desire to see that darkness in which ghosts love to walk settling down on the extreme verge of the geological horizon, and enveloping in its folds the first beginnings of life. But even did the cloud exist, it is, if I may so express myself, on its nearer side, where there is light, —not within nor beyond it, where there is none,—that the battle must be fought. It is to Geology as v is known to be, that the Lamarckian has appealed,—not to Geology as it is mot known to be. He has summoned into court existing witnesses ; and, finding their testimony unfavourable, he seeks to neutralize their evidence by calling from the “ vasty deep” of the unexamined and the obscure, witnesses that “won't come,”—that by the legitimate authorities are not known to exist,—and with which he himself is, on his own confession, wholly unacquainted, save in the old scholastic character of mere possibilities. The possible fossil can have

SUPERPOSITION NOT PARENTAL RELATION, 211

1 7 no more standing in this controversy than the “ possible angel.” He tells us that we have not yet got down to that base-line of all the fossiliferous systems at which life first be- _ gan; and very possibly we have not. But what of that ? He has carried his appeal to Geology as 7 is ;—he has re- _ ferred his case to the testimony of the known witnesses, for _ in no case can the wnknown ones be summoned or produced. It is on the evidence of the known, and the known only, that the exact value of his claims must be determined ; and his _ appeal to the unknown serves but to show how thoroughly __ he himself feels that the actually ascertained evidence bears _ against him. The severe censure of Johnson on reasoners _ of this class is in no degree over-severe. “ He who will de- _ termine,” said the moralist, “against that which he knows, _ because there may be something which he knows not,—he that can set hypothetical possibility against acknowledged cer-

a

_ tainty,—is not to be admitted among reasonable beings.”

a But the honest farmer’s reminiscences of his deceased 4 _ neighbour the weaver, and his use at second-hand of Hume’s __ experience-argument, naturally iead me to another branch of 4 the subject.

212 LAMARCKIAN HYPOTHESIS OF THE

LAMARCKIAN HYPOTHESIS OF THE ORIGIN OF PLANTS.

ITS CONSEQUENCES.

I wAveE said that the curiously-mixed semi-marine, semi- lacustrine flora of the Lake of Stennis became associated in my mind, like the ancient Asterolepis of Stromness, with the development hypothesis. The fossil, as has been shown, re- presents not inadequately the geologic evidence in the ques- tion : the mixed vegetation of the lake may be regarded as forming a portion of the phytological evidence.

“* All life,” says Oken, “ is from the sea. Where the sea

organism, by self-elevation, succeeds in attaining into form, there issues forth from it a higher organism. Love arose out of the sea-foam. The primary mucus (that in which elec-

tricity originates life) was, and is still, generated in those very |

parts of the sea where the water is in contact with earth and air, and thus upon the shores. The first creation of the organic took place where the first mountain summits pro- jected out of the water,—indeed, without doubt, in India, if the Himalaya be the highest mountain. The first organie forms, whether plants or animals, emerged from the shallow parts of the sea.” Maillet wrote to exactly the same effect a full century ago. “ Ina word,” we find him saying, in his

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ORIGIN OF PLANTS. 213

“ Telliamed,” “ do not herbs, plants, roots, grains, and all o1 this kind that the earth produces and nourishes, come from the sea? Is it not at least natural to think so, since we are certain that all our habitable lands came originally from the sea? Besides, in small islands far from the continent, which have appeared but a few ages ago at most, and where it is manifest that never any man had been, we find shrubs, herbs, roots, and sometimes animals, Now, you must be forced to own, either that these productions owed their origin to the sea, or to a new creation, which is absurd.”

Jt is a curious fact, to which, in the passing, I must be permitted to call the attention of the reader, that all the leading assertors of the development hypothesis have been bad geologists. Maillet had for his errors and deficiencies the excellent apology that he wrote more than a hundred years ago, when the theory of a universal ocean, promul- gated by Leibnitz nearly a century earlier, was quite as good as any of the other theories of the time, and when Geology, as a science, had no existence. And so we do not wonder at an ignorance which was simply that of his age, when we find him telling his readers that plants must have originated in the sea, seeing that “all our habitable lands came originally from the sea ;’ meaning, of course, by the statement, not at all what the modern geologist would mean were he to employ even the same words, but simply that there was a time when the universal ocean covered the whole globe, and that, as the waters gradually diminished, the loftier mountain summits and higher table-lands, in appearing in their new character as islands and continents, derived their flora from what, in a universal ocean, could be the only possible existing flora,— that of the sea. But what shall we say of the equally pro- found ignorance manifested by Professor Oken, a living autho- rity, whom we find prefacing for the Ray Society, in 1847, the English translation of his “ Elements of Physio-Philoso-

214 LAMARCKIAN HYPOTHESIS OF THE

phy?” “ The first creation of the organic took piace, we find him saying, ‘“ where the first mountain summits projected out of the sea,—indeed, without doubt, in India, if the Hima- laya be the highest mountain,” Here, evidently, in this late age of the world, in which Geology does exist as a science, do we find the ghost of the universal ocean of Leibnitz walking once more, as if it had never been laid. Is there now in all Britain even a tyro geologist so unacquainted with geological fact as not to know that the richest flora which the globe ever saw had existed for myriads of ages, and then, becoming extinct, had slept in the fossil state for myriads of ages more, ere the highest summits of the Himalayan range rose over the surface of the deep? The Himalayas disturbed, and bore up along with them in their upheaval, vast beds of the Oolli- tic system. Belemnites and ammonites have been dug out of their sides along the line of perpetual snow, seventeen thousand feet over the level of the sea. What in the recent period form the loftiest mountains of the globe, existed as portions of a deep-sea bottom, swum over by the fishes and reptiles of the great Secondary period, when what is now Scotland had its dark forests of stately pine,—represented in the present age of the world by the lignites of Helmsdale, Kathie, and Eigg,—and when the plants of a former creation lay dead and buried deep beneath, in shales and fire-clay,— existing as vast beds of coal, or entombed in solid rock, as the brown massy trunks of Granton and Craigleith. And even ere these last existed as living trees, the coniferous lignite of the Lower (Middle) Old Red Sandstone found at Cromarty had passed into the fossil state, and lay as a semi-calcareous, semi- bituminous mass, amid perished Dipterians and extinct Coc- costet. So much for the geology of the German Professor. And be it remarked, that the actwalities in this question can be determined by only the geologist. The mere naturalist may indicate from the analogies of his science, what possibly

ORIGIN OF PLANTS. | SSNs

: might have taken place ; but what really did take place, ana _ the true order in which the events occurred, it is the part of _ the geologist to determine. It cannot be out of place to re- _ mark, further, that geological discovery is in no degree re- _ sponsible for the infidelity of the development hypothesis ;

e seeing that, in the first place, the hypothesis ts greatly more

ancient than the discoveries, and, in the second, that its more

_ prominent assertors are exactly the men who know least of

geological fact. But to this special point I shall again refer. __ The author of the “ Vestiges” is at one, regarding the sup- _ posed marine origin of terrestrial plants, with Maillet and 3 _ Oken ; and he regards the theory, we find him stating in his _ “ Explanations,” as the true key to the well-established fact,

that the vegetation of groupes of islands generally corresponds

with that of the larger masses of land in their neighbourhood.

_ Marine plants of the same kinds crept out of the sea, it would

_ seem, upon the islands on the one hand, and upon the larger masses of land on the other, and thus produced the same flora in each ; just as tadpoles, after passing their transition state, creep out of their canal or river on the opposite banks, and thus give to the fields or meadows on the right-hand side a supply of frogs, of the same appearance and size as those poured out upon the fields and meadows of the left. “ Thus, for example,” we find him saying, “the Galapagos exhibit general characters in common with South America ; and the Cape de Verd Islands, with Africa. They are, in Mr Dar- win’s happy phrase, satellites to those continents, in respect of natural history. Again,” he continues, “ when masses of land are only divided from each other by narrow seas, there is usually a community of forms. The European and African shores of the Mediterranean present an example. Our own islands afford another of far higher value. It appears that the flora of Ireland and Great Britain is various, or rather that we have five floras or distinct sets of plants, and that

216 LAMARCKIAN HYPOTHESIS OF THE

each of these is partaken of by a portion of the opposite con- tinent. There are, first, a flora confined to the west of Ire- land, and imparted likewise to the north-west of Spain ; se- cond, a flora in the south-west promontory of Hngland and of Ireland, extending across the Channel to the north-west coast of France ; third, one common to the south-east of Eng- land and north of France ; fourth, an Alpine flora developed — in the Scottish and Welsh Highlands, and intimately related — to that of the Norwegian Alps; fifth, a flora which prevails over a large part of England and Ireland, ‘mingled with other floras, and diminishing slightly as we proceed west- ward : this bears intimate relation with the flora of Germany. Facts so remarkable would force the meanest fact-collector or species-demonstrator into generalization. The really ingeni- ous man who lately brought them under notice (Professor Edward Forbes) could only surmise, as their explanation, that the spaces now occupied by the intermediate seas must have been dry land at the time when these floras were created. In that case, either the original arrangement of the floras, ot the selection of land for submergence, must have been appo- site to the case in a degree far from usual. The necessity — for a simpler cause is obvious, and it is found in the hypo- thesis of a spread of terrestrial vegetation from the sea into the lands adjacent. The community of forms in the various regions opposed to each other merely indicates a distinct marine creation in each of the oceanic areas respectively in- terposed, and which would naturally advance into the lands nearest to it, as far as circumstances of soil and climate were found agreeable.”

Such, regarding the origin of terrestrial vegetation, are the views of Maillet, Oken, and the author of the “ Vestiges.” They all agree in holding that the plants of the land existed in their first condition as weeds of the sea.

Let me request the reader at this stage, ere we pass on to

ORIGIN OF PLANTS. 217

a

the consideration of the experience-argument, to remark a few incidental, but by no means unimportant, consequences of _ the belief. And, first, let him weigh for a moment the com- _ parative demands on his credulity of the theory by which

_ Professor Forbes accounts for the various floras of the British

islands, and that hypothesis of transmutation which the author of the “ Vestiges” would so fain put in its place, as

_ greatly more simple, and, of course, more in accordance with _ the principles of human belief. In order to the reception of

the Professor’s theory, it is necessary to hold, in the first place, _ that the creation of each species of plant took place, not by repetition of production in various widely-separated centres, but in some single centre, from which the species propagated itself by seed, bud, or scion, across the special area which it is now found to occupy. And this, in the first instance, is of course as much an assumption as any of those assumed num- bers or assumed lines with which, in algebra and the mathe- matics, it is necessary in so many calculations to set out, in quest of some required number or line, which, without the assistance of the assumed ones, we might despair of ever find- ing. But the assumption is in itself neither unnatural nor violent ; there are various very remarkable analogies which lend it support ; the facts which seem least to harmonize with _it are not wholly irreconcileable, and are, besides, of a merely exceptional character ; and, further, it has been adopted by botanists of the highest standing.* It is necessary to hold,

* The following digest from Professor Balfour’s very admirable ** Manual of Botany,” of what is held on this curious subject, may be not unacceptable to the reader. ‘‘ It is an interesting question to de- termine the mode in which the various species and tribes of plants were originally scattered over the globe. Various hypotheses have been ad- vanced on the subject. Linneus entertained the opinion that there was at first only one primitive centre of vegetation, from which plants were distributed over the globe. Some, avoiding all discussions and difficul-

ties, suppose that plants were produced at, first in the localities where they are now seen vegetating. Others think that each species of plant

218 AMARCKIAN HYPOTHESIS OF THE

in the second place, in order to the reception of the theory, that the area of the earth’s surface occupied by the British islands and the neighbouring coasts of the Continent once stood fifty fathoms higher, in relation to the existing sea-level, than it does now,—a belief which, whatever its specific grounds or standing in this particular case, is at least in strict accordance with the general geological phenomena of subsi- dence and elevation, and which, so far from outraging any experience founded on observation or testimony, runs in the same track with what is known of wide areas now in the

course of sinking, like that on the Italian coast, in which the ©

Bay of Baiz and the ruins of the temple of Serapis occur, or that in Asia, which includes the Run of Cutch ; or of what is known of areas in the course of rising, like part of

originated in, and was diffused from, a single primitive centre ; and that there were numerous such centres situated in different parts of the world, each centre being the seat of a particular number of species. They thus admit great vegetable migrations, similar to those of the human races. Those who adopt the latter view recognise in the distribution of plants some of the last revolutions of our planet, and the action of numerous and varied forces which impede or favour the dissemination of vege- tables in the present day. They endeavour to ascertain the primitive

flora of countries, and to trace the vegetable migrations which have

taken place. Daubeny says that analogy favours the supposition that each species of plant was originally formed in some particular locality, whence it spread itself gradually over a certain area, rather than that the earth was at once, by the fiat of the Almighty, covered with vegeta- tion in the manner we at present behold it. The human race rose from a single pair ; and the distribution of plants and animals over a certain definite area would seem to imply that the same was the general law. Analogy would lead us to believe that the extension of species over the earth originally took plave on the same plan on which it is conducted at present, when a new island starts up in the midst of the ocean, produced either by a coral reef or a volcano. In these cases, the whole surface is not at once overspread with plants, but a gradual progress of vegetation is traced from the accidental introduction of a single seed, perhaps, of each species, wafted by winds or floated by currents. The remarkable limitation of certain species to single spots on the globe seems to favour the supposition of specific centres.”

ORIGIN OF PLANTS. 219

~

: _ the coast of Sweden, or part of the coast of South America, _ or in Asia along the western shores of Aracan. Whereas, __ in order to close with the simpler antagonistic belief of the _ author of the “ Vestiges,” it is necessary to hold, contrary to _ all experience, that dulce and henware* became, through a _ very wonderful metamorphosis, cabbage and spinnage ; that _ kelp-weed and tangle bourgeoned into oaks and willows ; and that slack, rope-weed, and green-raw,t shot up into mangel- _ wurzel, rye-grass,andclover. Simple, certainly! An infidel _ on terms such as these could with no propriety be regarded

as an unbeliever. It is well that the New Testament makes

no such extraordinary demands on human credulity.

____ Let us remark further, at this stage, that, judging from the _ generally received geological evidence in the case, very little _ time seems to be allowed by the author of the “ Vestiges”

i for that miraculous process of transmutation through which

_ the low alge of our sea-shores are held to have passed into the high orders of plants which constitute the prevailing British flora. The boulder clay, which rises so high along our hills, and which, as shown by its inferior position on the lower grounds, is decidedly the most ancient of the country’s super- ficial deposits, is yet so modern geologically, that it contains only recent shells. It belongs to that cold, glacial, post-Ter- tiary period, in which what is now Britain existed as a few groupes of insulated hill-tops, bearing the semi-arctic vegeta- tion of our fourth flora,—that true Celtic flora of the country which we now find, like the country’s Celtic races of our own species, cooped up among the mountains. The fifth or Germanic flora must have been introduced, it is held, at a later period, when the climate had greatly meliorated. And if we are to hold that the plants of this last flora were de- veloped from sea-weed, not propagated across a continuity

* Rhodymenia palmata and Alaria esculenta. + Porphyra laciniata, Chorda filum, and Enteromorpha compressa.

220 LAMARCKIAN HYPOTHESIS OF THE

of land from the original centre in Germany, or borne by 4 {

currents from the mouths of the Germanic rivers,—the theory

of Mon. ©. Martins,—then must we also hold that that de- — velopment took place since the times of the boulder clay, and _ that fucoids and confervee became dicotyledonous and mono- —

cotyledonous plants during a brief period, in which the Pur-

pura lapillus and Turritella terebra did not alter a single a

whorl, and the Cyprina islandica and Astarte boreahs re-

tained unchanged each minute projection of their hinges, and |

each nicer peculiarity of their muscular impressions. Crea-

tion would be greatly less wonderful than a sudden transmu- & tative process such as this, restricted in its operation to groupes

of English, Irish, and Manx plants, identical with groupesin

Germany, when all the various organisms around them, such as our sea-shells, continued to be exactly what they had been

for ages before. A process of development from the lowest to the highest forms, rigidly restricted to the flora of a coun-

try, would be simply the miracle of Jonah’s gourd several

thousand times repeated.

I must here indulge in a few remarks more, which, though they may seem of an incidental character, have a direct bear-

ing on the general subject. The geologist infers, in all his reasonings founded on fossils, that a race or species has ex- isted from some one certain point in the scale to some other certain point, if he find it occurring at both points together. He infers on this principle, for instance, that the boulder clay, which contains only recent shells, belongs to the recent or post-Tertiary period ; and that the Oolite and Lias, which contain vo recent shells, represent a period whose existences have all become extinct. And all experience serves to show that his principle isasoundone. Increation there are many species linked together, from their degree of similarity, by the generic tie ; but no perfect verisimilitude obtains among them, unless hereditarily derived from the ene, two, or more

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_

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ORIGIN OF PLANTS. 223

" individuals, of contemporary origin, with which the race be- a. True, there are some races that have spread over very wide circles,—the circle of the human family has become _ identical with that of the globe ; and there are certain plants and animals that, from peculiar powers of adaptation to the 5 ieties of soil and climate,—mayhap also from the tena- cious vitality of their seeds, and their facilities of transport _ by natural means,—are likewise diffused very widely. There _ are plants, too, such as the common nettle and some of the _ ordinary grasses, which accompany civilized man all over the _ globe, he scarce knows how, and spring up unbidden wher- ever he fixes his habitation. He, besides, carries with him _ the common agricultural weeds: there are localities in the _ United States, says Sir-Charles Lyell, where these ewotics ~ outnumber the native plants. But these are exceptions to the a prevailing economy of distribution ; and the circles of species ~ generally are comparatively Limited and well defined. The # mountains of the southern hemisphere have, like those of _ Switzerland and the Scotch Highlands, their forests of coni- ferous trees ; but they furnish no Swiss pines or Scotch firs ; nor do the coasts of New Zealand or Van Dieman’s Land _ supply the European shells or fish. True, there is much to puzzle in the identity of what may be termed the exceptional _ plants, equally indigenous, apparently, in circles widely se- _ parated by space. It has been estimated that there exist _ about a hundred thousand vegetable species ; and of these, thirty antarctic forms have been recognised by Dr Hooker _ asidentical with European ones. Had Robinson Crusoe failed _ to remember that he had shaken the old corn-bag where he found the wheat and barley ears springing up on his island, he might have held that he had discovered a new centre of the European ceralia. And the process analogous to the shaking of the bag is frequently a process not to be remem- _ bered. There are several minute lochans in the Hebrides

222 LAMARCKIAN HYPOTHESIS OF THE

and the west of Ireland in which there occurs a small plant of the cord-rush family (Zriocaulon septangulare), which,

though common in America, is nowhere to be found on the European Continent. It is the only British plant which be- longs to no other part of Europe. How was it transported

across the Atlantic? Entangled, mayhap, in the form of a P

single seed,—for its seeds are exceedingly light and small, ~-in the plumage of some water-fowl, free of both sea and lake, it had been carried in the germ from the weed-skirted edge of some American swamp or mere, to some mossy

lochan of Connaught or of Skye; and one such seed trans-

ported by one such accident, unique in its occurrence in

thousands of years, would be quite sufficient to puzzle all the botanists for ever after. I have seen the seed of one of our ; Scotch grasses, that had been originally caught in the matted fleece of a sheep reared among the hills of Sutherland, and —

then wrought into a coarse, ill-dressed woollen cloth, carried

about for months in a piece of underclothing. It might have gone over half the globe in that time, and, when cast away

with the worn vestment, might have originated a new circle for its species in South America or New Holland. There

are seeds specially contrived by the Great Designer to be car-

ried far from their original habitats in the coats of animals, —a mode which admits of transport to much greater distances than the mode, also extensively operative, of consigning them for conveyance to their stomachs ; and when we see the work in its effects, we are puzzled by the want of a record of an emigratory process, of which, in the circumstances, no record could possibly exist. Unable to make out a case for the “shaking of the bag,” we bethink us, in the emergency, of repetition of creation. But in circles separated by é¢me, not space,—by time, across whose dim gulfs no voyager sails and no bird flies, and over which there are no means of transport from the point where a race once fails, to any other point in

= Raker peso Cr ad - me ~~ ee

ORIGIN OF PLANTS. 223

__ the future,—we find no repetition of species. If the produc-

tion of perfect duplicates or triplicates in independent cen- tres were a law of nature, our works of physical science could scarce fail to tell us of identical species found occurring in

: widely-separated systems,—Scotch firs and larches, for in-

_ stance, among the lignites of the Lias, or Cyprina islandica _ and Ostrea edulis among the shells of the Mountain Lime- _ stone. But never yet has the geologist found in his systems _ or formations any such evidence as facts such as these might : 4 be legitimately held to furnish, of the independent de novo _ production of individual members of any single species. On

_ the contrary, the evidence lies so entirely the other way, _ that he reasons on the existence of a family relation sbtain-

_ ing between all the members of each species, as one of his _ best established principles. If members of the same species may exist through de novo production, without hereditary re- lationship, so thoroughly, in consequence, does the fabric of geological reasoning fall to the ground, that we find ourselves incapacitated from regarding even the bed of common cockle or mussel shells, which we find lying a few feet from the sur- face on our raised beaches, as of the existing creation at all. Nay, even the human remains of our moors may have be- longed, if our principle of relationship in each species be not a true one, to some former creation, cut off from that to which we ourselves belong by a wide period of death. All palseon- _ tological reasoning is at an end for ever, if identical species can originate in independent centres, widely separated from each other by periods of time ; and if they fail to originate in pe- riods separated by time, how or why in centres separated by apace ?

Let the reader remark further, the bearing of those facts from which this principle of geological reasoning has been derived, on the development hypothesis. We find species re- stricted to circles and periods ; and though stragglers are oc-

224 LAMARCKIAN HYPOTHESIS OF THE

casionally found outside the circle in the existing state «f things, never are they found beyond their period among the remains of the past. It was profoundly argued by Cuvier, that life could not possibly have had a chemical origin. “In

fact,” we find him remarking, “life exercising upon theele-

ments which at every instant form part of the living body, and upon those which it attracts to it, an action contrary to that which would be produced without it by the usual che-

mical affinities, it is inconsistent to suppose that it can itself

be produced by these affinities.” And the phenomena of re- striction to circle and period testify to the same effect. No- thing, on the one hand, can be more various in character and

aspect than the organized existences of the various circles and — periods ; nothing more invariable, on the other, than the re- _ ' sults of chemical or electrical experiment. And yet, to use

almost the words of Cuvier, “we know of no other power in ~ nature capable of re-uniting previously separated molecules,” — than the electric and the chemical. To these agents, accord- —

ingly, all the assertors of the development hypothesis have

had recourse for at least the origination of life, Air, water, earth existing as a saline mucus, and an active persistent elec- tricity, are the creative ingredients of Oken. The author of

the “Vestiges” is rather less explicit on the subject: he

simply refers to the fact, that the “ basis of all vegetable and — animal substances consists of nucleated cells,—that is, of cells having granules within them ;” and states that globules of a resembling character “can be produced in albumen by elec- tricity ;’ and that, though albumen itself has not yet been produced by artificial means,—the only step in the process of creation which is wanting,— it is yet known to be a chemical composition, the mode of whose production may “ be any day discovered in the laboratory.” Further, he adopts, as part of the foundation of his hypothesis, the pseudo-experiment of Mr Weekes, who holds that out of certain saline preparations,

ORIGIN OF PLANTS. 225

os

rected upon by electricity, he can produce certain living ani- > ‘malcule of the mite family,—the vital and the organized out & of the i inorganic and the dead. In all such cases, electricity, or rather, according to Oken, galvanism, is regarded as the ‘Yitalizing principle. “ Organism,” says the German, “is gal- _ vanism residing in a thoroughly homogeneous mass. _A galvanic pile pounded into atoms must become alive. In ~ this manner nature brings forth organic bodies.” I have even heard it seriously asked whether electricity be not God! _ Alas! could such a god, limited in its capacity of action, like _ those ‘gods of the plains” in which the old Syrian trusted, have wrought, in the character of Creator, with a variety of result so endless, that in no geologic period has repetition taken place? In all that purports to be experiment on the development side of the question, we see nothing else save repetition. The Acarus Crossii of Mr Weekes is not a new species, but the repetition of an old one, which has been long known as the Acarus horridus, a little bristle-covered crea- ture of the mite family, that harbours in damp corners among the debris of outhouses, and the dust and dirt of neglected workshops and laboratories. Nay, even a change in the chemical portion of the experiment by which he believed the creature to be produced failed to secure variety. A power- ful electric fluid had been sent, in the first instance, through a solution of silicate of potash, and, after a time, the Acarus horridus crawled out of the fluid. The current was then sent through a solution of nitrate of copper, and, after a due space, the Acarus horridus again creeped out. A solution of ferro- cyanate of potash was next subjected to the current, and yet again, and in greater numbers than on the two former occa- sions, there appeared, as in virtue, it would seem, of its ex- iraordinary appetency, to be the same ever-recurring Acarus horridus. “How, or in what form, the little creature should have been introduced into the several experiments, it is not Pe

LOT EE Foe a eee trey Ee ea ’ Ene is :

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226 LAMARCKIAN HYPOTHESIS OF THE

the part of those who question their legitimacy to explain; — it is enough for us to know, that individuals of the family to — which the Acarus belongs are so remarkable for their powers of life, even in their fully developed state, as to resist, for a time, the application of boiling water, and to live long in al- cohol. We know, further, that the germs of the lower ani- mals are greatly more tenacious of vitality than the animals themselves, and that they may exist in their state of em- bryoism in the most unthought of and elusive forms; nay, —as the recent discoveries regarding alterations of generation have conclusively shown,—that the germ which produced the parent may be wholly unlike the germ that produces its off- spring, and yet identical with that which produced the parent's parent. Save on the theory of a quiescent vitality, maintained by seeds for centuries within a few inches of the earth’s sur- face, we know not how a layer of shell-sand or marl spread ~ over the bleak moors of Harris should produce crops of white clover, where only heath had grown before ; nor how brakes of doddered furze burnt down on the slopes of the Cromarty Sutors should be so frequently succeeded by thickets of rasp- berry. Weare not, however, to give up the wnknown,—that illimitable province in which science discovers,—to be a wild _ region of dream, in which fantasy may invent. There are many dark places in the field of human knowledge, which even the researches of ages may fail wholly to enlighten ; but no one derives a right from that circumstance to people them with chimeras and phantoms. They belong to the philoso phers of the future,—not to the visionaries of the present. But while it is not our part to explain how, in the experi- ments of Mr Weekes, the chain of life from life has been main- tained unbroken, we can most conclusively show, that that world of organized existence of which we ourselves form part, is, and ever has been, a world, not of tame repetition, but of endless variety. It is palpably not a world of Acaride@ of

ORIGIN OF PLANTS, 227

i ; one species, nor yet of creatures developed from these, under _ those electric or chemical laws of which the grand character-

istic is invariability of result. The vast variety of its exist-

_ ences speak not of the operation of wnvarying laws, that re- _ present, in their uniformity of result, the unchangeableness _ of the Divinity, but of creative acts, that exemplify the infi- _ nity of His resources. b, Let the reader yet further remark, if he has followed me _ through these preliminary observations, what is really in- _ volved in the hypothesis of the author of the “ Vestiges,”’ regarding the various floras common to the British islands and the Continent. If it was upon his scheme that England, Ireland, and the mainland of Europe came to possess an iden- _ tical flora, production de novo and by repetition of the same species must have taken place in thousands of instances along

__ the shores of each island and of the mainland. His hypothe- _ sis demands that the sea-weed on the coast of Ireland should

% have been developed, first through lower, and then higher

4 forms, into thousands of terrestrial plants,—that exactly the "same process of development from sea-weed into terrestrial

plants of the same species should have taken place on the coast of England, and again on the coasts of the Continent generaliy,—and that identically the same vegetation should have been originated in this way in at least three great centres. And if plants of the same species could have had three dis- tinct centres of organization and development, why not three _ hundred, or three thousand, or three hundred thousand? Nor will it do to attempt escaping from the difficulty by alleging that there is the groundwork in the ease of at least a common marine vegetation to start from ; and that thus, if we have not properly the existence of the direct hereditary tie among the various individuals of each species, we may yet recognise at least a sort of collateral relationship among them, derived

_ from the relationship of their marine ancestry. For relation

228 LAMARCKIAN HYPOTHESIS OF THE

ship, in even the primary stage, the author of the “ Vestiges” virtually repudiates, by adopting, as one of the foundations of his hypothesis, with, of course, all the legitimate conse- quences, the experiments of Mr Weekes. The animalcule- making process is instanced as representative of the first stage of being,—that in which dead inorganic matter assumes vitality ; and it corresponds, in the zoological branch, to the production of a low marine vegetation in the phytological one. A. certain semi-chemical, semi-electrical process originates, time after time, certain numerous low forms of life, identical

in species, but connected by no tie of relationship: such is the presumed result of the Weekes experiment. A certain further process of development matures low forms of life, — thus originated, into higher species, also identical, and also _

wholly unconnected by the family tie: such are the conse-

quences legitimately involved in that island-vegetation theory | promulgated by the author of the “Vestiges.” And be it —

remembered, that Mr Weekes’ process, so far as it is simply

electrical and chemical, is a process which is as capable of © having been gone through in all times and all places, as that

other process of strewing marl upon a moor, through which certain rustic experimenters have held that they produced

MESSE en

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ms

she

white clover. It could have been gone through during the ; Carboniferous or the Silurian period ; for all truly chemical _

and electrical experiments would have resulted in manifesta- tions of the same phenomena then as now: an acid would have effervesced as freely with an alkali; and each fibre of an electrified feather,—had feathers then existed,—would have stood out as decidedly apart from all its neighbours. We must therefore hold, if we believe with the author of the

“Vestiges,” first, from the Weekes experiment, that in all —

times, and in all places, every centre of a certain chemical

and electric action would have become a new centre of crea-

tion to certain. recent species of low, but not veru low, organi-

ORIGIN OF PLANTS. 229

tion ; and, second, from his doctrine regarding the identity the British and Continental floras, that in the course of | seq ant development from these low forms, the process in h of many widely-separated centres,—widely separated by space and time,—would be so nicely correspondent h the process in all the others, that the same higher re- oe forms would be matured in all. And to doctrines such these, the experience of all geologists, all phytologists, all solo ae is diametrically opposed. If these doctrines be sciences are false in their facts, and idle and un- 2d in their principles.

}

230 THE TWO FLORAS,

THE TWO FLORAS, MARINE AND TERRESTRIAL

BEARING OF THE EXPERIENCE ARGUMENT.

Is the reader acquainted with the graphic verse, and scarce less graphic prose, in which Crabbe describes the appearances presented by a terrestrial vegetation affected by the waters of the sea? In both passages, as in all his purely descrip- tive writings, there is a solidity of truthful observation ex- hibited, which triumphs over their general homeliness of vein. ** On either side

Is level fen, a prospect wild and wide,

With dykes on either hand, by ocean self-supplied.

Far on the right the distant sea is seen,

And salt the springs that feed the marsh between ;

Beneath an ancient bridge the straitened flood

Rolls through its sloping banks of slimy mud ;

Near it a sunken boat resists the tide,

That frets and hurries to the opposing side ;

The rushes sharp, that on the borders grow,

Bend their brown florets to the stream below,

Impure in all its course, in all its progress slow.

Here a grave Flora scarcely deigns to bloom,

Nor wears a rosy blush, nor sheds perfume. :

The few dull flowers that o’er the place are spread,

Partake the nature of their fenny bed ;

Here on its wiry stem, in rigid bloom,

Grows the salt lavender, that lacks perfume ;

MARINE AND TERRESTRIAL. 231

Here the dwarf sallows creep, the septfoil harsh, And the soft slimy mallow of the marsh.

Low on the ear the distant billows sound,

And just in view appears their stony bound.”

“The ditches of a fen so near the ocean,” says the poet, in the note which accompanies this passage, “are lined with —

irregular patches of a coarse-stained laver ; a muddy sedi-

ment rests on the horse-tail and other perennial herbs which in part conceal the shallowness of the stream ; a fat-leaved, pale-flowering scurvy-grass appears early in the year, and the

_ yrazor-edged bullrush in the summer and autumn. The fen

itself has a dark and saline herbage: there are rushes and arrow-head ; and in a few patches the flakes of the cotton- grass are seen, but more commonly the sea-aster, the dullest of that numerous and hardy genus; a thrift, blue in flower, but withering, and remaining withered till the winter scat- ters it ; the salt-wort, both simple and shrubby ; a few kinds of grass changed by the soil and atmosphere $ and low plants of two or three denominations, undistinguished in the general view of scenery ;—such is the vegetation of the fen where it is at a small distance from the ocean.”

And such are the descriptions of Crabbe, at once a poet and a botanist. In referring to the blue tint exhibited in salt-fens by the pink-coloured flower of the thrift (Statice armeria), he might have added, that the general green of the terrestrial vegetation likewise assumes, when subjected to those modified marine influences under which plants of the land can continue to live, a decided tinge of blue. It is further noticeable, that the general brown of at least the larger alge presents, as they creep upwards upon the beach to meet with these, a marked tinge of yellow. The pre- vailing brown of the one flora approximates towards yel- low,—the prevailing green of the other towards blue ; and thus, instead of mutually merging into some neutral tint,

232 THE TWO FLORAS,

they assume at their line of meeting directly antagonistic hues,

But what does experience say regarding the transmutative conversion of a marine into a terrestrial vegetation,—that ex- perience on which the sceptic founds so much. As I walked along the green edge of the Lake of Stennis, selvedged by the line of detached weeds with which a recent gale had strewed its shores, and marked that for the first few miles the accumulation consisted of marine alge, here and there mixed with tufts of stunted reeds or rushes, and that as I receded from the sea it was the algee that became stunted and dwartish, and that the reeds, aquatic grasses, and rushes, grown greatly more bulky in the mass, were also more fully deve- loped individually, till at length the marine vegetation alto- gether disappeared, and the vegetable debris of the shore be- came purely lacustrine,—I asked myself whether here, if any- where, a transition flora between lake and sea ought not to be found? For many thousand years ere the tall gray obe- lisks of Stennis, whose forms I saw this morning reflected in the water, had been torn from the quarry, or laid down in mystic circle on their flat promontories, had this lake ad- mitted the waters of the sea, and been salt in its lower reaches and fresh in its higher. And during this protracted period had its quiet, well-sheltered bottom been exposed to no dis- turbing influences through which the delicate process of trans- mutation could have been marred or arrested. Here, then, if in any circumstances, ought we to have had, in the broad, permanently brackish reaches, at least indications of a vege- tation intermediate in its nature between the monocotyledons of the lake and the alge of the sea; and yet not a vestige of such an intermediate vegetation could I find among the up-piled debris of the mixed floras, marine and lacustrine, The lake possesses no such intermediate vegetation. As the water freshens in its middle reaches, the algee become dwarfish

MARINE AND TERRESTRIAL. 233

and ill-developed ; one species after another ceases to ap- _ pear, as the habitat becomes wholly unfavourable to it 3 until at length we find, instead of the brown, rootless, flowerless _ fucoids and confervse of the ocean, the green, rooted, flower- bearing flags, rushes, and aquatic grasses of the fresh water. Many thousands of years have failed to originate a single in- termediate plant. And such, tested by a singularly exten- _ Sive experience, is the general evidence. _ There is scarce a chain-length of the shores of Britain and Treland that has not been a hundred and a hundred times ex- _ plored by the botanist,—keen to collect and prompt to re- gister every rarity of the vegetable kingdom; but has he ever yet succeeded in transferring to his herbarium a single plant caught in the transition state? Nay, are there any of _ the laws under which the vegetable kingdom exists better known than those laws which fix certain species of the alge to certain zones of coast, in which each, according to the overlying depth of water and the nature of the bottom, finds the only habitat in which it can exist? The rough-stemmed

tangle (Laminaria digitata) can exist no higher on the shore

than the low line of ebb during stream-tides ; the smooth-

_ stemmed tangle (Laminaria saccharina) flourishes along an

_ inner belt, partially uncovered during the ebbs of the larger _ neaps; the forked and cracker kelp-weeds (Fucus serratus and Fucus nodosus) thrive in a zone still less deeply covered by water, and which even the lower neaps expose. And at 2 least one other species of kelp-weed, the Fucus vesiculosus, - occurs in a zone higher still, though, as it creeps upwards on the rocky beach, it loses its characteristic bladders, and be- comes short and narrow of frond. The thick brown tufts of

_ Fucus canaliculatus, which in the lower and middle reaches _ of the Lake of Stennis I found heaped up in great abundance _ along the shores, also rises high on rocky beaches,—so high mm some instances that during neap-tides it remains uncover

234 THE TWO FLORAS,

ed by the water for days together. If, as is not uncommon, there be an escape of land-springs along the beach, there may be found, where the fresh water oozes out through the sand and gravel, an upper terminal zone of the conferve, chiefly of a green colour, mixed with the ribbon-like green laver, ( Ulva latissima), the purplish-brown laver (Porphyra laci- mata), and still more largely with the green silky Entero- morpha (Z. compressa).* And then, decidedly within the line of the storm-beaches of winter,—not unfrequently in low sheltered bays, such as the Bay of Udale or of Nigg, where

the ripple of every higher flood washes,—we may find the

vegetation of the land—represented by the sentinels and picquets of its outposts—coming down, as if to meet with the higher-growing plants of the sea, In salt marshes the ' two vegetations may be seen, if I may so express myself, dovetailed together at their edges,—at least one species of club-rush (Scirpus maritimus) and the common saltwort and glasswort (Salsola kal and Salicornia procumbens) en- croaching so far upon the sea as to mingle with a thinly- scattered and sorely-diminished fucus,—that bladderless variety of the Fucus vesiculosus to which I have already referred, and which may be detected in such localities, shoot- ing forth its minute brown fronds from the pebbles. On rocky coasts, where springs of fresh water come trickling down along the fissures of the precipices, the observer may see a variety of Rhodomenia palmata,—the fresh-water dulse of the Moray Frith,—creeping upwards from the lower limits of production, til’ just where the common gray balanus ceases

* «* Dr Neill mentions,” says the Rev. Mr Landsborough, in his com- plete and very interesting ‘‘ History of British Sea-Weeds,” ‘‘ that on our shores algz generally occupy zones in the following order, beginning from deep water:—F. jfilum; F. esculentus and bulbosus; F. digitatus, saccharinus, and loreus; F. serratus and crispus ; F. nodosus and vesicu- losus ; F. canaliculatus ; and, last of all, F. pygmeus, which is satisfied if it be within reach of the spray.”

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MARINE AND TERRESTRIAL. 235

_ togrow. And there, short and thick, and of a bleached yel- q # low hue, tz ceases also ; but one of the commoner marine con- ferve,—the Conferva arcta, blent with a dwarfed Entero- _morpha,—commencing a very little below where the dulse _ ends, and taking its place, clothes over the runnels with its “covering of green for several feet higher,—in some cases, _where it is frequently washed by the upward dash of the _ waves, it rises above even the flood-line; and in some

crevice of the rock beside it, often as low as its upper edge, we may detect stunted tufts of the sea-pink or of the scurvy- grass. But while there is thus a vegetation intermediate in place between the land and the sea, we find, as if it had been selected purposely to confound the transmutation theory, that it is in no degree intermediate in character. For, while it is chiefly marine weeds of the lower division of the conferve that creep upwards from the sea to meet the vegetation of the

land, it is chiefly terrestrial plants of the higher division of

the dicotyledons that creep downwards from the land to meet the vegetation of the sea. The salt-worts, the glass-worts, the arenaria, the thrift, and the scurvy-grass, are all dicotyle-

donous plants. Nature draws a deeply-marked line of divi-

sion where the requirements of the transmutative hypothesis would demand the nicely graduated softness of a shaded one ; and, addressing the strongly-marked floras on either hand,

_ €ven more sternly than the waves themselves, demands that _ toa certain definite bourne should they come, and no farther.

But in what form, it may be asked, or with what limita- tions, ought the Christian controversialist to avail himself, in this question, of the experience argument? Much ought to depend, I reply, on the position taken up by the opposite side. We find no direct reference made by the author of the “ Ves- tiges” to the anti-miracle argument, first broached by Hume,

- ina purely metaphysical shape, in his well-known “ Inquiry,”

and afterwards thrown into the algebraic form by La Place,

236 THE TWO FLORAS,

in his Hssat Philosophique sur les Probabilités ; but we do detect its influences operative throughout the entire work. It is because of some felt impracticability on the part of its author, of attaining to the prevailing belief in the miracle of creation, that he has recourse, instead, to the so-called law of development. The Jaw and the miracle are the alterna- tives placed before him ; and, rejecting the muracle, he closes with the law. Now, in such circumstances, he can have no more cause of complaint, if, presenting him with the experi- ence argument of Hume and La Place, we demand that he square the evidence regarding the existence of his law strictly according to its requirements, than the soldier of an army that charged its field-pieces with rusty nails would have cause of complaint if he found himself wounded by a missile of a similar kind, sent against him by the artillery of the enemy. You cannot, it might be fairly said, in addressing him, ac- quiesce in the miracle here, because, as a violation of the laws of nature, there are certain objections, founded on in- variable experience, which bear direct against your belief in it. Well, here are the objections, in the strongest form in which they have yet been stated ; and here is your hypothe- sis respecting the development of marine alge into terrestrial plants. We hold that against that hypothesis the objections bear at least as directly as against any miracle whatever,— nay, that not only is it contrary to an invariable experience, but opposed also to all testimony. We regard it as a mere idle dream. Maillet dreamed it,—and Lamarck dreamed it, —and Oken dreamed it; but none of them did more than merely dream it: its existence rests on exactly the same basis of evidence as that of Whang the miller’s “ monstrous pot of gold and diamonds,” of which he dreamed three nights in succession, but which he never succeeded in finding. If we are in error in our estimate, here is the argument, and here the hypothesis; give us in support of the hypothesis, the

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amount of evidence, founded on a solid experience, which the _ argument demands. 7 But to leave the experience argument in exactly the state in which it was left by Hume and La Place, would be doing _ ho real justice to our subject. It is in that state quite sutf- ficient to establish the fact, that there can be no real escape _ from belief in acts of creation never witnessed by man, to processes of development never witnessed by man, seeing that _ a presumed law beyond the cognizance of experience must _ be as certainly rejected, on the principle of the argument, as a presumed miracle beyond that cognizance. It places the presumed Jaw and the presumed miracle on exactly the same level, But there is a palpable flaw in the anti-miracle argu- ment. It does not prove that miracles may not have taken place, but that miracles, whether they have taken place or no, are not to be credited, and this simply because they are miracles, 7. ¢. violations of the established laws of nature. And if it be possible for events to take place which man, on certain principles, is imperatively required not to credit, these principles must of course serve merely to establish a discre- pancy between the actual state of things, and what is to be believed regarding it. And thus, instead of serving purposes of truth, they are made to subserve purposes of error ; for the existence of truth in the mind is neither more nor less than the existence of certain conceptions and beliefs, ade- quately representative of what actually 7s, or what really has taken place.

I cannot better illustrate this direct tendency of the anti- miracle argument to destroy truth in the mind, by bringing the mental beliefs into a state of nonconformity with the pos- sible and actual, than by a quotation from La Place himself: * We would not,’ he says, “ give credit to a man who would affirm that he saw a hundred dice thrown into the air, and that they all fell on the same faces. If we had ourselves been

238 THE TWO FLORAS,

spevtators of such an event, we would not believe our own eyes till we had scrupulously examined all the circumstances, and assured ourselves that there was no trick or deception. After such an examination, we would not hesitate to admit it, notwithstanding its great improbability ; and no one would have recourse to an inversion of the laws of vision in order to account for it.” Now, here is the principle broadly laid down, that it is impossible to communicate by the evidence of testimony, belief in an event which might happen, and which, if it happened, owght on certain conditions to be credit- ed. No one knew better than La Place himself, that the possibility of the event which he instanced could be repre- sented with the utmost exactitude by figures. The proba- bility, in throwing a single die, that the ace will be presented on its upper face, is as one in six,—six being the entire num- ber of sides which the cube can possibly present, and the side with the ace being one of these,—the probability that in throwing a pair of dice the aces of both will be at once presented on their upper faces is as one in thirty-six, as against the one sixth chance of the ace being presented by the one, there are also six chances that the ace of the other should not concur with it; and in throwing three dice, the proba- bility that their three aces should be at once presented is, of course, on the same principle, as one in six times thirty-six, or, in other words, as one in two hundred and sixteen. And thus, in ascertaining the exact degree of probability of the hundred aces at once turning up, we have to go on multi- plying by six, for each die we add to the number, the pro- duct of the immediately previous calculation. Unquestion- ably, the number of chances agaist, thus balanced with the single chance for, would be very great ; but its existence as a definite number would establish, with all the force of arith- metical demonstratton, the possibility of the event ; and if an eternity were to be devoted to the throwing into the air of

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the hundred dice, it would occur an infinite number of times. f _ And yet the principle of Hume and La Place forms, wher. a adopted, an impassable gulf between this possibility and hu- man belief. The possibility might be embodied, as we see, in an actual occurrence,—an occurrence witnessed by hun- _ dreds ; and yet the anti-miracle argument, as illustrated by _La Place, would cut off all communication regarding it be- _ tween these hundreds of witnesses, however unexceptionable . their character as such, and the rest of mankind. The prin- 7 ciple, instead of giving us a right rule through which the ___ beliefs in the mind are to be rendered correspondent with the reality of things, goes merely to establish a certain imperfec- _ tion of transmission from one mind to another, in conse- _ quence of which, realities in fact, if very extraordinary ones, _ could not possibly be received as objects of belief, nor the mental appreciation of things be rendered adequately con- current with the state in which the things really existed. Nor is the case different when, for a possibility which the _ arithmetician can represent by figures, we substitute the - mearacle proper. Neither Hume nor La Place ever attempted ¢ to show that miracles could not take place ; they merely di- rected their argument against a belief in them. The wildest = sceptic must admit, if in any degree a reasonable man, that . there may exist a God, and that that God may have given | laws to nature. No demonstration of the non-existence of a y Great First Cause has been ever yet attempted, nor, until the knowledge of some sceptic extends over all space, ever can be rationally attempted. Merely to doubt the fact of God’s ex- istence, and to give reasons for the doubt, must till then form the highest achievements of scepticism. And the God who may thus exist, and who may have given laws to nature, may also have revealed himself to man, and, in order to secure man’s reasonable belief in the reality of the revelation, may have temporarily suspended in its operation some great natu-

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240 THE TWO FLORAS,

ral law, and have thus shown himself to be its Author and Master. Such seems to be the philosophy of miracles ; which — are thus evidently not only not impossibilities, but even not improbabilities, Even were we to permit the sceptic himself to fix the numbers representative of those several mays in the case which I have just repeated, the chances against them, so to speak, would be less by many thousand times than the chances against the hundred dice of La Place’s illustration all turning up aces, The existence of a Great First Cause is at least as probable—the sceptic himself being judge in the mat- — ter—as the non-existence of a Great First Cause ; and so the probability in this first stage of the argument, instead of being, as in the case of the single die, only one to six, is as one to one. Again,—in accordance with an expectation so general among the human family as to form one of the great instincts _ of our nature,—an instinct to which every form of religion, true or false, bears evidence,—it is in no degree less probable that this God should have revealed himself to man, than that — he should mnoé have revealed himself to man; and here the chances are again as one to one,—not, as in the second stage of the calculation on the dice, as one to'thirty-six. Nor, in the third and last stage, is it less probable that God, in — revealing himself to man, should have given miraculous evi- — dence of the truth of the revelation, so that man “ might be- lieve in Him for his work’s sake,” than that He should not have done so; and here yet again the chances are as one to one,—not as one to two hundred and sixteen. No rational sceptic could fix the chances lower ; nay, no rational sceptic, so far as the ewistence of a Great First Cause 1s concerned, would be inclined to fix them so low: and yet it is in order b to annihilate all belief in a possibility against which the — chances are so few as to be represented—scepticism itself — being the actuary in the case—by three units, that ‘Hume q and La Place have framed their argument. Miracles may

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have taken place,—the probabilities against them, stated in _ their most extreme and exaggerated form, are by no means _ many or strong ; but we are nevertheless not to believe that _ they did take place simply because miracles they were. Now,

the effect of the establishment of a principle such as this would

be simply, I repeat, the destruction of the ability of transmit- _ ting certain beliefs, however well founded originally, from one set or generation of men to another. These beliefs the first

set or generation might, on La Place’s own principles, be com- pelled to entertain. The evidence of the senses, however wonderful the event which they certified, is not, he himself

tells us, to be resisted. But the conviction which, on one

set of principles, these men were on no account to resist, the men that came immediately after them were, on quite another set of principles, on no account to entertain. And thus the

anti-miracle argument, instead of leading, as all true philo-

sophy ought, to an exact correspondence between the realities of things and the convictions received by the mind regarding them, palpably forms a bar to the reception of beliefs, ade- quate to the possibilities of actual occurrence or event, and so constitutes an imperfection or flaw in the mental economy,

instead of working an improvement. And, in accordance

with this view, we find that in the economy of minds of the very highest order this imperfection or flaw has had no place. Locke studied and wrote upon the subject of miracles proper, and exhibited in his “ Discourse” all the profundity of his

extraordinary mind ; and yet Locke was a believer. Newton

studied and wrote on the subject of miracles of another kind, —those of prophecy ; and he also, as shown by his “ Obser- vations on the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse,” was a believer. Butler studied and wrote on the subject of miracles, chiefly in connection with “Miraculous Revelation ;” and he also was a believer. Chalmers studied and wrote on the subject of miracles in his “ Evidences,” after Hume, La 9

242 THE TWO FLORAS,

Place, and Playfair had all promulgated their peculiar views |

regarding it; and he also was a believer. And in none of the truly distinguished men of the present day, though all intimately acquainted with the anti-miracle argument, is this flaw or imperfection found to exist: on the contrary, they all hold, as becomes the philosophic intellect and character, that whatever is possible may occur, and that whatever occurs ought, on the proper evidence, to be believed.

But though the experience argument is of no real force, and, as shown by the beliefs of the higher order of minds, of no real effect, when brought to bear against miracles sup- ported by the proper testimony, 2 is of great force and effect when brought to bear, not against miracles, but against some presumed law. It is experience, and experience only, that determines what is or is not law ; and it is law, and law only, that constitutes the subject-matter of ordinary experience.

Experience, in determining what is really miracle, does so

simply through its positive knowledge of law: by knowing Jaw, it knows also what would be a violation of it. And so miracle cannot possibly form the subject-matter of experience in the sense of Hume, For did miracle constitute the sub- ject-matter of experience, the law of which the miracle was a violation could not: most emphatically, in this case, were there “no law” there could be “no transgression ;” and so experience would be unable to recognise, not only the exist- ence of the law transgressed, but also of the miracle, in its character as such, which was a transgression of the law. We determine from experience that there exists a certain fixed law, known among men as the law of gravitation ; and that, in consequence of this law, if a human creature attempt stand- ing upon the sea, he will sink into it ; or if he attempt rising from the earth into the heavens, he will remain fixed to the spot on which the attempt is made. Such, in these cases, would be the direct effects of this zravitation law; and any

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MARINE AND TERRESTRIAL, 243

_ presumed law antagonistic in its character could not be other _ than a law contrary to that invariable experience by which the existence of the real law in the case is determined. But certain it is,—for the evidence regarding the facts cannot be resisted, and by the greater minds has not been resisted,— that a man did once walk upon the sea without sinking into it, and did once ascend from the earth into the sky; and _ these miracles ought not to be tested—and by earnest inquir- ers after truth really never have been tested—by an experi- ence of the uniformity of the law of which they were professed transgressions, seeing it was essentially and obviously neces- sary that, in order to serve the great moral purpose which God intended by them, the law which they violated should have been a uniform law, and that they should have been palp- able violations of it. But while the experience argument _ is thus of no value when directed against well-attested miracle, _ itis, as I have said, all-potent when directed against presumed law. Of law we know nothing, I repeat, except when ex-

_ and experience only, that we know anything of natural law. _ The argument of Hume and La Place is perfect, as such, : when directed against the development visions of the La-

_ marckian. rie

” experience is no law at all. For it is from experience,

244 TUE DEVELOPMENT HYPOTHESIS

THE DEVELOPMENT HYPOTHESIS IN ITS — EMBRYONIC STATE.

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WueEn Maillet first promulgated his hypothesis, many of the : departments of natural history existed as mere regions of — fable and romance ; and, in addressing himself to the 2/eusca: — dins of Paris, in a popular work as wild and amusing as a fairy tale, he could safely take the liberty, and he did take nd very freely, of exaggerating the marvellous, and adding fresh ~ fictions to the untrue. And in preparing them for his theory of the metamorphoses of a marine into a terrestrial vegeta-

tion, he set himself, in accordance with his general character, — ‘ to show that really the transmutation did not amount to much, i “‘T know you have resided a long time,” his Indian Philoso- " pher is made to say, “at Marseilles. Now, you can bear me — witness, that the fishermen there daily find in their nets, and — among their fish, plants ot a hundred kinds, with their fruits — still upon them ; and though these fruits are not so large and — | so well pihitichod as those of our earth, yet the species of these plants is in no other respect dubious. They there find | clusters of white and black grapes, peach-trees, pear-trees, prune-trees, apple-trees, and all sorts of flowers. When in that city, I saw, in the cabinet of a curious gentleman, a pro-

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IN ITS EMBRYONIC STATE, 945

_ especially of rose-trees, which had their roses very red when & they came out of the sea. I was there presented with a _ cluster of black sea-grapes. It was at the time of the vint- age, and there were two grapes perfectly ripe.” Now, all this, and much more of the same nature, ad- dressed to the Parisians of the reign of Louis the Fifteenth, ___ passed, I doubt not, wonderfully well ; but it will not do now, when almost every young girl, whether in town or country, _ is a botanist, and works on the algz have become popular. _ Since Maillet wrote, Hume promulgated his argument on Miracles, and La Place his doctrine of Probabilities. There can be no doubt that these have exerted a wholesome influ- ence on the laws of evidence ; and by these laws, as restricted and amended,—laws to which, both in science and religion, we ourselves conform,—we insist on trying the Lamarckian hypothesis, and in condemning it,—should it be found to _ have neither standing in experience nor support from testi- § _ mony,—as a mere feverish dream, incoherent in its parts and baseless in its fabric. Give, we ask, but one well-attested instance of transmutation from the alge to even the lower _ forms of terrestrial vegetation common on our sea-coasts, and _ we will keep the question open, in expectation of more, It -_ will not do to tell us,—as Cuvier was told, when he appealed to the fact, determined by the mummy birds and reptiles of Egypt, of the fixity of species in all, even the slightest par- ticulars, for at least three thousand years,—that immensely extended periods of time are necessary to effect specific changes, and that human observation has not been spread over a period sufticiently ample to furnish the required data regarding them. The apology is simply a confession that, in these ages of the severe inductive philosophy, you have been dreaming your dream, cut off, as if by the state of sleep, from all the tangibilities of the real waking-day world, and that

246 THE DEVELOPMENT HYPOTHESIS

you have not a vestige of testimony with which to support your ingenious vagaries.

But on another account do we refuse to sustain the excuse. It is not true that human ‘observation has not been spread over a period sufficiently extended to furnish the necessary data for testing the development hypothesis, In one special walk,—that which bears on the supposed transmutation of alge into terrestrial plants,—human observation has been spread over what is strictly analogous to millions of years. For extent of space in this matter is exactly correspondent with duration of time. No man, in this late period of the world’s history, attains to the age of five hundred years ; and as some of our larger English oaks have been known to increase in bulk of trunk and extent of bough for five cen- turies together, no man can possibly have seen the same huge oak pass, according to Cowper, through its various stages of * treeship,’’—

‘* First a seedling hid in grass ; Then twig ; then sapling; and, as century rolls Slow after century, a giant bulk, Of girth enormous, with moss-cushioned root

Upheaved above the soil, and sides embossed With prominent wens globose.”

But though no man lives throughout five hundred years of time, he can trace, by passing in some of the English forests through five hundred yards of space, the history of the oak in all its stages of growth, as correctly as if he did live . throughout the five hundred years. Oaks, in the space of a few hundred yards, may be seen in every stage of growth, from the newly-burst acorn, that presents to the light its two fleshy lobes, with the first tender rudiments of a leaflet between, up to the giant of the forest, in the hollow of whose trunk the red deer may shelter, and find ample room for the: droad spread of his antlers. The fact of the development:

t “4

IN ITS EMBRYONIC STATE, 247

7 of the oak, from the minute two-lobed seedling of a week’s _ growth up to the gigantic tree of five centuries, is as capable of being demonstrated by observation spread over five hun- _ dred yards of space, as by observation spread over five hun- dred years of time. And be it remembered, that the sea- coasts of the world are several hundred thousand miles in extent, Europe is by far the smallest of the earth’s four large divisions, and it is bounded, in proportion to its size, by a greater extent of land than any of the others. And yet the sea-coasts of Europe alone, including those of its a islands, exceed twenty-five thousand miles. We have re- sults before us, in this extent of space, identical with those of many hundred thousand years of time ; and if terrestrial plants were as certainly developments of the low plants of the sea as the huge oak is a development of the immature seedling, just sprung from the acorn, so vast a stretch of sea- coast could not fail to present us with the intermediate vege- tation in all its stages. But the sea-coasts fail to exhibit even a vestige of the intermediate vegetation. Experience spread over an extent of space analogous to millions of years of time, does not furnish, in this department, a single fact corroborative of the development theory, but, on the contrary, many hundreds of facts that bear directly against it.

The author of the “ Vestiges” is evidently a practised and tasteful writer, and his work abounds in ingenious combina- tions of thought ; but those powers of abstract reflection, on whose vigorous exercise the origination of argument depends, nature seems to have denied him. There are two things ir. especial which his work wants,—original observation and

t abstract thought,—the power of. seeing for himself and of

reasoning for himself; and what we find instead is simply a vivid appreciation of the images of things, as these images exist in other minds, and a vigorous perception of the various shades of resemblance which obtain among them. There is

248 THE DEVELOPMENT HYPOTHESIS

a large amount of analogical power exhibited ; but that basis of truth which correct observation can alone furnish, and that ability of nicely distinguishing differences by which the fa- culty of discerning similarity must be for ever regulated and governed, are wanting, in what, in a mind of fine general texture and quality, must be regarded as an extraordinary de- gree. And hence an ingenious but very unsolid work,—full of images transferred, not from the scientific field, but from the field of scientific mind, and charged with glittering but vague resemblances, stamped in the mint of fancy, which, were they to be used as mere counters in some light literary game of story-telling or character-sketching, would be in no respect out of place, but which, when passed current as the proper coin of philosophic argument, are really frauds on the popular understanding. There are, however, not a few in- stances in the “ Vestiges” and its “Sequel,” in which that defect of reflective power to which I refer rather enhances than diminishes the difficulty of reply, by presenting to the controversialist mere intangible clouds with which to grapple ; that yet, through the existence of a certain superstition im the popular mind, as predisposed to accept as true whatever takes the form of science, as its predecessor the old supersti- tion was inclined a century ago to reject, science itself, are at least suited to blind and bewilder. Of this kind of difficulty the following passage, in which the author of the work ca- shiers the Creator as such, and substitutes, instead, a mere animal-manufacturing piece of clock-work, which bears the name of natural law,* furnishes us with a remarkable in- stance.

* We are supplied with a curious example of that ever-returning cycle of speculation in which the human mind operates, by not only the intre- duction of the principle of Epicurus into the ‘‘ Vestiges,” but also by the unconscious employment of even his very arguments, slightly modified by

the floating semi-scientific notions of the time. The following pas- sages, taken, the one from the modern work, the other from Fenelon’s

IN ITS EMBRYONIC STATE. 249

f ict as the production of new dinates, we at least know, that while such facts were occurring upon earth, there were as- ‘sc ciated phenomena in progress of a character perfectly ordi- nary. For example, when the earth received its first fishes, sandstone and limestone were forming in the manner exem-

plified a few years ago in the ingenious experiments of Sir

=»

life of the old Greek philosopher, are not unworthy of being studied, as _ curiously illustrative of the cycle of thought. Epicurus, I must, how- _eyer, first remind the reader, in the words of his biographer, ‘‘ supposed _ that men, and all other animals, were originally produced by the ground. _ According to him, the primitive earth was fat and nitrous ; and the sun, gradually warming it, soon covered it with herbage and shrubs: there also began to arise on the surface of the ground a great number of small tumours like mushrooms, which having in a certain time come to matu- _ rity, the skin burst, and there came forth little animals, which, gradually retiring from the place where they were produced, began to respire.” _ And there can be little doubt that, had the microscope been a discovery _ of early Greece, the passage here would have told us, not of mushroom- like tumours, but of monads. Save that the element of microscopic fact is awanting in the one and present in the other, the following are strictly el lines of argument :—

** To the natural objection that

the earth does not now produce men, lions, and dogs, Epicurus re-

plies that the fecundity of the earth

is now exhausted. In advanced

age a woman ceases to bear chil- dren ; a piece of land never before cultivated produces much more during the few first years than it does afterwards ; and when a forest is once cut down, the soil never produces trees equal to those which have been rooted up. Those which are afterwards planted become dwarfish, and are perpetually de- generating. We are, however, he argues, by no means certain but there may be at present rabbits,

‘*In the first place, there is no reason to suppose that, though life had been imparted by natural means, after the first cooling of the surface to a suitable temperament, it would continue thereafter to be capable of being imparted in like manner, The great work of the peopling of this globe with living species is mainly a fact accom- plished: the highest known species came as a crowning effort thousands of yearsago. The work being thus to all appearance finished, we are not necessarily to expect that the origination of life and of species should be conspicuously exemplified in the present day. Weare rather

250 THE DEVELOPMENT HYPOTHESIS

James Hall ; basaltic columns rose for the future wonder of man, according to the principle which Dr Gregory Watt showed in operation before the eyes of our fathers ; and hoi- lows in the igneous rocks were filled with crystals, precisely as they could now be by virtue of electric action, as shown within the last few years by Crosse and Becquerel. The seas obeyed the impulse of gentle breezes, and rippled their sandy bottoms, as seas of the present day are doing ; the trees grew as now, by favour of sun and wind, thriving in good seasons, and pining in bad: this while the animals above fishes were vet to be created. The movements of the sea, the meteoro- logical agencies, the. disposition which we see in the gene- rality of plants to thrive when heat and moisture were most abundant, were kept up in silent serenity, as matters of sim- ply natural order, throughout the whole of the ages which saw reptiles enter in their various forms upon the sea and land. It was about the time of the first mammals that the forest of the Dirt-Bed was sinking in natural ruin amidst the sea-sludge, as forests of the Plantagenets have been doing for several centuries upon the coast of England. In short,

nares, foxes, bears, and other ani- mals, produced by the earth in their perfect state. The reason why we are backward in admitting it is, that it happens in retired places, and never falls under our view ; and, never seeing rats but such as have been produced by other rats, we adopt the opinion that the earth never produced any.” (Fenelon’s dives of the Ancient Philosophers.

to expect that the vital phenomena presented to our eyesshould mainly, if not entirely, be limited to a re- gular and unvarying succession of | races by the ordinary means of generation. This, however, is no more an argument against a time when phenomena of the first kind prevailed, than it would be a proof against the fact of a mature man having once been a growing youth, that he is now seen growing no longer. * * * Secondly, it is far from being certain that the pri- mnitive imparting of life and form to inorganic elements is not a fact of our times.” (Vestiges of Creation.)

IN ITS EMBRYONIC STATE. 251

_ all the common operations of the physical world were going on tn their usual simplicity, obeying that order which we still _ see governing them ; while the supposed extraordinary causes were in requisition for the development of the animal and _ yegetable kingdoms. There surely hence arises a strong pre- sumption against any such causes. It becomes much more _ likely that the latter phenomena were evolved in the manner _ of law also, and that we only dream of extraordinary causes here, as men once dreamt of a special action of Deity in _ every change of wind, and the results of each season, merely _ because they did not know the laws by which the events in - question were evolved.” - How, let us suppose, would David Hume,—the greatest thinker of which infidelity can boast,—have greeted the auxi- liary who could have brought him such an argument as a contribution to the cause? “Your objection, so far as you have stated it,” the philosopher might have said, “amounts _ simply to this :—Creation by direct act is a miracle ; whereas all that exists is propagated and maintained by natural law. _ Natural laws,—to vary the illustration,—were in full opera- tion at the period when the Author of the Christian religion was, it is said, engaged in working his miracles. When, ac- cording to our opponents, he walked upon the surface of the sea, Peter, through the operation of the natural law of gravi- tation, was sinking into it ; when he withered by a word the barren fig-tree, there were other trees on the Mount thriving, é in conformity with the vegetative laws, under the influence ¢ of sun and shower ; when he raised the dead Lazarus, there __-were corpses in the neighbouring tombs passing, through the natural putrefactive fermentation, into a state of utter decom- _ position. In fine, at the time when he was engaged, as Reid ie and Campbell believe, in working miracles in violation of 4 law, the laws of which these were a violation actually existed,

a

and were everywhere actively operative ; or, to employ your

id 3 a

a i t \

252 THE DEVELOPMENT HYPOTHESIS

owr words, when the New Testament miracles were, it is alleged, in the act of being wrought, ‘all the common opera- tions of the physical world were going on in their usual sim- plicity, obeying that order which we still see governing them.’ Such is the portion of your statement already made; what next?’ “Tt is surely very unlikely,” replies the auxiliary, “that in such a complex mass of phenomena there should have been two totally distinct modes of the exercise of the Divine power,—the mode by miracle and the mode by law.” “Unlikely !’ rejoins the philosopher ; “on what grounds ?” “O, just unlikely,” says the auxiliary ;—“ unlikely that God should be at once operating on matter through the agency of natural laws, of which man knows much, and through the agency of miraculous acts, of the nature of which man knows nothing. But I have not thought out the subject any farther : you have, in the statement already made, my entire argu by, “ Ay, I see,” the author of the ‘ Essay on Miracles” would probably have remarked ; “you deem it unlikely that Deity. should not only work in part, as he has always done, by means of which men,—clever fellows like you and me,—think they know a great deal, but that he should also work in part, as he has always done, by means of which they know nothing at all. Admirably reasoned out! You are, I make no doubt, a sound, zealous unbeliever in your private capacity, and your argument may have great weight with your own mind, and be, in consequence, worthy of encouragement in a small way ; but allow me to suggest that, for the sake of the general cause, it should be kept out of reach of the enemy. There are in the Churches militant on both sides of the Tweed shrewd combatants, who have nearly as much wit as our- selves.” I think I understand the reference of the author of the “ Vestiges” to the dream “ of a special action of Deity in every change of wind, and the results of each season.” Taken with what immediately goes before, it means something

|

ae a ee i

IN ITS EMBRYONIC STATE. 253

considerably different from those fancies of the “ untutored Indian,” who, according to the poet,

. ** Sees God in clouds, or hears Him in the wind.”

There is a school of infidelity, tolerably well known in the capital of Scotland as by far the most superficial which our country has yet seen, that measures mind with a tape-line and the callipers, and, albeit not Christian, laudably exem- plifies, in a loudly expressed regard for science, the Christian grace of loving its enemy. And the belief in a special Pro- vidence, who watches over and orders all things, and without whose permission there falleth not even a “sparrow to the ground,” the apostles of this school set wholly aside, substi- tuting, instead, a belief in the indiscriminating operation of natural laws ; as if, with the broad fact before them that even man can work out his will merely by knowing and directing these laws, the God by whom they were instituted should lack either the power or the wisdom to make them the pliant mi- nisters of his. It is, I fear, to the distinctive tenet in the creed of this hapless school that the author of the “ Vestiges” refers. Nor is it in the least surprising, that a writer who labours through two carefully written volumes* to destroy the existing belief in ‘‘God’s works of Creation,” should affect to hold that the belief in his “ works of Providence” had been destroyed already. But faith in a special superin- tendence of Deity is not yet dead: nay, more,—He who created the human mind took especial care, in its construc- tion, that, save in a few defective specimens of the race, the beiief should never die.

The author of the “ Vestiges” complains of the illiberality with which he has been treated. ‘It has appeared to various critics,” we find him saying, “that very sacred principies are threatened by a doctrine of universal law. A natural origin

~ * © Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation,” and “‘ Explanations being a Sequel to the Vestiges.”

254 THE DEVELOPMENT HYPOTHESIS

of life, and a natural basis in organization for the operations of the human mind, speak to them of fatalism and material- ism. And, strange to say, those who every day give views of physical cosmogony altogether discrepant in appearance with that of Moses, apply hard names to my book for sug- gesting an organic cosmogony in the same way, liable to in- considerate odium. I must firmly protest against this mode of meeting speculations regarding nature. The object of my book, whatever may be said of the manner in which it is treated, is purely scientific. The views which I give of the history of organization stand exactly on the same ground upon which the geological doctrines stood fifty years ago, Iam merely endeavouring to read aright another chapter of the mystic book which God has placed under the attention of his creatures. . . The absence of all liberality in my re. viewers is striking, and especially so in those whose geologi- cal doctrines have exposed them to similar misconstruction, If the men newly emerged from the odium which was thrown upon Newton’s theory of the planetary motions had rushed forward to turn that odium upon the patrons of the dawning science of Geology, they would have been prefiguring the con- duct of several of my critics, themselves hardly escaped from the rude hands of the narrow-minded, yet eager to join that rabble against a new and equally unfriended stranger, as if such were the best means of purchasing impunity for them- selves. J trust that a little time will enable the public to pe- netrate this policy.”

Now, there is one very important point to which the author of this complaint does not seem to have adverted. The as- tronomer founded his belief in the mobility of the earth and the immobility of the sun, not on a mere dream-like hypo- thesis, founded on nothing, but on a wide and solid base of pure induction. Galileo was no mere dreamer ;—he was a discoverer of great truths, and a profound reasoner regarding

“5 val ie pT OES

IN ITS EMBRYONIC STATE, 255 :

_ them: and on his discoveries and his reasonings, compelled _ by the inexorable laws of his mental constitution, did he build up certain deductive beliefs, which had no previous ex- | 4 istence in his mind. His convictions were consequents, not _ antecedents. Such, also, is the character of geological disco-

yery and inference, and of the existing belief,—their joint

_ production, —regarding the great antiquity of the globe. No

geologist worthy of the name began with the belief, and then set himself to square geological phenomena with its require- ments. It is a deduction,—a result ;—not the starting as-

sumption, or given sum, in a process of calculation, but its ultimate finding or answer. Clergymen of the orthodox

Churches, such as the Sumners, Sedgwicks, Bucklands, Cony- beares, and Pye Smiths of England, or the Chalmerses, Dun- cans, and Flemings of our own country, must have come to the study of this question of the world’s age with at least no bias in favour of the geological estimate. The old, and, as it has proven, erroneous reading of the Mosaic account, was by much too general a one early in the present century, not to have exerted upon them, in their character as ministers of religion, a sensible influence of a directly opposite nature, And the fact of the complete reversal of their original bias, and of the broad unhesitating finding on the subject which they ultimately substituted instead, serves to intimate to the uninitiated the strength of the evidence to which they sub- mitted. There can be nothing more certain than that it is minds of the same calibre and class, engaged in the same in- ductive track, that yielded in the first instance to the astro- nomical evidence regarding the earth's motion, and, in the second, to the geological evidence regarding the earth’s age.*

* The chapter in which this passage occurs originally appeared, with several of the others, in the ‘‘ Witness” newspaper, in a series of articles, entitled ‘‘ Rambles of a Geologist,” and drew forth the following letter from a correspondent of the ‘‘Scottish Press,” the organ of a powerful and

256 THE DEVELOPMENT IYPOTHESIS

But how very different the nature and history of the de- velopment hypothesis, and the character of the intellects with whom it originated, or by whom it has been since adopted !

thoroughly respectable section of the old Dissenters of Scotland. I pre-

sent it to the reader merely to show, that if, according to the author of the ‘‘ Vestiges,” geologists assailed the development hypothesis in the fond hope of ‘‘ purchasing impunity for themselves,” they would suc- ceed in securing only disappointment for their pains :—

*¢ THE PRE-ADAMITE EARTH. ** To the Editor of the ‘ Scottish Press.’

** Str,—I occasionally observe articles in your neighbour and contem- porary the ‘ Witness,’ characteristically headed ‘Rambles of a Geologist,’ wherein the writer with great zeal once more ‘ slays the slain’ heresies of the ‘ Vestiges of Creation.’ This writer (of the ‘ Rambles,’ I mean) nevertheless, and at the same time, announces his own tenets to be much of the same sort, as applied to mere dead matter, that those of the ‘ Ves- tiges’ are with regard to living organisms, He maintains that the world, during the last million of years, has been of itself rising or developing, without the interposition of a miracle, from chaos into its present state ; and, of course, as it is still, as a world, confessedly far below the acme of physical perfection, that it must be just now on its passage, self4pro- gressing, towards that point, which terminus it may reach in another million of years hence.[!!!] The author of the ‘ Vestiges,’ as quoted by the author of the ‘ Rambles,’ in the last number of the ‘ Witness,’ complains that the latter and his allies are not at all so liberal to him as, from their present. circumstances and position, he had a right to expect. He (the author of the ‘ Vestiges’) reminds his opponents that they themselves only lately emerged from the antiquated scriptural notions that our world was the direct and almost immediate construction of its Creator,—as much so, in fact, as any of its organized tenants, —and that it was then created in a state of physical excellence the highest possible, to render it a suitable habitation for these tenants, and all this only about six or seven thousand years ago,—to the new light of their present physico-Lamarckian views; and he asks, and certainly not with- out reason, why should these men, so circumstanced, be so anxious to stop him in his attempt to move one step farther forward in the very direc- tion they themselves have made the last move ?—that is, in his endeavour to extend their own principles of self-development from mere matter to living creatures. Now, Sir, I confess myself to be one of those (and

z * &

IN ITS EMBRYONIC STATE. 257

oad

In the first place, it existed as a wild dream ere Geology had any being as a science. It was an antecedent, not a conse-

quent,—a starting assumption, not a result. No one will

possibly you may have more readers similarly constituted) who not only cannot see any great difference between merely physical and organic

development [! !], but who would be inclined to allow the latter, absurd as itis, the advantage in point of likelihood. [!!!] The author of the

* Rambles,’ however, in the face of this, assures us that Ais views of physical self-development and long chronology belong to the inductive sciences. Now, I could at this stage of his rambles have wished very much that, instead of merely saying so, he had given his demonstration. He refers, indeed, to several great men, who, he says, are of his opinions. Most that these men have written on the question at issue I have seen, but it appeared far from demonstrative, and some of them, I know, had not fully made up their mind on the point. [!!!] Perhaps the author of the ‘ Rambles’ could favour us with the inductive process that converted himself ; and, as the attainment of truth, and not victory, is my object, I promise either to acquiesce in or rationally refute it. [?] “Till then I hold by my antiquated tenets, that our world, nay, the whole material universe, was created about six or seven thousand years ago, and that in a state of physical excellence of which we have in our present fallen world only the ‘ vestiges of creation.’ I conclude by mentioning that this view I have held now for nearly thirty years, and, amidst all the vicissi- tudes of the philosophical world during that period, I have never seen cause to changeit. Of course, with this view I was, during the interval referred to, a constant opponent of the once famous, though now ex-

_ploded, nebular hypothesis of La Place ; and I yet expect to see physical

development and long chronology wither also on this earth, now that THEIR RooT (the said hypothesis) has been eradicated from the sky. [! !!]—I am, Sir, your most obedient servant,

‘¢ PHILALETHES,””*

I am afraid there is little hope of converting a man who has held so stoutly by his notions ‘‘for nearly thirty years ;” especially as, during that period, he has been acquainting himself with what writers such as Drs Chalmers, Buckland, and Pye Smith have written on the other side.

* It now appears that, though this letter was inserted in the ‘Scottish Press,” the organ of the United Presbyterians, its writer is a Free Church- man. He has since published a good many other anti-geological letters, chiefly remarkable for their facts, to which, with a self-immolating zeal worthy of a better cause, he has attached his name.

R

258 THE DEVELOPMENT HYPOTHESIS

contend that Maillet was a geologist. Geology had no place among the sciences in the age in which he lived, and even no name. And yet there isa translation of his “Telliamed” now

But for the demonstration which he asks, as J have conducted it, I beg leave to refer him to the seventeenth chapter of my little work, ‘ First Impressions of England and its People.” I am, however, inclined to suspect that he is one of a class whose objections are destined to be re- moved rather by the operation of the laws of matter than of those of mind. For it is a comfortable consideration, that in this controversy the geologists have the laws of matter on their side ;—‘‘the stars in their courses fight against Sisera.” Their opponents now, like the opponents of the astronomer in the ages gone by, are, in most instances, men who had been studying the matter ‘‘for nearly thirty years.” When they study it for a few years longer, they disappear ; and the men of the same cast and calibre who succeed them are exactly the men who throw them- selves most confidently into the arms of the enemy, and look down upon their poor silent predecessors with the loftiest commiseration. It is, however, not uninstructive to remark how thoroughly, in some instances, the weaker friends and the wilier enemies of Revelation are at one ix their conclusions respecting natural phenomena. The correspondent of the ‘‘Scottish Press” merely regards the views of the author of the “‘ Ves- tiges” as possessing ‘‘ the advantage, in point of likelihood,” over those of the geologists his antagonists: his ally the Dean of York goes greatly farther, and stands up as stoutly for the transmutation of species as La- marckhimself. Descanting, in his ‘‘ New System of Geology,” onthe vari- ous forms of trilobites, ammonites, belemnites, &c., Dean Cockburnsays, —.

‘«' These creatures appear to have possessed the power of secreting from the stone beneath them a limy covering for their backs, and, perhaps, fed partly on the same solid material. Supposing, now, that the first trilobites were destroyed by the Llandeilo Slates, some spawn of these creatures would arise above these flags, and, after a time, would be warmed into existence. These molluscs, [!!] then, having a better ma- terial from which to extract their food and covering, would probably ex- pand in a slightly different form, and with a more extensive mantle than what belonged to the parent species. The same would be still more the case with a new generation, fed upon a new deposit from some deeper volcano, such as the Caradoc or Wenlock Limestone, in which lime more and more predominates. Now, if any one will examine the various prints of trilobites in Sir R. Murchison’s valuable work, he will find but very trifling differences in any of them, [!!] and those differences only in the stony covering of their backs. I knew two brothers once much alike: the one became a curate, with alarge family ; the other a London alder.

7

seen é

a ea ae 4 a

— rere) rid ae eee

IN ITS EMBRYONIC STATE. 259

lying before me, bearing date 1750, in which I find very

__ nearly the same account given of the origin of animals and

plants as that in the “ Vestiges,” and in which the sea is de-

_ scribed as that great and fruitful womb of nature in which

organization and life first began. Lamarck, at the time when

_ Maillet wrote, was a boy in his sixth year. He became, com-

paratively early in life, a skilful botanist and conchologist ;

_ but not until turned of fifty did he set himself to study gene-

ral zoology ; and his greater work on the invertebrate ani- mals, on which his fame as a naturalist chiefly rests, did not

begin to appear,—for it was published serially,—unti] the

year 1815. But this development hypothesis, identical with

man. If the skins of these two pachydermata had been preserved in a fossil state, there would have been less resemblance between them than between an Asaphus tyrannus and an Asaphus caudatus. * * * A careful and laborious investigation has discovered, as in the trilobites, a difference in the ammonites of different strata ; but such differences, as in the former case, exist only in the form of the external shell, and may be explained in the same manner. [!!] * * * Asto thescaphites, baculites, belemnites, and all the other ztes which learned ingenuity has so named, you find them in various strata the same in all important par- ticulars, but also differing slightly in their outward coverings, as might be expected from the different circumstances in which each variety was placed. [!!] The sheep in the warm valleys of Andalusia have a fine covering like to hair ; but remove them to a northern climate, and in a few generations the back is covered with shaggy wool. The animal is the same,—the covering only is changed. * * * The learned have classed those shells under the names of terebratula, orthis, atrypha, pec- ten, &c. They are all much alike. [!!!] It requires an experienced eye to distinguish them one from another: what little differences have been pointed out may readily be ascribed, as before, to difference of si- tuation.” [!!!]

- The author of the ‘‘ Vestiges,” with this, the fundamental portion of his case, granted to him by the Dean, will have exceedingly little diffi-

culty in making out the rest for himself. The passage is, however, not without its value, as illustrative of the darkness, in matters of physical

science, “‘ even darkness which may be felt,” that is suffered to linger,

in this the most scientific of ages, in the Church of Buckland, Sedgwick,

and Conybeare.

A, Sa ee

260 THE DEVELOPMENT HYPOTHESIS

that of the “ Vestiges,” was given to the world long before, —in 1802; ata time when it had not been ascertained that there existed placoids during the Silurian period, or ganoids during the Old Red Sandstone period, or enaliosaurs during the Oolitic period ; and when, though Smith had constructed his “Tabular View of the British Strata,” his map had not yet appeared, and there was little more known regarding the laws of superposition among the stratified rocks than was to be found in the writings of Werner. And if the presump-

tion be strong, in the circumstances, that Lamarck originated —

his development hypothesis ere he became in any very great degree skilful as a zoologist, it is no mere presumption, but a demonstrable truth, that he originated it ere he became a geologist ; for a geologist he never became. In common with Maillet and Buffon, he held by Leibnitz’s theory of a univer- sal ocean ; and such, as we have already seen, was his igno- rance of fossils, that he erected dermal fragments of the Rus- sian Asterolepis into a new genus of Polyparia,—an error into which the merest tyro in paleontology could not now fall. Such, in relation to these sciences, was the man who perfected the dream of development. Nor has the most distinguished of its Continental assertors now living,—Professor Oken,— any higher claim to be regarded as a disciple of the inductive school of Geology than Lamarck. In the preface to the re- cently published translation of his ‘‘ Physio-Philosophy,” we find the following curious confession :—‘“I wrote the first edition of 1810 in a kind of inspiration, and on that account it was not so well arranged as a systematic work ought to be. Now, though this may appear to have been amended in the second and third editions, yet still it was not possible for me to completely attain the object held in view. The book has therefore remained essentially the same as regards its funda- mental principles. It is only the empirical arrangement into series of plants and animals that has been modified from time

IN ITS EMBRYONIC STATE, 261

~!

to time, in accordance with the scientific elevation of their se- _ vweral departments, or just as discoveries and anatomical inves- a tigations have increased, and rendered some other position of __ the objects a matter of necessity.” An interesting piece of evidence this ; but certainly rather simple as a confession. It will be found that, while whatever gives value to the “Phy- _ sio-Philosophy” of the German professor (a work which, if _ divested of all the inspired bits, would be really a good one) was acquired either before or since its first appearance in the ordinary way, its development hypothesis came direct from the god. Further, as I have already had occasion to state, Oken holds, like Lamarck and Maillet, by the universal ocean _ of Leibnitz: he holds also, that the globe is a vast crystal, just a little flawed in the facets ; and that the three granitic components,—quartz, feldspar, and mica,—are simply the hail-drops of heavy stone showers that shot athwart the ori- ginal ocean, and accumulated into rock at the bottom, as snow or hail shoots athwart the upper atmosphere, and accumulates, in the form of ice, on the summits of high hills, or in the arctic or antarctic regions. Such, in the present day, are the geological notions of Oken! They were doubtless all pro- mulgated in what is modestly enough termed “a kind of in- spiration ;” and there are few now so ignorant of Geology as not to know that the possessing agent in the case,—for imspt- ration is not quite the proper word,—must have been at least of kin to that ingenious personage who volunteered of old to be a lying spirit in the mouths of the four hundred prophets. And the well-known fact, that the most popular contempo- rary expounder of Oken’s hypothesis,—the author of the “V estiges,”—has in every edition of his work been correct- ing, modifying, or altogether withdrawing his statements re- garding both geological and zoological phenomena, and that his gradual development as a geologist and zoologist, from the sufficiently low type of acquirement to which his first edi-

ee eee ~* ~< tot a ie is Ss. ‘ ¥ ,

SSS one + .- — a

265 THE DEVELOPMENT HYPOTHESIS

tion bore witness. may be traced, in consequence, with a dis- tinctness and certainty which we in vain seek in the cases of presumed development which he would so fain establish,— has in its bearing exactly the same effect. His development hypothesis was complete at a time when his geology and zoology were rudimental and imperfect. Give me your facts, said the Frenchman, that I may accommodate them to my theory. And no one can look at the progress of the La- marckian hypothesis, with reference to the dates when, and the men by whom, it was promulgated, without recognising in it one of perhaps the most striking embodiments of the Frenchman’s principle which the world ever saw. It is not the illiberal religionist that rejects and casts it off;—it is the inductive philosopher. Science addresses its assertors in the language of the possessed to the sons of Sceva the Jew :— “The astronomer I know, and the geologist I know ; but who are ye?”

One of the strangest passages in the “ Sequel to the Ves- tiges,” is that in which its author carries his appeal from the tribunal of science to “another tribunal,” indicated but not named, before which “this new philosophy” [remarkable chiefly for being neither philosophy nor new] “‘is to be truly and righteously judged.” The principle is obvious, on which, were his opponents mere theologians, wholly unable, though they saw the mischievous character and tendency of his con- clusions, to disprove them scientifically, he might appeal from theology to science: “it is with scientific truth,” he might urge, “not with moral consequences, that I have aught to do.” But on what allowable principle, professing, as he does, to found his theory on scientific fact, can he appeal from science to the want of it? ‘ After discussing,” he says, “the whole arguments on both sides in so ample a manner, it may be hardly necessary to advert to the objection arising from the mere fact, that nearly all the scientific men are opposed

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IN ITS EMBRYONIC STATE. 263

_ to the theory of the ‘Vestiges.’ As this objection, however, _ is likely to be of some avail with many minds, it ought not tobe entirely passed over. If I did not think there were rea- sons, independent of judgment, for the scientific class comin g _ so generally to this conclusion, I might feel the more embar- assed in presenting myself in direct opposition to so many _ men possessing talents and information. As the case really _ stands, the ability of this class to give at the present a true _ response upon such a subject appears extremely challengeable. It is no discredit to them that they are, almost without ex- ception, engaged each in his own little department of science,

_ and able to give little or no attention to other parts of that vast field. From year to year, and from age to age, we see _ them at work, adding, no doubt, much to the known, and ad- vancing many important interests, but at the same time doing little for the establishment of comprehensive views of nature. Experiments in however narrow a walk, facts of whatever minuteness, make reputations in scientific societies : all be- yond is regarded with suspicion and distrust. The conse- quence is, that philosophy, as it exists amongst us, does no- thing to raise its votaries above the common ideas of their time. There can therefore be nothing more conclusive against our hypothesis in the disfavour of the scientific class, than in that of any other section of educated men.”

This is surely a very strange statement. Waiving alto- gether the general fact, that great original discoverers in any department of knowledge are never men of one science or one faculty, but possess, on the contrary, breadth of mind and multiplicity of acquirement ;—waiving, too, the particu- lar fact, that the more distinguished original discoverers of the present day rank among at once its most philosophic, most elegant, and most extensively informed writers ;— granting, for the argument’s sake, that our scientific men are men of narrow acquirement, and “ exclusively engaged, each

264 THE DEVELOPMENT HYPOTHESIS

in his own little department of science ;’—it is surely ra- tional to hold, notwithstanding, that in at least these little departments they have a better right to be heard than any other class of persons whatever. We must surely not refuse

to the man of science what we at once grant to the common

mechanic. A cotton-weaver or calico-printer may be a very narrow man, “ exclusively engaged in his own little depart- ment ;” and yet certain it is that, in a question of cotton- weaving or of calico-printing, his evidence is justly deemed more conclusive in courts of law than that of any other man, however much his superior in general breadth and intelligence. And had the author of the “ Vestiges” founded his hypo- thesis on certain facts pertaining to the arts of cotton-weav- ing and calico-printing, the cotton-weaver and calico-printer would have an indisputable right to be heard on the ques- tion of their general correctness. Are we to regard the case as different because it is on facts pertaining to science, not to cotton-weaving or calico-printing, that he’ professes to found? His hypothesis, unless supported by scientific evi- dence, is a mere dream,—a fiction as baseless and wild as any in the “ Fairy Tales” or the “ Arabian Nights.” And, fully sensible of the fact, he calls in as witnesses the physical sciences, and professes to take down their evidence. He calls into court Astronomy, Geology, Phytology, and Zoology. “Hold !” exclaims the astronomer, as the examination goes on; “you are taking the evidence of my special science most unfairly: I challenge a right of cross-examining the witness.” ‘“ Hold !” cries the geologist ; “ you are putting my science to the question, and extorting from it, in its agony,

a whole series of fictions : I claim the right of examining it —

fairly and softly, and getting from it just the sober truth, and nothing more.” And the phytologist and zoologist urge exact- ly similar claims. ‘‘ No, gentlemen,” replies the author of the “ Vestiges ;” “ you are narrow men, confined each of you

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IN ITS EMBRYONIC STATE. 265.

to own little department, and so I will not permit you to r examine the witnesses.” “What!” rejoin the men of science, “not permit us to examine our own witnesses !—re- fuse to us what you would at once concede to the cotton- weaver or the calico-printer, were the question one of cotton- weaving or of calico-printing! We are surely not much nar- rower men than the man of cotton or the man of calico. It is but in our own little departments that we ask to be heard.” “ But you shall not be heard, gentlemen,” says the author of ‘the “Vestiges :” “at all events, I shall not care one farthing for anything you say. For observe, gentlemen, my hypothe- sis is nothing without the evidence of your sciences ; and you al unite, I see, in taking that evidence from me; and so I confidently raise my appeal in this matter to people who know nothing about either you or your sciences. It must be before another tribunal that the new philosophy is to be truly and righteously judged.” Alas ! what can this mean ? _or where are we to seek for that tribunal of last resort to _ which this ingenious man refers with such confidence the con- sideration of his case? Can it mean, that he appeals from _ the only class of persons qualified to judge of his facts, to a _ class ignorant of these, but disposed by habits of previous scepticism to acquiesce in his conclusions, and take his pre- mises for granted ;—that he appeals from astronomers and Ba geologists to low-minded materialists and shallow phrenolo- gers,—from phytologists and zoologists to mesmerists and phreno-mesmerists 4 I remember being much struck, several years ago, by a re- mark dropped in conversation by the late Rev. Mr Stewart — of Cromarty, one of the most original-minded men I ever knew. “In reading in my Greek New Testament this morn- _ ing,” he said, “I was curiously impressed by a thought which, simple as it may seem, never occurred to me before. The portion which I perused was in the First Epistle of Peter ;

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266 THE DEVELOPMENT HYPOTHESIS

and as I passed from the thinking of the passage to the lan- — guage in which it is expressed, —‘ This Greek of the untaught — Galilean fisherman,’ I said, ‘so admired by scholars and ~ critics for its unaffected dignity and force, was not acquired, — as that of Paul may have been, in the ordinary way, bui — formed a portion of the Pentecostal gift! Here, then, im- — mediately under my eye, on these pages, are there embodied, — not, as in many other parts of the Scriptures, the mere de- tails of a miracle, but the direct results of a miracle. How ~ strange! Had the old tables of stone been placed before me, with what an awe-struck feeling would I have looked on the characters traced upon them by God’s own finger! Howis © it that I have failed to remember, that in the language of — these Epistles, miraculously impressed by the Divine power — upon the mind, I possessed as significant and suggestive a — relic as that which the inscription miraculously impressed by — the Divine power upon the stone could possibly have fur- — nished ?” It was a striking thought; and in the course of our walk, which led us over richly fossiliferous beds of the — Old Red Sandstone, to a deposit of the Eathie Lias, largely — charged with the characteristic remains of that formation, I. ventured to connect it with another. “In either case,” I — remarked, as we seated ourselves beside a sea-cliff, sculptured — over with the impressions of extinct plants and shells, “your — relics, whether of the Pentecostal Greek or of the characters inscribed on the old tables of stone, could address themselves _ to but previously existing belief. The sceptic would see in the Sinaitic characters, were they placed before him, merely — the work of an ordinary tool ;. and in the Greek of Peter and — John, a well-known language, acquired, he would hold, inthe common way. But what say you to the relics that stand out in such bold relief from the rocks beside us, in their character as the results of miracle? The perished tribes and races — which they represent all began to exist. There 1s no truth —

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IN ITS EMBRYONIC STATE. 267

w hich science can more conclusively demonstrate than that they had all a beginning. The infidel who, in this late age ef the world, would attempt falling back on the fiction of an i infinite series,’ would be laughed to scorn. They all began tobe. But how? No true geologist holds by the develop- ment hypothesis ;—it has been resigned to sciolists and smat- terers ;—and there is but one other alternative. They began to be, through the miracle of creation. From the evidence furnished by these rocks we are shut down either to the be- lief in miracle, or to the belief in something else infinitely harder of reception, and as thoroughly unsupported by: testi- mony as it is contrary to experience. Hume is at length answered by the severe truths of the stony science. He was - not, according to Job, ‘in league with the stones of the field,’ and they have risen in irresistible warfare against him in the

Creator’s behalf.”

2638 FINAL CAUSES : THEIR BEARING

FINAL CAUSES: THEIR BEARING ON GEOLOGIC HISTORY.

CONCLUSION.

“ Natura History has a principle on which to reason,” says — Cuvier, “ which is peculiar to it, and which it employs advan- tageously on many occasions: it is that of the conditions of existence, commonly termed final causes.” , In Geology, which is Natural History extended over all ages, this principle has a still wider scope,—embracing not — merely the characteristics and conditions of the beings which now exist, but of all, so far as we can learn regarding them, which have ever existed, and involving the consideration of not merely their peculiarities as races placed before us with- out relation to time, but also of the history of their rise, in- crease, decline, and extinction. In studying the biography, if I may so express myself, of an individual animal, we have to acquaint ourselves with the circumstances in which nature has placed it,—its adaptation to these, both in structure and instinct,—the points of resemblance which it presents to the individuals of other races and families,—and the laws which determine its terms of development, vigorous existence, and decay. And all Natural History, when restricted to the pass-

ON GEOLOGIC HISTORY. 269

od

_ ing now of the world’s annals, is simply a congeries of bio- _ graphies. It is when we extend our view into the geologi- _ cal field that it passes from biography into history proper, and

that we have to rise from the consideration of the birth and

| death of individuals, which, in all mere biographies, form the _ great terminal events that constitute beginning and end, to

a survey of the birth and death of races, and the elevation

_ or degradation of dynasties and sub-kingdoms.

_ We learn from human history that nations are as certainly

_mortalas men, ‘They enjoy a greatly longer term of exist- _ ence, but they die at last : Rollin’s “ History of Ancient Na- _ tions” is a history of the dead. And we are taught by geo-

logical history, in like manner, that species are as mortal as individuals and nations, and that even genera and families

= become extinct. There is no man upon earth at the present moment whose age greatly exceeds an hundred years ;—there

is no nation now upon earth (if we perhaps except the long-

lived Chinese) that also flourished three thousand years ago ; —there is no species now living upon earth that dates beyond the times of the Tertiary deposits. All bear the stamp of death,—individuals,—nations,—species ; and we may scarce less safely predicate, looking upon the past, that it is ap- pointed for nations and species to die, than that it “is ap- pointed for man once to die.” Even our own species, as now constituted,—with instincts that conform to the original injunction, “increase and multiply,” and that, in consequence, “marry and are given in marriage,”—shail one day cease to exist : a fact not less in accordance with beliefs inseparable from the faith of the Christian, than with the widely-founded experience of the geologist. Now, it is scarce possible for the human mind to become acquainted with the fact, that at certain periods species began to exist, and then, after the lapse of untold ages, ceased to be, without inquiring whether, from the “conditions of existence, commonly termed final causes,”

270 FINAL CAUSES : THEIR BEARING

we cannot deduce a reason for their rise or decline, or why — their term of being should have been included rather in one — certain period of time than another. The same faculty which — finds employment in tracing to their causes the rise and fail — of nations, and which it is the merit of the philosophic his- : torian judiciously to exercise, will to a certainty seek em- ployment in this department of history also ; and that there — will be an appetency for such speculations in the public mind, we may infer from the success, as a literary undertaking, of the “ Vestiges of Creation,’—a work that bears the same e sort of relation, in this special field, to sober inquiry founded 5 on the true conditions of things, that the legends of the old chroniclers bore to authentic history. The progressive state of geologic science has hitherto militated against the forma- f tion of theory of the soberer character. Its facts,—still merely in the forming,—are necessarily imperfect in their — classification, and limited in their amount; and thus the — essential data continues incomplete. Besides, the men best + acquainted with the basis of fact which already exists have quite enough to engage them in adding toit. But there are # limits to the field of palzeontological discovery, in its relation — to what may be termed the chronology of organized exist-— tence, which, judging from the progress of the science in the | past, may be well-nigh reached in favoured localities, such as the British islands, in about a quarter of a century from the present time ; and then, I doubt not, geological history, in legitimate conformity with the laws of mind, and from the — existence of the pregnant principle peculiar, according to Cuvier, to that science of which Geology is simply an exten- — sion, will assume a very extraordinary form. We cannot — yet aspire ‘to the height of this great argument ;” our foun- dations are in parts still unconsolidated and incomplete, and unfitted to sustain the perfect superstructure which shall one day assuredly rise upon them ; but from the little which we

ON GEOLOGIC HISTORY. 271

can now see, “as if in a glass darkly,” enough appears from _ which to | * Assert eternal Providence, And justify the ways of God to man.” The history of the four great monarchies of the world was ty pifed, in the prophetic dream of the ancient Babylonish _ King, by a colossal image, “terrible in its form and bright- ness, of which the “‘ head was of pure gold,” the “ breast and arms of silver,” the “ belly and thighs of brass,” and the legs anc feet “of iron, and of iron mingled with clay.” The _ visicn in which it formed the central object was appropriately _ that of a puissant monarch ; and the image itself typified the j I ereély human monarchies of the earth. It would require a Ww vad different figure to symbolize the great monarchies of _ creation. And yet Revelation does furnish such a figure. 3 3 ft is that which was witnessed by the captive prophet beside F “the river Chebar,” when “the heavens were opened, and 9 he saw visions of God.” ~ In that chariot of Deity, glowing _ in fire and amber, with its complex wheels “so high that _ they were dreadful,” set round about with eyes, there were a 1 iving creatures, of whose four faces three were brute and _ one human ; and high over all sat the Son of Man. It would _ almost seem as if, in this sublime vision,—in which, with _ features distinct enough to impress the imagination, there _ mingle the elements of an awful incomprehensibility, and - which even the genius of Raffaelle has failed adequately to portray, —the history of all the past.and of all the future had been symbolized. In the order of Providence intimated in the geologic record, the brute faces, as in the vision, out- _ number the human ;—the human dynasty is one, and the dynasties of the inferior animals are three ; and yet who can _ doubt that they all equally compose parts of a well-ordered | and perfect whole, as the four faces formed but one cheru- bim; that they have been moving onward io a definite goal,

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272 FINAI CAUSES : THEIR BEARING

in the unity of one grand harmonious design,—now “lifted — ap high” over the comprehension of earth,—now let down — to its humble level ; and that the Creator of all has been ever — seated over them on the throne of his providence,—a “like- ness in the appearance of a man,”—embodying the perfec- — tion of his nature in his workings, and determining the end from the beginning ? 4

There is geologic evidence, as has been shown, that in the — course of creation the higher orders succeeded the lower. [We have no good reason to believe that the molluse and crustacean preceded the fish, seeing that discovery, in its slow — course, has already traced the vertebrata in the ichthyic form, — down to deposits which only a few years ago were regarded ; as representative of the first beginnings of organized exist- ence on our planet, and that it has at the same time failed to — add a lower system to that in which their remains occur. |* — But the fish seems most certainly to have preceded the rep- — tile and the bird ; the reptile and the bird to have preceded — the mammiferous quadruped ; and the mammiferous quadru- ped to have preceded man,—rational, accountable man, whom _ God created in his own image,—the much-loved Benjamin of — the family,—last-born of all creatures. It is of itself an — extraordinary fact, without reference to other considerations, — that the order adopted by Cuvier, in his animal kingdom, as — that in which the four great classes of vertebrate animals, — when marshalled according to their rank and standing, natu- — cally range, should be also that in which they occur in order — of time. The brain which bears an average proportion to | the spinal cord of not more than two to one came first,—it is the brain of the fish ; that which bears to the spinal cord

* This conclusion is of course founded on the erroneous testimonies given in chapter sixth. There does appear to be evidence that the mollusc and crustacean preceded the fish ; but this harmonizes with the progressive order of creation.—L. M.

Neth ee NI dS IS a

ON GEOLOGIC HISTORY. 273

-_

an average proportion of two and a half to one succeeded it,

— it is the brain of the reptile ; then came the brain ave- raging as three to one,—it is that of the bird ; next in suc- cession came the brain that averages as four to one,—it is

_ that of the mammal ; and last of all there appeared a brain

that averages as twenty-three to one,—reasoning, calculating

- man had come upon the scene, All the facts of geological

science are hostile to the Lamarckian conclusion, that the lower brains were developed into the higher. As if with

‘ _ the express intention of preventing so gross a mis-reading of

the record, we find, in at least two classes of animals,—fishes

and reptiles,—the higher races placed at the beginning : the

slope of the inclined plane is laid, if one may so speak, in the reverse way, and, instead of rising towards the level of the succeeding class, inclines downwards, with at least the effect, if not the design, of making the break where they meet ex- ceedingly well marked and conspicuous. And yet the record does seem to speak of development and progression ;—not, however, in the province of organized existence, but in that of insensate matter subject to the purely chemical laws. It is in the style and character of the dwelling-place that gradual

improvement seems to have taken place,—not in the func-

tions or the rank of any class of its inhabitants ; and it is with special reference to this gradual improvement in our common mansion-house the earth, in its bearing on the “conditions of existence,” that not a few of our reasonings regarding the introduction and extinction of speciesand genera must proceed.

That definite period at which man was introduced upon the scene seems to have been specially determined by the conditions of correspondence which the phenomena of his habitation had at length come to assume with the predestined constitution of his mind. The large reasoning brain would have been wholly out of place in the earlier ages. It is in- dubitably the nature of man to base the conclusions which

§

274 FINAL CAUSES : THEIR BEARING

regulate all his actions on fixed phenomena ;—he reasons from cause to effect, or from effect to cause ; and, when placed in circumstances in which, from some lack of the necessary basis, he cannot so reason, he becomes a wretched, timid, superstitious creature, greatly more helpless and abject than even the inferior animals. This unhappy state is strikingly exemplified by that deep and peculiar impression made on the mind by a severe earthquake, which Humboldt, from his own experience, so powerfully describes. ‘ This impression,” he says, “is not, in my opinion, the result of a recollection of those fearful pictures of devastation presented to our ima- gination by the historical narratives of the past, but is rather due to the sudden revelation of the delusive nature of the inherent faith by which we had clung to a belief in the im- mobility of the solid parts of the earth. We are accustomed

from early childhood to draw a contrast between the mobility

of water and the immobility of the soil on which we tread ; and this feeling is confirmed by the evidence of our senses. When, therefore, we suddenly feel the ground move beneath us, a mysterious force, with which we were previously un- acquainted, is revealed to us as an active disturber of stabi- lity. A moment destroys the illusion of a whole life ; our deceptive faith in the repose of mature vanishes ; and we feel transported into a realm of unknown destructive forces

Every sound—the faintest motion of the air—arrests our

attention, and we no longer trust the ground on which we stand. There is an idea conveyed to the mind, of some uni- versal and unlimited danger. We may flee from the crater of a volcano in active eruption, or from the dwelling whose destruction is threatened by the approach of the lava stream ; but in an earthquake, direct our flight whithersoever we will, we still feel as if we trod upon the very focus of destruction.” Not less striking is the testimony of Dr Tschudi, in his “Travels in Peru,” regarding this singular effect of earth-

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ON GEOLOGIC HISTORY. 275

quakes on the human mind. “ No familiarity with the phe- ‘ nomenon can,” he remarks, “blunt the feeling. The inha- _ bitant of Lima, who from childhood has frequently witnessed } these convulsions of nature, is roused from his sleep by the shock, and rushes from his apartment with the cry of ‘ Mi- sericordia ? The foreigner from the north of Europe, who _ knows nothing of earthquakes but by description, waits with _ impatience to feel the movements of the earth, and longs to hear with his own ear the subterranean sounds, which he has hitherto considered fabulous, With levity he treats the ap- _ prehension of a coming convulsion, and laughs at the fears of _ the natives ; but as soon as his wish is gratified, he is terror- stricken, and is involuntarily prompted to seek safety in - flight.” _ Now, a partially consolidated planet, tempested by frequent _ earthquakes of such terrible potency, that those of the historic _ ages would be but mere ripples of the earth’s surface in com- parison, eould be no proper home for a creature so constituted. _ The fish or reptile,—animals of a limited range of instinct, _ exceedingly tenacious of life in most of their varieties, ovi- _ parous, prolific, and whose young immediately on their escape from the egg can provide for themselves,—might enjoy exist- ence in such circumstances, to the full extent of their narrow capacities ; and when sudden death fell upon them,—though _ their remains, scattered over wide areas, continue to exhibit that distortion of posture incident to violent dissolution, which

a clude there was but little real suffering in the case: they _ were happy up to a certain point, and unconscious for ever after. Fishes and reptiles were the proper inhabitants of our 6. Sab during the ages of the earth-tempests.; ; and when, br these had become 4 less frequent and terrible, the higher cagiiirals were intro- : duced. That prolonged ages of these tempests did exist, and

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276 FINAL CAUSES : THEIR BEARING

that they gradually settled down, until the state of things became at length comparatively fixed and stable, few geolo- gists will be disposed to deny. The evidence which supports this special theory of the development of our planet in its | capabilities as a scene of organized and sentient being, seems palpable at every step. Look first at these Grauwacke rocks ; and, after marking how in one place the strata have been up- turned on their edges for miles together, and how in another the Plutonic rock has risen molten from below, pass on to the Old Red Sandstone, and examine its significant platforms — of violent death,—its faults, displacements, and dislocations ; see, next, in the Coal Measures, those evidences of sinking and ever-sinking strata, for thousands of feet together ; mark in the Oolite those vast overlying masses of trap, stretching athwart the landscape, far as the eye can reach; observe carefully how the signs of convulsion and catastrophe gradually lessen as we descend to the times of the Tertiary, though even in these ages of the mammiferous quadruped the earth must have had its oft-recurring ague fits of frightful intensity ; and then, on closing the survey, consider how exceedingly partial and unfrequent these earth-tempests have become in ‘the recent periods. Yes; we find everywhere marks of at once progression and identity,—of progress made, and yet identity maintained ; but it is in the habitation that we find them,—not in the inhabitants. There is a tract of country in Hindustan that contains nearly as many square miles as — all Great Britain, covered to the depth of hundreds of feet by one vast overflow of trap. A tract similarly overflown, which exceeds in area all England, occurs in Southern Africa, — The earth’s surface is roughened with such,—mottled as thickly by the Plutonic masses as the skin of the leopard by — its spots. The trap district which surrounds our Scottish — metropolis, and imparts so imposing a character to its scenery, is too inconsiderable to be marked on geological maps of the

ON GEOLOGIC HISTORY, 277

world, that we yet see streaked and speckled with similaz

memorials, though on an immensely vaster scale, of the erup-

_ tionand overflow which took place during the earthquake ages. _ What could man have done on the globe at a time when such _ outbursts were comparatively common occurrences? What

could he have done where Edinburgh now stands, during that overflow of trap porphyry of which the Pentland range forms

_ but a fragment, or that outburst of greenstone of which but _ a portion remains in the dark ponderous coping of Salisbury _ Crags, or when the thick floor of rock on which the city stands

was broken up, like the ice of an arctic sea during a tempest in spring, and laid on edge from where it leans against the

_ Castle Hill to beyond the quarries at Joppa? The reasoning

brain would have been wholly at fault in a scene of things

_ in which it could neither foresee the exterminating calamity _ while yet distant, nor control it when it had come ; and so

the reasoning brain was not produced until the scene had undergone a slow but thorough process of change, during which, at each progressive stage, it had furnished a platform

for higher and still higher life. When the conifer could

flourish on the land, and fishes subsist in the seas, fishes and cone-bearing plants were created ; when the earth became a

_ fit habitat for reptiles and birds, reptiles and birds were pro-

duced ; with the dawn of a more stable and mature state of things the sagacious quadruped was ushered in ; and, last of

all, when man’s house was fully prepared for him,—when the

a vie |

oapeecti dail nana

data on which it is his nature to reason and calculate had become fixed and certain,—the reasoning, calculating brain was moulded by the creative finger, and man became a living soul. Such seems to be the true reading of the wondrous inscription chiselled deep in the rocks. It furnishes us with no clue by which to unravel the unapproachable mysteries of creation ;—these mysteries belong to the wondrous Creator, and to Him only. We attempt to theorize upon them, and

278 FINAL CAUSES : THEIR BEARING

to reduce them to law, and all nature rises up against us in our presumptuous rebellion, A stray splinter of cone-bear- ing wood,—a fish’s skull or tooth,—the vertebra of a reptile, —the humerus of a bird,—the jaw of a quadruped,—all, any of these things, weak and insignificant as they may seem, become in such a quarrel too strong for us and our theory : the puny fragment, in the grasp of truth, forms as irresistible a weapon as the dry bone did in that of Samson of old ; and our slaughtered sophisms lie piled up, “ heaps upon heaps,” before it.

There is no geological fact nor revealed doctrine with which this special scheme of development does not agree. To every truth, too, really such, from which the antagonist scheme de- rives its shadowy analogies, it leaves its full value. It has no quarrel with the facts of even the “ Vestiges,” in their character as realities. There is certainly something very ex- traordinary in that foetal progress of the human brain on which the assertors of the development hypothesis have found- edso much, Nature, in constructing this curious organ, first lays down a grooved cord, as the carpenter lays down the keel of his vessel ; and on this narrow base the perfect brain, as month after month passes by, is gradually built up, like the vessel from the keel. First it grows up into a brain closely resembling that of a fish ; a few additions more con- vert it into a brain undistinguishable from that of a reptile; a few additions more impart to it the perfect appearance of

the brain of a bird; it then developes into a brain exceed-

ingly like that of a mammiferous quadruped ; and, finally, expanding atop, and spreading out its deeply-corrugated lobes, till they project widely over the base, it assumes its unique character as a human brain. Radically such from the first, it passes towards its full development through all the inferior forms, from that of the fish upwards,—thus comprising, dur- ing its foetal progress, an epitome of geologic history, as if

ON GEOLOGIC HISTORY 279

ai

~ each man were in himself, not the microcosm of the old fan- eiful philosopher, but something greatly more wonderful,—a compendium of all animated nature, and of kin to every crea- _ ture that lives. Hence the remark, that man is the sum total of all animals,—“ the animal equivalent,” says Oken, “to the whole animal kingdom.” We are perhaps too much in the habit of setting aside real facts, when they have been first seized upon by the infidel, and appropriated to the pur- poses of unbelief, as if they had suffered contamination in his hands. We forget, like the brother ‘“ weak in the faith,” instanced by the Apostle, that they are in themselves “ crea- tures of God ;’ and too readily reject the lesson which they teach, simply because they have been offered in sacrifice to an idol. And this strange fact of the progress of the human brain is assuredly a fact none the less worth looking at from the circumstance that infidelity has looked at it first. On no principle recognisable in right reason can it be urged in sup- port of the development hypothesis ;—it is a fact of fetal development, and of that only. But it would be well should it lead our metaphysicians to inquire whether they have not been rendering their science too insulated and exclusive ; and whether the mind that works by a brain thus “fearfully and wonderfully made,” ought not to be viewed rather in connec- tion with all animated nature, especially as we find nature exemplified in the various vertebral forms, than as a thing fundamentally abstract and distinct. The brain built up of all the types of brain, may be the organ of a mind compound- ed, if I may so express myself, of all the varieties of mind. It would be perhaps over fanciful to urge that it is the crea- ture who has made himself free of all the elements whose brain has been thus in succession that of all their proper denizens ; and that there is no animal instinct, the function of which cannot be illustrated by some art mastered by man: but there can be nothing over fanciful in the suggestion,

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280 FINAL CAUSES : THEIR BEARING

founded on this fact of foetal development, that possibly some of the more obscure signs impressed upon the human cha- racter may be best read through the spectacles of natural science. The successive phases of the foetal brain give at least fair warning that, in tracing to its first principles the moral and intellectual nature of man, what is properly his “ natural history” should not be overlooked. Oken, after describing the human creature in one passage as “ equivalent to the whole animal kingdom,” designates him in another as “ God wholly manifested,” and as ‘‘ God become man ;”—a style of expression at which the English reader may start, as that of the “ big mouth speaking blasphemy,” but which has become exceedingly common among the rationalists of the Continent. The irreverent. naturalist ought surely to have remembered, that the sum total of all the animals cannot be different in its nature from the various sums of which it is an aggregate,—seeing that no summation ever differs in guality from the items summed up which compose it,—and that, though it may amount in this case to man the animal,—to man as he may be weighed, and measured, and subjected to the dissecting knife,—it cannot possibly amount to God. Is God merely a sum total of birds and beasts, reptiles and fishes, —a mere Egyptian deity, composed of fantastic hieroglyphics derived from the forms of the brute creation? The impieties of the transcendentalist may, however, serve to illustrate that mode of seizing on terms which, as the most sacred in the message of revelation, have been long coupled in the popular mind with saving truths, and forcibly compelling them to bear some visionary and illusive meaning, wholly foreign to that with which they were originally invested, which has become so remarkable a part of the policy of modern infidelity. Ra- tionalism has learned to sacrifice to Deity with a certain mea- sure of conformity to the required pattern ; but it is a con- formity in appearance only, not in reality ; the sacrifice al-

— —

ON GEOLOGIC HISTORY. 281

_ ways resembles that of Prometheus of old, who presented to

_ Jupiter what, though it seemed to be an ox without blemish,

_ was merely an ox-skin stuffed full of bones and garbage.

There is another very remarkable class of facts in geolo- gical history, which appear to fall as legitimately within the _ scope of argument founded on final causes, as those which bear on the appearance of man at his proper era. The period of the mammiferous quadrupeds seems, like the succeeding human period, to have been determined, as I have said, by the earth’s fitness at the time as a place of habitation for creatures so formed. And the bulk to which, in the more extreme cases, they attained, appears to have been regulated, as in the higher mammals now, with reference to the force of gravity at the earth’s surface. The Megatherium and the

_ Mastodon, the Dinotherium and the extinct elephant, in-

creased in bulk, in obedience to the laws of the specific con- stitution imparted to them at their creation ; and these laws - bore reference, in turn, to another law,—that law of gravity which determines that no creature which moves in air and © treads the surface of the earth should exceed a certain weight or size. To very near the limits assigned by this law some of the ancient quadrupeds arose. It is even doubtful whether the Dinotherium, the most gigantic of mammals, may not have been, like the existing sea-lions and morses, mainly an aquatic quadruped ;*—an inference grounded on the circum- stance that, in at least portions of its framework, it seems to have risen beyond these limits. Now, it does not seem won- derful that, with apparent reference to the point at which

* The great Dinotherium (dreadful beast), a beast furnished with large fusks turned downwards like those of the walrus, but fixed to the lower jaws, possibly belonged to the Sirenia (mermaid animals), This animal inhabited the embouchures of great rivers, and used the enormous tusks

of the lower jaw for uprooting aquatic plants, on which it fed.— ‘‘ Old Bones,” by the Rev. W. S. Symmonds. Published in March 1861.— L. M.

282 FINAL CAUSES : THEIR BEARING

the gravity of bodies at the earth’s surface bisects the condi- tions of texture and matter necessary to existence among the sub-aerial vertebrata, the reptiles of the Secondary periods should have grown up in some of their species and genera to the extreme size. A world of frogs, newts, and lizards would have borne stamped upon it the impress of a tame and miserable mediocrity, that would have harmonized ill with the extent of the earth’s capabilities for supporting life on a large scale. There would be no principle of adaptation or rule of proportion maintained between an animal kingdom composed of so contemptible a group of beings, and either the dynamic laws under which matter exists on our planet, or the luxuriant vegetation which it bore during the Second- ary ages. And such was not the character of the group which composed the reptile dynasty. The Iguanodon must have been quite as tall as the elephant,—greatly longer, and, it would seem, at least as bulky. The Megalosaurus must

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have at least equalled the rhinoceros; the Hyleosaurus

would have outweighed the hippopotamus. And when rep- tiles that rivalled in size our hugest mammals inhabited the land, other reptiles,—Ichthyosaurs, Plesiosaurs, and Cetio- saurs,—scarce less bulky than the cetacea themselves, pos- sessed the sea. Not only was the platform of being occupied . in all its breadth, but also in all its height ; and it is accord. ing to our simpler and more obvious ideas of adaptation,— simple and obvious because gleaned from the very surface of the universe of life,—that such should have been the case. But it does appear strange, because, under the regulation, it would seem, of a principle of adaptation more occult, and, if I may so speak, more Providential, that no sooner are the huge mammals introduced as a group, than, with but a few exceptions, the reptiles appear in greatly diminished propor- tions They no longer occupy the platform to its full extent of height. Even in tropical countries, in which certain fami

ON GEOLOGIC HISTORY. 283

r lies of mammals still attain to the maximum size, the rep- tiles, if we except the crocodilean family, a few harmless

turtles, and the degraded boas and pythons, are a small and

_ comparatively unimportant race. Nay, the existing giants _ of the class,—the crocodiles and boas,—hardly equal in bulk _ the third-rate reptiles of the ages of the Oolite and the Weal- den. So far as can be seen, there is no reason deducible _ from the nature of things, why the country that sustains a - mammal bulky as the elephant should not also support a _ reptile huge as the Iguanodon ; or why the Megalosaurus, _ Hyleosaurus, and Dicynodon, might not have been contem-

| _ porary with the lion, tiger, and rhinoceros. The change

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which took place in the reptile group immediately on their dethronement at the close of the Secondary period, seems scarce less strange than that sung by Milton :—

‘¢ Behold a wonder! They but now who seemed

_ In bigness to surpass earth’s giant sons, Now less than smallest dwarfs, in narrow room Thronged numberless ; like that pygmean race Beyond the Indian mount ; or fairy elves, Whose midnight revels, by a forest side Or fountain, some belated peasant sees, Or dreams he sees, while overhead the moon Sits arbitress, and nearer to the earth Wheels her pale course.”

But though we cannot assign a cause for this general re- duction of the reptile class, save simply the will of the all- wise Creator, the reason why it should have taken place seems easily assignable. It was a bold saying of the old philosophic heathen, that “God is the soul of brutes ;” but writers on instinct in even our own times have said less warrantable things. God does seem to do for many of the inferior ani- mals of the lower divisions, that, though devoid of brain and vertebral column, are yet skilful chemists and xccorn- plished architects and mathematicians, what he enables man,

284 FINAL CAUSES : THEIR BEARING

through the exercise of the reasoning faculty, to do for him. self ; and the ancient philosopher meant no more, And in clearing away the giants of the reptile dynasty when their kingdom had passed away, and then re-introducing the class as much shrunken in their proportions as restricted in their domains, the Creator seems to have been doing for the mammals what man, in the character of a “ mighty hunter before the Lord,” does for himself. There is in nature very little of what can be called war. The cities of this country cannot be said to be in a state of war, though their cattle- markets are thronged every week with animals for slaughter, and the butcher and fishmonger find their places of business thronged with customers, And such, in the main, is the con- dition of the animal world ;— it consists of its two classes,— animals of prey, and the animals upon which they prey : its wars are simply those of the butcher and fisher, lightened by a dash of the enjoyments of the sportsman.

** The creatures see of flood and field, And those that travel on the wind, With them no strife can last ; they live

In peace and peace of mind.” Generally speaking, the carnivorous mammalia respect one another: lion does not war with tiger, nor the leopard con- tend with the hyena. But the carnivorous reptiles manifest no such respect for the carnivorous mammals. There are fierce contests in their native jungles, on the banks of the (sanges, between the gavial and the tiger; and in the steam- ing forests of South America, the boa-constrictor casts his terrible coil scarce less readily round the puma than the antelope. A world which, after it had become a home of the higher herbivorous and more powerful carnivorous mam- mals, continued to retain the gigantic reptiles of its earlier ages, would be a world of horrid, exterminating war, and altogether rather a place of torment than a scene of inter-

ON GEOLOGIC HISTORY, 285

_ mediate character, in which, though it sometimes re-echoes _ the groans of suffering nature, life is, in the main, enjoyment. And so,—save in a few exceptional cases, that, while they _ establish the rule as a fact, serve also as a key to unlock that principle of the Divine government on which it appears to _ rest,—no sooner was the reptile removed from his place in the fore-front of creation, aud creatures of a higher order introduced into the consolidating and fast-ripening planet of _ which he had been so long the monarch, than his bulk shrank and his strength lessened, and he assumed a humility of form and aspect at once in keeping with his reduced circumstances, and compatible with the general weifare. But though the _ reason of the reduction appears obvious, I know not that it van be referred to any other cause than simply the will of the _ all-wise Creator.

__ There hangs a mystery greatly more profound over the fact _ of the degradation than over that of the reduction and dimt- nution of classes. We can assign what at least seems to be a sufficient reason why, when reptiles formed as a class the highest representatives of the vertebrata, they should be of imposing bulk and strength, and altogether worthy of that . post of precedence which they then occupied among the ani- mals. We can also assign a reason for the strange reduction which took place among them in strength and bulk imme- diately on their removal from the first to the second place. But why not only reduction, but also degradation? Why, as division started up in advance of division,—first the rep- tiles in front of the fishes, then the quadrupedal mammals in front of the reptiles, and, last of all, man in front of the quad- rupedal mammals,—should the supplanted classes,—two of them at least,—fishes and reptiles,—for there seem to have been no additions made to the mammals since man entered upon the scene,—why should they have become the recep- tacles of orders and families of a degraded character, which

286 FINAL CAUSES : THEIR BEARING

had no place among them in their monarchical state? ‘The — fishes removed beyond all analogy with the higher vertebrata —

by their homocercal. tails,—the fishes (Acanthopterygit and Sub-brachiati) with their four limbs slung in a belt round their necks,—the flat fishes (Plewronectide), that, in addition to this deformity, are so twisted to a side, that while the one eye occupies a single orbit in the middle of the skull, the other is thrust out to its edge,—the irregular fishes generally (sun-tishes, frog-fishes, hippocampi, é&c.) were not introduced into the ichthyic division until after the full development of the reptile dynasty ; nor did the hand that makes no slips in its working “form the crooked serpent,” footless, grovelling, venom-bearing,—the authorized type of a fallen and degraded ereature,—untilafter the introduction of themammals. What can this fact of degradation mean? Species and genera seem

to be greatly more numerous in the present age of the world —

than in any of the geologic ages. Is it not possible that the extension of the chain of being which has thus taken place, —not only, as we find, through the addition of the higher divisions of animals to its upper end, but also through the interpolations of lower links into the previously existing di- visions,—may have borne reference to some predetermined scheme of well-proportioned gradation, or, according to the poet, ** Of general ORDER since the whole began ?”

May not, in short, what we term degradation be merely one of the modes resorted to for filling up the voids in creation, and thereby perfecting a scale which must have been origi- nally not merely a scale of narrow compass, but also of in- numerable breaks and blanks, hiatuses and chasms? Such, certainly, would be the reading of the enigma which a Soame Jenyns or a Bolingbroke would suggest ; but the geologist has learned from his science, that the completion of a chain of at least contemporary being, perfect in its gradations, cannot pos-

ON GEOLOGIC HISTORY. 287

_ sibly have formed the design of Providence. Almost ever 7 since God united vitality to matter, the links in this chain of animated nature, as if composed of a material too brittle _ to bear their own weight when stretched across the geologic _ ages, have been dropping one after one from his hand, and’ _ sinking, fractured and broken, into the rocks below. It is urged by Pope, that were “we to press on superior powers,”

and rise from our own assigned place to the place immediately

_ above it, we would, in consequence of the transposition,

** In the full creation leave a void, Where, one step broken, the great scale ’s destroyed. From nature’s chain whatever link we strike, Tenth or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.”

The poet could scarce have anticipated that there was a science then sleeping in its cradle, and dreaming the dreams of Whiston, Leibnitz, and Burnet, which was one day to rise and demonstrate that both the tenth and the ten thousandth link in the chain had been already broken and laid by, with all the thousands of links between; and that man might laudably “press on superior powers,” and attain to a “new nature,” without in the least affecting the symmetry of crea- tion by the void which his elevation would necessarily create ; that, in fine, voids and blanks in the scale are exceedingly common things ; and that, if men could, by rising into angels, make one blank more, they might do so with perfect impunity. Further, even were the graduated chain of Bolingbroke a rea- lity, and not what Johnson well designates it, an “absurd hypothesis,” and were what I have termed the interpolation of links necessary to its completion, the mere filling up of the original blanks and chasms would not necessarily involve the fact of degradation, seeing that each biank could be filled up, if I may so express myself, from its lower end. ach could be as certainly occupied to the full by an elevation of lower forms, as by a humiliation of the higher. We might receive

288 FINAL CAUSES : THEIR BEARING

the hypothesis of Bolingbroke, and yet find the mysteri- | ous fact of degradation remain an unsolved riddle in our hands. |

But though I can assign neither reason nor cause for the fact, I cannot avoid the conclusion that it is associated with certain other great facts in the moral government of the uni- — verse, by those threads of analogical connection which run through the entire tissue of Creation and Providence, and impart to it that character of unity which speaks of the single producing Mind. The first idea of every religion on earth which has arisen out of what may be termed the spiritual in- stincts of man’s nature, is that of a Future State ; the second idea is, that in this state men shall exist in two separate classes, —the one in advance of their present condition, the other far in the rear of it. It is on these two great beliefs that con- science everywhere finds the fulcrum from which it acts upon the conduct ; and it is, we find, wholly inoperative as a force without them. - And in that one religion among men that, instead of retiring, like the pale ghosts of the others, before the light of civilization, brightens and expands in its beams,

and in favour of whose claim as a revelation from God the _

highest philosophy has declared, we find these two master ideas occupying a still more prominent place than in any of those merely indigenous religions that spring up in the human mind of themselves. The special lesson which the Adorable Saviour, during his ministry on earth, oftenest enforced, and to which all the others bore reference, was the lesson of a final separation of mankind into two great divisions,—a division of God-like men, of whose high standing and full-orbed hap- piness man, in the present scene of things, can form no ade- quate conception ; and a division of men finally lost, and doomed to unutterable misery and hopeless degradation. There is not in all Revelation a single doctrine which we find cftener or more clearly enforced than that there shall con-

ON GEOLOGIC HISTORY. 289

tinue to exist throughout the endless cycles of the future, a race of degraded men and of degraded angels.

Now, it is truly wonderful how thoroughly, in its general

“scope, the revealed pieces on to the geologic record. We _ know, as geologists, that the dynasty of the fish was suc-

ceeded by that of the reptile,—that the dynasty of the rep- tile was succeeded by that of the mammiferous quadruped,

_ —and that the dynasty of the mammiferous quadruped was

succeeded by that of man as man now exists,—a creature of

mixed character, and subject, in all conditions, to wide alter- nations of enjoyment and suffering. We know, further,— _ so far at least as we have yet succeeded in deciphering the _ record,—that the several dynasties were introduced, not in _ the*r lower, but in their higher forms ;—that, in short, in

the imposing programme of creation, it was arranged, as a

_ general rule, that in each of the great divisions of the pro- _ cession the magnates should walk first. We recognise yet

further the fact of degradation specially exemplified in the fish and the reptile. And then, passing on to the revealed record, we learn that the dynasty of man in the mixed state and character is not the final one, but that there is to be yet another creation, or, more properly, ve-creation, known theo- logically as the Resurrection, which shall be connected in its physical components, by bonds of mysterious paternity, with the dynasty which now reigns, and be bound to it mentally by the chain of identity, conscious and actual ; but which, in all that constitutes superiority, shall be as vastly its superior as the dynasty of responsible man is superior to even the lowest of the preliminary dynasties. We are further taught, that at the commencement of this last of the dynasties, there will be a re-creation of not only elevated, but also of degraded

__ beings,—a re-creation of the lost. We are taught yet further, that though the present dynasty be that of a lapsed race, which at their first introduction were placed on higher ground

Tt

290 FINAL CAUSES : THEIR BEARING

than that on which they now stand, and sank by their own act, it was yet part of the original design, from the beginning of all things, that they should occupy the existing platform ; and that Redemption is thus no after-thought, rendered ne- cessary by the Fall, but, on the contrary, part of a general scheme, for which provision had been made from the begin- ning ; so that the Divine Man, through whom the work of restoration has been effected, was in reality, in reference to the purposes of the Eternal, what he is designated in the re- markable text, “the Lamb slain from the foundations of the world.” Slain from the foundations of the world! Could the assertors of the stony science ask for language more ex-

press? By piecing the two records together,—that revealed in Scripture and that revealed in the rocks,—records which, however widely geologists may mistake the one, or commen- tators misunderstand the other, have emanated from the same great Author,—we learn that in slow and solemn majesty has period succeeded period, each in succession ushering in a higher and yet higher scene of existence,—that fish, reptiles,

mammiferous quadrupeds, have reigned in turn,—that re- ;

sponsible man, “made in the image of God,” and with domi- nion over all creatures, ultimately entered into a world ripened for his reception ; but, further, that this passing scene, in which he forms the prominent figure, is not the final one in the long series, but merely the last of the preliminary scenes ; and that that period to which the bygone ages, incalculable in amount, with all their well-proportioned gradations of being, form the imposing vestibule, shall have perfection for its occupant, and eternity for its duration. I know not how

it may appear to others ; but for my own part, I cannot avoid — thinking that there would be a lack of proportion in the series —

of being, were the period of perfect and glorified humanity abruptly connected, without the introduction of an interme- diate creation of responsible imperfection, with that of the

ON GEOLOGIC HISTORY. 291

] Bing irresponsible brute. That scene of things in which _ God became Man, and suffered, seems, as it no doubt is, a ne- _ zessary link in the chain. _ Iam aware that I stand on the confines of a mystery _which man, since the first introduction of sin into the world till now, has “vainly aspired to comprehend.” But I have _ no new reading of the enigma to offer. I know not why it is that moral evil exists in the universe of the All-Wise and _ the All-Powerful ; nor through what occult law of Deity it _ is that “perfection should come through suffering.” The 1 _ question, like that satellite, ever attendant upon our planet, _ which presents both its sides to the sun, but invariably the _ same side to the earth, hides one of its faces from man, and _ turns it to but the Eye from which all light emanates. And _ it is in that God-ward phase of the question that the mystery _ dwells. We can map and measure every protuberance and hollow which roughens the nether disc of the moon, as, dur- ing the shades of night, it looks down upon our path to cheer _ and enlighten ; but what can we know of the other? It % would, however, seem, that even in this field of mystery the % extent of the inexplicable and the unknown is capable of _ reduction, and that the human understanding is vested in an _ ability of progressing towards the central point of that dark field throughout all time, mayhap all eternity, as the asymp- % tote progresses upon its curve. Even though the essence of _ the question should for ever remain a mystery, it may yet, in its reduced and defined state, serve as a key for the laying _ of other mysteries open. The philosophers are still as igno- _ Yant as ever respecting the intrinsic nature of gravitation ; but regarded simply as a force, how many enigmas has it not served to unlock! And that moral gravitation towards evil, _ manifested by the only two classes of responsible beings of _ which there is aught known to man, and of which a degra- 4 | setion linked by mysterious analogy with a class of facts sin-

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292 FINAL CAUSES : THEIR BEARING

gularly prominent in geologic history is the result, occujfies — apparently a similar place, as a force, in the moral dynamics —

of the universe, and seems suited to perform a similar part. Inexplicable itself, it is yet a key to the solution of all the minor inexplicabilities in the scheme of Providence.

In a matter of such extreme niceness and difficulty, shall I dare venture on an illustrative example ?

So far as both the geologic and the Scriptural evidence ex- tends, no species or family of existences seems to have been

introduced by creation into the present scene of being since —

the appearance of man. In Scripture the formation of the human race is described as the terminal act of a series, “ good” in all its previous stages, but which became “ very good” then ; and geologists, judging from the modicum of evidence which they have hitherto succeeded in collecting on the subject,— evidence still meagre, but, so far as it goes, independent and distinct,—pronounce “ post-Adamic creations” at least “im- probable.” The naturalist finds certain animal and vegetable species restricted to certain circles, and that in certain foci in these circles they attain to their fullest development and their maximum number. And these foci he regards as the

original centres of creation, whence, in each instance in the — process of increase and multiplication, the plant or creature — propagated itself outwards in circular wavelets of life, that — sank at each stage as they widened, till at length, at the cir- —

cumference of the area, they wholly ceased. Now we find it argued by Professor Edward Forbes, that “since man’s ap- pearance, certain geological areas, both of land and water, have been formed, presenting such physical conditions as to

entitle us to expect within their bounds one, or, in some in- —

stances, more than one, centre of creation, or point of mami- mum of a zoological or botanical province. But a critical examination renders evident,” the Professor adds, “ that in- stead of showing distinct foci of creation, they have been in

ON GEOLOGIC HISTORY. 293

a

" all instances peopled by colonization, 7. ¢. by migration of spe- cies from pre-existing, and in every case pre-Adamic, pro- vinces, Among the terrestrial areas the British isles may “serve as an example; among marine, the Baltic, Mediter- ranean, and Black Seas. The British islands have been co- lonized from various centres of creation in (now) continental ‘Europe ; the Baltic Sea from the Celtic region, although it _ runs itself into the conditions of the Boreal one ; and the Mediterranean, as it now appears, from the fauna and flora q of the more ancient Lusitanian province.” Professor Forbes, _ it is stated further, in the report of his paper to which I owe _ these details,—a paper read at the Royal Institution in March _ 1849,—“ exhibited, in support of the same view, a map, show- _ ing the relation which the centres of creation of the air- - breathing molluscs in Europe bear to the geological history _ of the respective areas, and proving that the whole snail popu- ~ lation of its northern and central extent (the portion of the Continent of newest and probably post-Adamic origin) had | been derived from foci of creation seated in pre-Adamic lands. _ And these remarkable facts have induced the Professor,” it &, was added, “to maintain the improbability of post-Adamic __ creations.” With the introduction of man into the scene of existence, creation, I repeat, seems to have ceased. What is it that now takes its place, and performs its work? During the previous dynasties, all elevation in the scale was an effect simply of creation. Nature lay dead in a waste theatre of

rock, vapour, and sea, in which the insensate laws, chemical,

“mechanical, and electric, carried on their blind, unintelli- ' gent processes: the creative fiat went forth; and, amid _ waters that straightway teemed with life in its lower forms, vegetable and animal, the dynasty of the fish was introduced. _ Many ages passed, during which there took place no further "elevation ; on the contrary in not a few of the newly intro-

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294 FINAL CAUSES : THEIR BEARING

duced species of the reigning class there occurred for the first —

time examples of an asymmetrical misplacement of parts, and,

4

~

in at least one family of fishes, instances of defect of parts: —

there was the manifestation of a downward tendency towards |

the degradation of monstrosity, when the elevatory fiat again

f ;

went forth, and, through an act of creation, the dynasty of | the reptile began. Again many ages passed by, marked, ap- —

parently, by the introduction of a warm-blooded oviparous

animal, the bird, and of a few marsupial quadrupeds, but in |

which the prevailing class reigned undeposed, though at least

unelevated. Yet again, however, the elevatory fiat went — forth, and, through an act of creation, the dynasty of the —

mammiferous quadruped began. And after the further lapse of ages, the elevatory fiat went forth yet once more in an act of creation ; and with the human, heaven-aspiring dynasty,

the moral government of God, in its connection with at — least the world which we inhabit, “took beginning.” And —

then creation ceased. Why? Simply because God’s moral government had begun,—because in necessary conformity with the institution of that government, there was to be a thorough identity maintained between the glorified and im- mortal beings of the terminal dynasty, and the dying mag- nates of the dynasty which now is; and because, in conse- quence of the maintenance of this identity as an essential condition of this moral government, mere acts of creation

could no longer carry on the elevatory process. The work —

analogous in its end and object to those acts of creation which gave to our planet its successive dynasties of higher and yet higher existences, is the work of RepEMPTIoN. It is the ele vatory process of the present time,—the only possible provi- sion for that final act of re-creation “to everlasting life,” which shall usher in the terminal dynasty.

I cannot avoid thinking that many of our theologians at-

tach a too narrow meaning to the remarkable “Reason aunex- —

ON GEOLOGIC HISTORY. 295

"ed to the Fourth Commandment” by the Divine Lawgiver.

_ “God rested on the seventh day,” says the text, “from all _ his work which He had created and made ; and God blessed _ the seventh day, and sanctified it.” And such is the reason - given in the Decalogue why man should also rest on the _ seventh day. God rested on the Sabbath, and sanctified it ; _ and therefore man ought also to rest on the Sabbath, and keep _ itholy. But I know not where we shall find grounds for the belief that that Sabbath-day during which God rested was

_ merely commensurate in its duration with one of the Sabbaths _ of short-lived man,—a brief period, measured by a single re- - yolution of the earth on its axis. We have not, as has been

_ shown, a shadow of evidence that He resumed his work of

eee ere seep

creation on the morrow: the geologist finds no trace of post- Adamic creation ;—the theologian can tell us of none. God’s

Sabbath of rest may still exist ;—the work of REepEMPTION

may be the work of his Sabbath day. That elevatory process through successive acts of creation, which engaged Him during myriads of ages, was of an ordinary week-day character ; but when the term of his moral government began, the elevatory process proper to it assumed the Divine character of the Sab- bath, This special view appears to lend peculiar emphasis to the reason embodied in the commandment. The collation of the passage with the geologic record seems, as if by a spe- cies of re-translation, to make it enunciate as its injunction, “Keep this day, not merely as a day of memorial related to a past fact, but also as a day of co-operation with God in the work of elevation in relation both to a present fact and a future purpose. God keeps his Sabbath,” it says, “in order that He may save; keep yours also, in order that ye may be saved.” It serves, besides, to throw light on the prominence of the Sabbatical command, in a digest of Jaw of which no part or tittle can pass away until the fulfilment of all things, During the present dynasty of probation and trial, that spe-

296 FINAL CAUSES : THEIR BEARING

cial work of both God and man on which the character of the future dynasty depends, is the Sabbath-day work of saving’ and being saved.*

* The common objection to that special view which regards the days of creation as immensely protracted periods of time, furnishes a speci- men, if not of reasoning in a circle, at least of reasoning from a mere assumption. It first takes for granted that the Sabbath day during which God rested was a day of but twenty-four hours, and then argues from the supposition, that in order to keep up the proportion between the six previous working days and the seventh day of rest, which the reason annexed to the fourth commandment demands, these previous. days must also have been days of twenty-four hours each. It would, I have begun to suspect, square better with the ascertained facts, and be at least equally in accordance with Scripture, to reverse the process, and argue that, because God’s working days were immensely protracted periods, his Sabbath must also be an immensely protracted period. The reason attached to the law of the Sabbath seems to be simply a reason of proportion ;—the objection to which [ refer is an objection palpably founded on considerations of proportion. And, certainly, were the rea- son to be divested of proportion, it would be divested also of its distince- tive character as a reason. Were it to run as follows, it could not be at all understood :—‘‘ Six days shalt thou labour, &c., but on the seventh day shalt thou do no labour, &c. ; for in six immensely protracted pe- riods of many thousand years each did the Lord make the heavens and earth, &c., and then rested during a brief day of twenty-four hours ; therefore the Lord blessed the brief day of twenty-four hours, and hal- lowed it.” This, I repeat, would not be reason. All, however, that seems necessary to the integrity of the reason, in its character as such, is, that the proportion of six parts to seven should be maintained. God’s periods may be periods expressed algebraically by letters symbolical of unknown quantity, and man’s periods by letters symbolical of quantities well known ; but if God’s Sabbath be equal to one of his six working days, and man’s Sabbath equal to one of his six working days, the in- tegrity of proportion is maintained. While I see the palpable absur- dity of such a reading of the reason as the one given above, I can see no absurdity whatever in the reading which I subjoin:—‘“‘ Six periods (a=a=a=—a=a=a) shalt thou labour, &c., but on the seventh period (b=a) shalt thou do no labour, &c. ; for in six periods (c=a2=x2=2=2=2) the Lord made heaven and earth, &c., and rested the seventh period (y=2) ; therefore the Lord blessed the seventh period, and hallowed it.” The reason, in its character as a reason of proportion, survives here in all its integrity. Man, when in his unfallen estate, bore the image of

al

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ON GEOLOGIC HISTORY. 297

Tt is in this dynasty of the future that man’s moral and

intellectual faculties will receive their full development. The _ expectation of any very great advance in the present scene

of things,—great, at least, when measured by man’s large capacity of conceiving of the good and fair,—seems to be, like all human hope when restricted to time, an expectation

doomed to disappointment. There are certain limits within which the race improves ;—civilization is better than the _ want of it, and the taught superior to the untaught man.

There is a change, too, effected in the moral nature, through that Spirit which, by working belief in the heart, brings its

_ aspirations into harmony with the realities of the unseen . _ world, that, in at least its relation to the future state, cannot

be estimated too highly. But conception can travel very far beyond even its best effects in their merely secular bearing; nay, it is peculiarly its nature to show the men most truly the subjects of it how miserably they fall short of the high standard of conduct and feeling which it erects, and to teach them, more emphatically than by words, that their degree of hap- piness must of necessity be as low as their moral attainments are humble. Further,—man, though he has been increasing © in knowledge ever since his appearance on earth, has not been improving in faculty ;—a shrewd fact, which they who ex- pect most from the future of this world would do well to consider, The ancient masters of mind were in no respect inferior in calibre to their successors. We have not yet shot

God, but it must have been a miniature image at best ;—the proportion of man’s week to that of his Maker may, for aught that appears, be mathematically just in its proportions, and yet be a miniature image to0,—the mere scale of a map, on which inches represent geographical degrees. All those week days and Sabbath days of man which have come and gone since man first entered upon this scene of being, with all which shall yet come and go until the resurrection of the dead termi- nate the work of Redemption, may be included, and probably are in- cluded, in the one Sabbath day ot God.

$98 FINAL CAUSES : THEIR BEARING

ahead of the old Greeks in either the perception of the beau- tiful, or in the ability of producing it; there has been no improvement in the inventive faculty since the “ Tliad” was written, some three thousand years ago ; nor has taste become more exquisite, or the perception of the harmony of numbers more nice, since the age of the “ Aineid.” Science is cumu- lative in its character ; and so its votaries in modern times stand on a higher pedestal than their predecessors. But, though nature produced a Newton some two centuries ago, as she produced a Goliath of Gath at an earlier period, the modern philosophers, as a class, do not exceed in actual sta- ture the worse informed ancients,—the Euclids, Archime- deses, and Aristotles. We would be without excuse if, with the Bacon, Milton, and Shakspeare of these latter ages of the world full before us, we recurred to the obsolete belief that the human race is deteriorating; but then, on the other hand, we have certain evidence, that since genius first began uncon- sciously to register in its works its own bulk and proportions, there has been no increase in the mass, or improvement in the quality, of individual mind. As for the dream that there is to be some extraordinary elevation of the general platform of the race achieved by means of education, it is simply the hallucination of the age,—the world’s present alchemical ex- pedient for converting farthings into guineas, sheerly by dint of scouring. Not but that education is good: it exercises, and in the ordinary mind developes, faculty. But it will not anticipate the terminal dynasty. Yet further,—man’s average capacity of happiness seems to be as limited and as incapable of increase as his average reach of intellect: it is a mediocre capacity at best ; nor is it greater by a shade now, in these days of power-looms and portable manures, than in the times of the old patriarchs. So long, too, as the law of increase continues, man must be subject to the law of death, with its stern attendants, suffering and sorrow ; for the two

ON GEOLOGIC HISTORY. £99

laws go necessarily together ; and so long as death reigns, human creatures, in even the best of times, will continue to quit this scene of being without professing much satisfaction at what they have found either in it or themselves. It will no doubt be a less miserable world than it is now, when the good come, as there is reason to hope they one day shall, to _ be a majority ; but it will be felt to be an inferior sort of world even then, and be even fuller than now of wishes and longings for a better. Let it improve as it may, it will bea scene of probation and trial till the end. And so Faith, un-° deceived by the mirage of the midway desert, whatever form or name, political or religious, the phantasmagoria may bear, must continue to look beyond its unsolid and tremulous glit- ter,—its bare rocks exaggerated by the vapour into air-drawn castles, and its stunted bushes magnified into goodly trees ; and, fixing her gaze upon the re-creation yet future,—the ter- minal dynasty yet unbegun,—she must be content to enter upon her final rest,—for she will not enter upon it earlier, — “at return” : ** Of Him, the Woman’s Seed,

Last in the clouds, from heaven to be revealed

In glory of the Father, to dissolve

Satan with his perverted world, then raise

From the conflagrant mass, purged and refined,

New heavens, new earth, ages of endless date,

Founded in righteousness, and peace, and love, To bring forth fruits,—joy and eternal bliss.”

But it may be judged that I am trespassing on a field into which I have no right to enter. Save, however, for its close proximity with that in which the geologist expatiates as pro- perly his own, this little volume would never have been writ- ten. Itis the fact that man must believingly co-operate with God in the work of preparation for the final dynasty, or exist throughout its never-ending cycles as a lost and degraded creature, that alone renders the development hypothesis for-

300 FINAL CAUSES : THEIR BEARING, ETC.

midable. By inculcating that the elevatory process is one of natural law, not of moral endeavour,—by teaching, infer- entially at least, that in the better state of things which is coming there is to be an identity of race with that of the ex- isting dynasty, but no identity of individual consciousness,— that, on the contrary, the life after death which we are to in- herit is to be merely a horrid life of wriggling impurities, ori- ginated in the putrefactive mucus,—and that thus the men who now live possess no real stake in the kingdom of the fu- ture,—it is its direct tendency, so far as its influence extends, to render the required co-operation with God an impossibility ; for that co-operation cannot exist without belief as its basis. The hypothesis involves a misreading of the geologic record, which not merely affects its meaning in relation to the mind, and thus, in a question of science, substitutes error for truth, but which also threatens to affect the record itself, in relation to the destiny of every individual perverted and led astray. It threatens to write down among the degraded and the lost, men who, under the influence of an unshaken faith, might have risen at the dawn of the terminal period, to enjoy the fulness of eternity among the glorified and the good.

‘ 4 J 5.

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5 A ;

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NOTES.

Note A, p. 3. (From Sir Roderick Murchison’s ‘ Siluria,” p. 195.)

“WHEN the first edition of this book was published, I en- tertained the belief, in common with my early associate Sedg- wick, and our precursor M ‘Culloch, that the striking mountain masses of real conglomerate and hard grit on the north-west coast of the Highlands, which rest in layers, more or less hori- zontal, on low and gnarled bosses of very highly inclined and ancient granitoid gneiss, were really a part of the Old Red Sandstone of Scotland. A re-examination, however, of those tracts in 1855 compelled me to abandon that view. I then saw that portions at least of these conglomerates, often in a semi-crystalline state, and resting on the oldest or granitoid gneiss of the Highlands, as around Loch Assynt, were really inferior to those quartz rocks and limestones in the prolonga- tion of which to the north coast of Sutherland Mr C. Peach had detected fossils, which enabled me to suggest that they belonged to the older Silurian rocks.

“ Since the preceding sheet was printed, and during my absence on a geological tour abroad, additional researches,

302 NOTES.

‘undertaken at my request by Mr C. Peach, have elicited much

more numerous and more perfect fossils than were previously —

known; and these enable me to re-affirm unhesitatingly, that

the quartz rocks and limestones of the North-West Highlands —

are truly of Lower Silurian age.

“The most striking of these fossils is the Maclurea,—a genus which as yet has alone been found in deposits of that age. One species was, indeed, figured in the first edition of this work, and has already been alluded to as occurring in the south of Scotland; but the Sutherland form being unde- scribed, will justly receive the name of IZ. Peachii.

“‘ The other organic remains belong to the genera Ophile- ta, Oncoceras, and Orthoceras, with small gasteropods, anne- lides, &c. These shells are all closely allied to (one of them identical with) North American species, so well described by Mr James Hall. In short, they represent the fauna of the Lower Silurian rocks of Canada and the United States, from above the Potsdam sandstone to the Trenton (Llandeilo) limestone inclusive. Let us also observe, that the Scottish and American groupes resemble each other to a great ex- tent in mineral composition, as well as in their fossil con- tents.”

- (In order to see this subject still farther explained, and the fossils figured, see the latest edition of “ Siluria,” pp. 182 and 217.)

Note B, p. 4. (From Sir Roderick Murchison’s ‘‘ Siluria,” p. 284.)

“Tt has been shown (p. 153 et seg.) that along the frontier of the Silurian rocks in Shropshire and Herefordshire, where a true mineral transition is seen to take place between the

Upper Ludlow rock and the base of the Old Red Sand-

cemeedien ie

4 ee ee he ~, ae ¥ ar ey ae ,

NOTES, 303

stone, there is also a gradual passage from the fossil fishes of _ the one to those of the other. Thus, even beneath the lowest

of the bone-beds of the Upper Ludlow rock we have the

_ Pteraspis, and again in the bone-bed, the Plectrodus Mira- _ bilis and Onchus Murchisoni, associated with Pteryyoti, and

also with many shells known in the inferior layers, In ascend- ing to a higher stratum, most of those molluscs disappear ;

; and, although the same Onchus is still found, we first meet

with two species of the genus Cephalaspis, added to the Pter- aspis, in those strata which begin to assume the lithological

_ characters of the Old Red Sandstone. In a word, the tile- _ stones or beds of passage, considered in a broad sense, inclose

at their base a shell or two and a fish-defence, with crustacea of the Upper Ludlow rock; and in their upper parts, which begin to graduate into cornstones, we first find the charac- teristic fishes of the Old Red Sandstone. ft follows, there- fore, that as the gray flag-like strata which pass up into reddish beds may either be viewed as the termination of the Silurian or the commencement of the Old Red, the genera Cephalaspis and Pteraspis are typical both of the upper- most Silurian and the lowest zone of the Old Red or De- vonian group. In truth, as we now know, the varied con- cretions called cornstones are traceable down to within a very few feet of those transition beds; and as the Cephalaspis Lyelli and two species of Pteraspis abound in them, there can no longer be any doubt on this point.

“In adopting this view, we remove one of the difficulties which was presented to the mind of Hugh Miller, in his en- deavour to determine the order in which the different ichthyo- lites of the Old Red Sandstone of Scotland successively made their appearance. Grouping the Caithness flagstones in the lower division, and unable, on the one hand, to detect a Ce- phalaspis in them, or, on the other, to find the fishes of his north-eastern tracts in the central parts of Scotland, he was

304 NOTES.

naturally induced to suggest that the beds with Cephalaspis — would be found to lie above the fish-beds of Cromarty and ©

Caithness. In looking, however, to the physical order of the masses in that northern region (p. 280), we see that

this view cannot be retained ; for the bituminous schists of ©

Caithness are comparatively high in the series, and, resting upon a great thickness of sandstone and conglomerate, are

overlaid by the upper zone of the group only. According ~

to my view, therefore, as founded also on the natural sections

in Shropshire and Herefordshire, the conglomerates and sand-

stones which underlie the flagstones of Caithness are the equi- valent in time of the lower cornstone strata of England. This determination is of considerable importance, since good geolo- gical text-books, including the last edition of Lyell’s ‘Manual’

and Page’s ‘Advanced Text-Book,’—both following Hugh |

Miller,—have placed the Caithness flags in the lowest division of the Old Red Sandstone.* We may also, indeed, clearly in- fer that, even if the Arbroath paving-stone, with their Ptery-

goti, do not represent the uppermost Ludlow rocks, still it —

follows that the Cephalaspis beds of Forfarshire must fall into the lower division of the Old Red group.”

With regard to the superposition of strata in Orkney, Sir —

Roderick says,— “When in company with Mr Peach, I was re-assured that the same flagstones as those of Caithness, and containing

* <« Tn formerly adopting the belief that the cornstones, with Cepha-

laspis, generally represented the middle beds of the Old Red Sandstone, - Hugh Miller was quite justified ; for it was then supposed, even by my- self, that these concretions occupied the central part of the group ; whilst we now know that their inferior portions actually graduate downwards into the tilestones and summit of the Ludlow rock. Again, it was for- merly believed that a Dipterus (a marked Caithness genus) had been found in the Upper Ludlow rock. This was a mistake in the original

‘Silurian System ;’ for in no subsequent researches has the smallest frag-

ment af a Dipterus been detected in the bone-bed of the Upper Ludlow rock,”

- -" PAs ~ ay Ge Ree as Pi a a

ens

NOTES. 305°

similar fishes and plants, reposed, near Kirkwall, the capitai of the Orkneys, upon a lower red sandstone,—tLe rock, in fact, out of which the beautiful cathedral of that town is built,—and are surmounted in several of the islands by an- other sandstone, usually of light and yellowish colour, but with some admixture of red, the most splendid natural view

of which is at Hoy Head. There the sandstone overlying

the Caithness flags has a vertical thickness in the sea-cliff of

(1100 feet! Zhe entire succession of the group is thus seen ~ in Pomona and Hoy.”

Nore ©, p. 21.

We have in the prefatory remarks adverted to the many and quite irrefragable proofs that members of the Cephalas-

? pian family are the fish which at the present moment are

_ found to occur in the earliest formations. Geologists resid-

_ ing on the formations where they are found ought by all _ means to devote themselves to the completion of all the parts

of these interesting fishes. One of the first descriptious given of it, which, however, may be regarded as descriptive of mere- ly its appearance in the stone, is to be found in the Old Red Sandstone, from which we quote :—

‘The Cephalaspis is one of the most curious ichthyolites of the sys- tem (the Cornstone formation). Has the reader ever seen a saddler’s cutting knife,—a tool with a crescent-shaped blade, and the handle fixed transversely in the centre of its concave side? In general outline the Cephalaspis resembled this tool,—the crescent-shaped blade representing the head,—the transverse handle the body. We have but to give the handle an angular instead of a rounded shape, and to press together the pointed horns of the crescent till they incline towards each other, and the convex or sharpened edge is elongated into a semi-ellipse, cut in the line of its shortest diameter, in order to produce the complete form of the Cephalaspis. The head, compared with the body, was of great size,

U

306 NOTES.

comprising fully one-third the creature’s entire length. In the centre, and placed closely hegetii, as in many of the flat fishes, were the eyes. Some of the specimens show two dor-

Fig. 66. sals, and an anal and caudal fin. The

thin and angular body presents a joint- —

ed appearance, somewhat like that of a lobster or trilobite. Like the bodies of most of the ichthyolites of the system, it was covered with variously-formed scales of bone ; the creature’s head was cased in strong plates of the same mate- rial, the whole upper side lying under one huge buckler ; and hence the name, — Cephalaspis or buckler-head. In pro- portion to its strength and size, it seems to have been amply furnished with wea- pons of defence. Such was the strength and massiveness of its covering, that its remains are found comparatively entire in arenaceous rocks impregnated with iron, in which few other fossils could have survived. ‘Its various species, as they occur in the Welsh and English cornstones,’ says Mr Murchison, ‘ seem not to have been suddenly killed and entombed, but to have been long ex- posed to submarine agencies, such as the attacks of animals, currents, Cephalaspis Lyelli,— Agassiz. concretionary action,’ &c.; and yet, ‘though much dismembered, the geo- logist has little difficulty in recognising even the smallest portions of them.’ Nor dees it seem to have been quite unfurnished with offensive weapons. The sword-fish, with its strong and pointed spear, has been known to perforate the oaken ribs of the firmest built vessels, and, poised and directed by its lesser fins, and impelled by its powerful tail, it may be regarded either as an arrow or javelin flung with tremendous force, or as a knight speeding to the encounter with his lance in rest. Now, there are missiles employed in eastern warfare, which, instead of being pointed like the arrow or javelin, are edged somewhat like the crooked falchion or saddler’s cutting knife, and which are capable of being cast with such force, that they have been known to sever a horse’s leg through the bone ; and if the sword-fish may be properly compared to an arrow or javelin, the combative powers of the Cephalaspis may be illustrated,

Fee 3 ae

wae S

ea

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NOTES. ; 307

f it is probable, by a weapon of this kind, the head all around its elliptical

margin presenting a sharp edge like that of a cutting knife or falchion. Its impetus, however, must have been comparatively small, for its organs

_ of motion were so: it was a bolt carefully fashioned, but a bolt cast from afeeble bow. But, if weak in the assault, it must have been formidable _ when assailed. _ ‘The pointed horns of the crescent,’ said Agassiz to the

writer, ‘seem to have served a similar purpose with the spear-like wings

_ of the Pterichthys,’ the sole difference consisting in the circumstance that

the spears of the one could be elevated or depressed at pleasure, whereas

_ those of the other were ever fixed in the warlike attitude. And such

was the Cephalaspis of the Cornstones,—not only the most characteristic, but in England and Wales almost the sole organism of the formation.” —(‘‘ Old Red Sandstone,” p. 149, e¢ seq.)

The foregoing description must be understood as applied

to the first imperfect impressions of Cephalaspis. Better spe- __cimens have been found since, which serve to modify the read-

ing or interpretation of these. A gentleman resident in Dun- dee, situated in the Cephalaspian district, furnished the follow- ing note for the latest edition of the Old Red :—

**Since the foregoing description was written sixteen years ago, a few specimens have been found in the neighbourhood of Arbroath, which de- monstrate that the animal was provided with a large and powerful tail, and with equallyspowerful pectorals, so that its impetus need not have been, as here stated, ‘ comparatively slow.’ It is now also well ascertained that the peculiar ‘cutting knife,’ or ‘bolt’-like shape of the head, so generally noticeable in the earlier specimens, was the result of accident. A single cephalic shield of bone, thickly covered with discoidal bony plates of beautiful workmanship, was bent round the whole of the upper portion of the creature’s head, including the sides, somewhat after the fashion of a lady’s bonnet shade ; with this difference, that, instead of the pointed ends or ‘horns’ being fastened, as in the case of the bonnet, they projected freely backwards in the fish. It was altogether, there- fore, an armature of defence, and not partly of offence, as hinted at in the text. Of this Mr Miller had long been quite aware, and, in conse- quence, had expressed himself approvingly of the restoration here given, (fig. 67.) An Arbroath specimen in the possession of Mr Powrie of Reswallie, which shows the head in profile, has the cephalic shield bent round in the manner described. In the large majority of instances, how- ever, the fish being found lying on its belly, the curvature of the shield has yielded to the pressure of the overlying stone, and the appearance of the head is consequently that of a perfectly flat crescent.”

NOTES,

308

Fig. 67.

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RESTORATION OF CEPHALASPIS,

NOTES. 309

Here matters of fact seem very much to rest. In regard to our present knowledge of the Cephalaspis, its classification

and analogies are involved in very considerable obscurity.

In a paper read before the Geological Society on 18th May 1859, by Sir Philip Grey Egerton, entitled “ Palewichthyologic Notes,” I find the following paragraph. It serves to show the more recent attempts at classification as respects the As- terolepis, as well as the Cephalaspis,

FAMILY PLACODERMATA. *

“This family definition was first proposed by Professor M‘Coy for the reception of all the genera included in the Cephalaspide (Agas- siz), except Cephalaspis, together with some other genera assigned by Agassiz to the Celacanths. Professor Pander has adopted this family term, and includes in it the following five genera :—Pterichthys, Agass. (Asterolepis, Eichen.) ; Coccosteus, Agass. ; Asterolepis, Agass. (Ho-

roosteus, Asmus,—‘ this is the Asterolepis of the text’) ; Heterosteus,

Asmus ; and Chelyophorus, Agass. The distinction, as I (Sir P. Eger-

ton) understand it, between this family and the Cephalaspida, is (‘that

is, is meant to be by those who make this classification’), that whereas in the latter the head only is encased, in the former the thorax is also invested with bony plates. Cephalaspis, Pteraspis, and Auchenaspis, would consequently constitute the Cephalaspid family,— Pterichthys and Coccosteus being the types of the Placodermy. Chelyophorus is probably a member of the same family. Whether Asterolepis and Heterosteus belong to it, must depend upon further investigation. Hugh Miller de-

seribes the plates of Asterolepis as the homologues of true cranial bones,

and assigns to this fish the scales figured at page 68 of the ‘ Footprints’ [present edition]. Pander, on the contrary, maintains that the small ante- rior plates only are true cranial plates, and that the larger plates are homo- logues to the thoracic plates of the Coccosteus. The plate figured by Hugh Miller at p. 88 as a hyoid plate, Pander assumes to be the poste. rior dorsal plate, homologous to the large cuspidate plate of Coccosteus. It is clear, then, that the family affinity of this genus must depend upon the solution of this moot point. I regret I have no materials to throw light on this subject.”—(Proceedings of the Geological Society, Egerton, Old Red Fishes: )

By this mode of classification the Cephalaspide,—includ-

* Professor Owen objects to this term, as being synonymous with Pla- coidei.

310 | NOTES.

ing Cephalaspis proper, Pteraspis, and Auchenaspis,—consti- tute a distinct family. The difference between these three does not seem to be very great: for instance, Auchenaspis differs from Cephalaspis only in having the buckler trun- cated behind, and the nape of the neck covered by two yee square plates, with granular. surfaces.

As to the differences of opinion between Pander and the author of the “ Foot-prints,” with regard to some points in the structure of Asterolepis, these can only be decided by farther evidence. Whether it is a helmed fish, as asserted by Hugh Miller, or a cuirassed one, according to Pander, and whether its analogies are with the so-called Placoderms, or with the Celacanths, must be determined by new and une- quivocal specimens. The Placoderms must be looked upon as only a possible family, seeing that the standing of so many of its members is doubtful. Huxley finds analogies between the Coccosteus and the Siluroids, to which the Cephalaspians are likewise allied.—L. M.

Note D, p. 192.

Appendix to the ‘‘ Vestiges,” No. 12, specially devoted to a refutation of the ‘‘ Foot-prints,” and entitled ‘‘ Answers to Objections—Mr Hugh Miller.”

After several remarks upon the preceding chapters, the author of the. “ Vestiges” goes on to say,—“ The remainder of the chapter—that on the fossil flora—is an eloquent ex- position of what Mr Miller considers as the proper view to be taken of the paleozoic flora. I cannot withhold my ad- miration from the ingenuity of illustration and beauty of language exhibited in this pleading, even while I must con- demn it as wholly unsound. The highest authority on the subject fully bears out the view of the facts taken in the

a SE ——— =)

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NOTES, 311

* Vestiges,’ and even favours the inference drawn from the facts in favour of the development hypothesis. Mr Miller chiefly insists:on two particulars. Adverting to the rarity of land-plants below the Coal, he endeavours to account for it by saying,—‘ The fossil botanist, on taking leave of the lower Carboniferous beds, quits the land, and sets out to sea ; and it seems in no way surprising that the specimens which he

_ there adds to his herbarium should consist mainly of Fuca-

cee and Confervex. The development hypothesis can bor- row no support from the simple fact, that while a high ter- restrial vegetation grows upon dry land, only alge grow in the sea.’ Can Mr Miller seriously expect that we are to be content with his quiet assumption that there was no dry land before the Carboniferous era? I refer him to very sufficient authorities (Proofs, &c., No. 3) for a contrary opinion. The fact is, that the long-continued existence of dry land through- out the enormous ages represented by the Silurian and De- vonian formations, without leaving us any certain evidence of a land vegetation, is one of the preachings of Geology most confounding to writers on Mr Miller’s side of the question. But then,—and this is the second particular,—he has dis- covered a lignite which he supposes to be Araucarian, in the Lower Old Red of Cromarty. This is the subject of much fine writing. It is an ‘unfallen Adam,’—the ‘olive leaf of Noah’s dove,’—a whole forest scene is engendered by it in the imagination of this prose poet.’ ‘A true wood at the base of the Old Red Sandstone, or a true placoid in the - limestones of Bala, very considerably beneath the base of the Lower Silurian System, are wntoward misplacements for the purposes of the Lamarckian.’ Oh, luckless word and boot- less boast! The ‘ true placoid’ of the Bala limestones, which turns out to be ‘a new genus of Asteroid zoophyte’ (as shown a few pages back), is indeed an untoward misplace- ment for Mr Miller, and those who led him to believe that it

312 NOTES.

was a placoid fish. Taught by this misadventure that an — anti-Lamarckian is by no means infallible when he rushes from one isolated and hastily-observed fact to a great con- clusion, J claim a right to pause before admitting this lignite, lest it also should prove to be a ‘misplacement.’ The fossils of fish which Professor Sedgwick so exultingly announced from the Wenlock limestone, and which he could not doubt because he had ‘seen’ them, turned out to have been found, not in the rock, but in the loose debris of a quarry, where it was most likely they had been dropped by some workmen who had brought them from another place! When we turn to Mr Miller’s account of the circumstances under which the lignite were discovered, we certainly do not find any strong assurance against a similar mistake. ‘I found it,’ he says, ‘ partially embedded, with many other nodules half-disinterred by the sea, in an ichthyolitic deposit a few hundred yards to the east of the town of Cromarty, which occurs more than four hundred yards over the great conglomerate base of the system!’ We at least owe him thanks for his candour in the statement of the history of this fossil.”

We must be allowed to remark on the different parts of this paragraph in succession. fFirst, as to the fossil flora. The “ highest authority” on the subject here referred to is, as we find from No. 9 of the Proofs annexed to the “ Vestiges,” M. Adolphe Brongniart. M. Brongniart, we are told, holds as doubtful most of the alleged instances of plants of the Car- boniferous era found below the zone of the Coal formation. But all authorities, even the highest, must yield to the inex- orable development of fact. It is now held that the Old Red of Caithness, so far from holding no land plants, contains no ather, and that all remains of alge are entirely wanting in it. (See latest edition of Sir R. Murchison’s “ Siluria.”) This condition of the Old Red flora had not been ascertained when the Appendix to the “ Vestiges’ was written; and the

NOTES. 313

. author thought himself entitled to hold that enormous ages of _ dry land, without any appearance of land vegetation, proved — _ what ?—that sea-weed grew on the land, where it gradually assumed the characters of land plants? ‘Well, if he pleased to think so, he was at liberty to do it so long as there was j no proof to the contrary. But what shall we say of the sen- tence following !—“ Can Mr Miller seriously expect that we are to be content with his quiet assumption that there was no dry land before the Carboniferous era ?” Where does Mr Miller make this assertion? Not, surely, by assuming that remains of deep-sea formations do exist before that era, in _ which no land-plants are to be found. That is unquestionable. _ And it is to such that the passage alluded to, “The Fossil . Botanist,” &c., refers; while in close proximity to it occur the most express assertions of the existence likewise of dry land, which it was, in fact, one main end of this chapter to prove. How, for example, does the author of the “ Ves- tiges” reconcile this alleged assumption of Mr Miller’s that _ there was no dry land till the Carboniferous period, with the paragraph he himself quotes immediately after, in which Mr Miller is said to have proclaimed the discovery of a highly organized tree of the Old Red,—an Araucarian ; which dis- covery he, the author of the “ Vestiges,” sets himself to dis- prove or disparage? Where was this tree to grow? In the sea? How, then, does the same author say,—“ A whole forest scene is engendered by it in the imagination of this prose poet?” Was that in the sea too! It suited the pur- pose of the author of the “ Vestiges” to suppose that Mr Miller made an assumption which he could not possibly make, in order that he might be shown éo be wn, the wrong ; but the strongest possible evidence of that dry land whick. the theory of the author of the “ Vestiges” requires, it does not suit him to admit, because, although he must have the dry land there must be no trees growing out of it,—only sea-

314 NOTES.

weeds undergoiug the singular process of transmutation, Tak- ing as a basis the breaking down of certain evidence, founded, not on Mr Miller’s own observations, but on those of the most trustworthy geologists,—a contingency to which, before time has confirmed discovery, a science like Geology must be always liable,—he takes occasion, by way of inference, to doubt that which Mr Miller had himself discovered, and the accuracy of which discovery he had submitted to every possible test. “Taught by this misadventure . . . Iclaima right to pause before admitting this lignite, lest it also should prove to be a misplacement.” Then the quotation from the “‘ Foot-prints” stops exactly where fair play required that it ought not. Why omit the conclusion of the passage? “ A nodule that lay immediately beside it contained a well-pre- served specimen of the Coccosteus Decipiens ; and in the nodule in which the lignite itself 1s contained, the practised eye may detect a scattered group of scales of Diplacanthus, —a scarce less characteristic organism of the (same) forma-— tion.” ‘ Mr Miller’s mistakes have at least the merit of being ingenuous,” says the author of the “ Vestiges.” Are his own always equally so? And is this passage a specimen of his general style of reasoning ?—L. M.

NOTES, 8135

NOTE ADDRESSED T0 MRS MILLER BY MR SALTER,

OF THE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY,

UPON THE CilAPTER ON “ THE FISHES OF THE SILURIAN ROCKS, UPPER AND LOWER.”

~“ As much of the reasoning in chapter vi. of the first edi- _ tion is based upon the supposed occurrence of placoid fishes _ in the Lower Silurian rocks of Wales, it is but right to re- _ fer you to the disclaimer put forward by me in 1851, in the seventh volume of the ‘ Quarterly Geological Journal.’ In both the instances in which I am responsible, a hasty field examination was unfortunately accepted and published, be- _ fore sufficient time, or even a re-examination of such precious and unique relics, had been allowed ; and, as in almost every other case, the more haste the worse speed. The statements _ of two eminent geologists could not of course be other than _ good data for reasoning ; and hence the mistake. In point _ of fact, the 8. Welch fossil was a zoophyte,—greatly like a fish defence, however ; and the N. Welch one a portion of a - trilobite! I then examined the other reputed cases of fish remains from Silurian strata, and in one, a plate of a Cysti- _ dean animal from the Caradoc rock had been mistaken for a dermal plate of a ganoid fish ; in another (the celebrated Ces-

traciont tooth of the ‘Edinburgh Review’), the species turned out to be the Cochliodus aliformis (M‘Coy), a mountain lime- stone fossil common in the immediate neighbourhood of the Silurian quarry, where it was picked up. Again, the frag- ments attributed to fish in the Ludlow rocks, and mentioned by Phillips and others, have invariably turned out to be blackened portions of annelide tubes, or something else not

316 . NOTES.

fish ; and the foreign examples from rocks older than the up- — permost Ludlow are all easily demonstrable as invertebrate — remains. But although, when the above paper was written, — no true fish had been detected below the horizon of the — ‘bone bed’ of the Ludlow rock, the supposed coprolite no- — dules in the Lower Silurian still left a doubt on the matter — (Quart. Geolog. Jour., vol. vii. 1851). This doubt also has — been dissipated, since Mr Hunt of the Canadian Geological Survey has shown how phosphotic nodules occur deep down in Silurian rocks, and even at their base, which are clearly derived from the animals and horny shells of Lingula and Discina, the commonest of ancient fossils.

“ Later researches have made it manifest that true placoids are not the oldest known forms of vertebrate life, The spines * and the shagreen of shark-like fish were certainly the chief constituents of the ‘bone bed; but with them (and the doubtful remains called Plectrodus) another genus occurs be- longing to the puzzling group of the Cephalaspide. This is Pteraspis, now for some time known to be a distinct genus. It has been detected in the bone bed, and in the Upper Lud- low rock itself, beneath the bone bed, by the persevering geo- logists of Ludlow. (See ‘Siluria,’ second edition, 1859, p. 267.) And while these pages are preparing for press, a spe-

cimen of this genus is announced by them from the Lower Ludlow rock! This remarkable group, then, of fishes, whe- ther they be abnormal ganoids, as Agassiz supposed, or have closer relations with the Teleostean or bony fishes, to which the Siluroids are now referred, are undoubtedly, so far as our present knowledge goes, the oldest of known fish.”

END OF THE “ FOOT-PRINTS OF THE CREATOR.”

NOTES BY HUGH MILLER,

0 N A SUITE OF FOSSILS ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE STRUCTURE AND RELATIONS OF THE EARLIER GANOIDS.*

(A Lecture delivered before the Royal Physical Society.)

WE find it stated by Cuvier, in his description of the gene- ric peculiarities of the alligator, that the fourth tooth of the under jaw, reckoning from the symphysis, instead of being received into a mere notch, as in the crocodile, or into the interstices of the opposite teeth, as in the gavials, has a cavity hollowed for its reception, when the mouth is closed, in the upper maxilliary bone. Agassiz remarks a somewhat simi- _ lar peculiarity in the lepidosteus,—a peculiarity that seems _ to form one of the links which connect this extraordinary fish, unique in the present creation, with its relatives of somewhat higher place and standing, the reptiles. “ The intermaxillary of the lepidosteus,” says the distinguished ichthyologist, “is a small bone, pierced with two holes for _ the admission of the anterior projecting teeth of the lower jaw.”

It is a circumstance worthy of notice, as bearing direct on our subject, that there is a considerable degree of irregularity manifested in the dentition of this reptile-fish. Occasionally

* The suite of fossils here described is now in the University of Edinburgh.—.L. M.

318 NOTES ON THE STRUCTURE AND RELATIONS

we find the large teeth standing close together in groupes of twos and threes on the one side of the jaw, while the corre- sponding teeth on the other side of the same jaw stand apart.

This general irregularity is shared in some cases by those

terminal teeth of the under jaw which are received by the perforations in the intermaxillaries ; and in a specimen of Lepidosteus on the table before us, we find in the left inter- maxillary two little holes beside each other, formed to re- ceive two teeth, that stand a little apart, and in the right intermaxillary the two little holes represented by one large hole, formed to receive three teeth, which stand close to- gether.

Now, in the jaws of the Paleeozoic Ceelacanths, those huge reptile teeth which stand up over and behind the ichthyic ones were received, as in the alligators and the Lepidosteus, into cavities hollowed in the opposite jaws ; but though in some of these ancient fishes, especially the Holoptychii (Rhizodus) of the Carboniferous rocks, the reptile teeth of the lower jaw nearest to the symphysis were greatly larger than the others, and must have had cavities of greater depth in the upper jaw hollowed to receive them, the arrangement was not restricted to these anterior teeth, but pervaded both jaws, under and upper, along their entire length, from the snout to the angles of the mouth. In most of my specimens of jaws of Ceelacanths from the Lower Old Red Sandstone,— in especial, in those of the Asterolepis,—each of the reptile teeth, from near the condyloid processes to the symphysis, stands out of the one side of what seems to be a socket twice too wide for it,—in other words, beside each reptile tooth there is a pit which received the reptile tooth in the opposite jaw when the mouth was closed. [Spec 1.] Generally as they approached the sides of the mouth, the pits were smaller than towards the snout; but they are as decidedly there, save in the cases in which some irregula.

OF THE EARLIER GANOIDS. 319

‘ity in the arrangement of the teeth affected their position, and these irregularities seem at least as common in the an- terior as in the posterior portions of the jaws. It is not un- worthy of remark, however, that in the jaws of these ancient . zepiiie fishes, as in the jaws of their modern representative, considerable irregularities did occur, and that these occasion- ally present to the paleontologist appearances suited to puzzle and mislead. Not only do we find recipient pits in a speci- ‘men, with no reptile teeth growing up beside them,—indi- cating, apparently, that there were teeth in the opposite jaw, upper or nether, which the jaw in the specimen wanted ; but in other cases, the seemingly too wide socket, one-half _of which usually remains arecipient pit, is occupied to the fall by a second tooth, growing up so close beside the ordi- nary one, that their points are in some instances scarce a line apart. And so extraordinary is the appearance of these double teeth, that it has been sometimes asked whether they _ ought not to be regarded as bearing the stamp of specific pe- cularity. Of these double teeth, some very fine specimens have been found during the last few years in the Carboni- _ ferous ironstones of Gilmerton. Even where most remark- _ able, however, I infer from my specimens of jaws of Astero- { tepis that they merely indicate individual, not specific pecu- liarities, in the fishes to which they belonged. Among the _ specimens on the table there is a beautifully preserved jaw _ of a small Asterolepis,—which I owe to my friend Mr Dick, _ —in which the anterior reptile tooth is, as in some of the _ Holoptychii (Rhizodus) of Gilmerton, a double one ; but, as _ shown by an examination of the entire fossil, the fish to which _ it belonged did not differ in species from those which owned _ several of the other jaws before us, all of whose anterior teeth _ are single ones. [Spec. 2.] The double tooth, notwithstanding _ its striking appearance, was as much an individual peculia- rity, and as little a specific one, as those dental irregularities,

320 NOTES ON THE STRUCTURE AND RELATIONS

not very unfrequent in specimens of our own species, which

are known familiarly as double or buck-teeth. But, to con- clude this part of my subject, what I have to state regarding the jaws of the earlier Coelacanths is simply this,—that as the alligators are characterized generically by cavities in their up- per jaws for the reception of their fourth teeth anteriorly on

both sides, and as the Lepidostei are characterized generically —

by cavities in their intermaxillaries for the reception of the anterior projecting teeth of the lower jaw, some of the earlier Celacanths, such as Asterolepis and Rhizodus, were charac- terized by a line of cavities in both under and upper jaws, which received, when they shut their mouths, a// their reptile teeth ; and further, that there occurred certain irregularities in their dentition, somewhat similar to those which occur in the dentition of Lepidosteus, but still more strongly marked, which, though they impart a marked singularity of aspect to the spe- cimens in which they occur, were not specific peculiarities, but merely individual ones. I may be permitted one other re- mark. Some of the reptile teeth of the Carboniferous Rhizodi,

as shown in specimens from Gilmerton and Burdiehouse, had

great apparent depth of socket ; and a reptilian relationship has been deduced, I doubt not legitimately, from this pecu- liarity. More immediately, however, this depth of socket seems to be a consequence of the depth of pit required by the opposite tooth for its reception, and which is always great in proportion to the length of the tooth above the edge of the jaw. The long sword requires a deep scabbard to sheathe it in ; and as the lower part of the reptile teeth of the one jaw usually forms the one side of the pits in which the reptile teeth of the other jaw were sheathed, their depth of apparent socket is proportioned to the depth of the sheath.

There was one respect in which the Coccosteus differed from all the other ganoids of the Old Red Sandstone yet known. While its head was covered with a strong osseous

OF THE EARLIER GANOIDS. 321

helmet, and the upper part of its body with a strong cui- _ rass of osseous plates, its nether parts were naked. And _ along the space once occupied by this naked part we find _ frequent traces in the rock of the internal osseous mechanism _which protected the spinal cord,—a mechanism which I have never yet seen in any of the other ichthyolites of the forma- tion. I have been accustomed to account for this peculiarity in the Coccosteus, on the supposition that, as its naked part had no such external support as that furnished to the poste- _ rior portions of its contemporaries by the strong osseous scales _ and plates with which they were covered, it was furnished, _ on that compensatory principle so common in the animal world, with a proportionally stronger skeleton within ; nor have I found reason to alter this view. I had further sup- _ posed, however, that though the apophyses of the vertebral

column of Coccosteus were more thoroughly ossified than the vertebrae themselves, and were preserved in some kinds of _ rock from which the vertebrae had disappeared, the creature actually had vertebral joints of bone, and that they were ex- hibited in some of my specimens.* I, however, succeeded in convincing myself, during my exploratory ramble in au- tumn last, that what I had deemed vertebre are in reality curiously-formed apophyses, that, linked into each other by a _ sort of male and female joints, threw out slender processes on their outer sides, and ran adown the back in double column along the neural cord. So far as we now know, no ganoid of the Old Red Sandstone possessed vertebral joints of bone. Among the specimens of Coccosteus on the table, there are several very interesting ones, illlustrative of parts

* These remarks upon the vertebral structure of the Coccosteus are ex- ceedingly interesting, when viewed in connection with Professor Huxley’s recent investigations ; and likewise when read in the light of Mr Peach’s discovery of ossified vertebral columns in some of the fishes of the Old Red. —L. M.

x

322 NOTES ON THE STRUCTURE AND RELATIONS

of the animal which previously had been but ill understood; but to these I may solicit the attention of the Society at some future time, as my vouchers for a restoration of the animal, which I have some intention of attempting. At pre sent I shall merely call the Society’s attention to an inte- resting Cromarty specimen of Coccosteus, which presents the head and cuirass in profile, and exhibits the two bones of the under jaw, with their symphysial teeth. But instead of throwing any light on the problem of their position, it merely states the mystery in its extremest form.

A suite of fossils on the table yields some additional in- sight regarding the structure of the cranium and jaws of Dipterus. The paleontologist,—even with all the assistance which his science now derives from the optical lapidary,— cannot deal by his fossils as Signor Sarti used to deal with his anatomical models,—raise one layer of bone or integu-

ment after another, to show the deeper and still deeper un- —

derlying parts. He must seek from suites of fossils that exhibit in succession each a deeper and deeper section, in- formation similar to that which the ingenious Italian made a single model convey. I shall exhibit to the Society one of these suites, which my recent labours in the north has well-nigh enabled me to complete, illustrative of the head of Dipterus. We have here the interior of the creature’s lower jaw,—a specimen which shows the great strength and depth of the bone at what in other jaws would be the symphysis but where that of the Dipterus had no joining. In this se cond specimen, the outer side of the jaw is exhibited, and the lines on either side indicated where the three pieces of which it seems to have consisted in the feetal state were united. This third specimen exhibits the jaw bearing its triangular patches of teeth that corresponded with and acted against the triangular patches in the palate. In this fourth specimen, the base of the skull is shown with its palatal

¥ 1 ‘ “ z

OF THE EARLIER GANOIDS. 323

mechanism of teeth and plates, together with the spinal ca- -vity and the nostrils. This fifth specimen also exhibits the base of the head ; but the teeth and plates are removed, and _we look upon the mass of compressed cartilage, traversed by osseous fibre, on which these rested, and see anterior and pos- terior portions of the cavity which accommodated the brain. } The form of the spinal cavity is well shown in this fossil. In the sixth specimen, the upper part of the cranial backler is removed, and we see yet farther into the head. This narrow oblong chamber, fenced by thin slightly-curved partitions, is the brain pan. On each side there were deep cavities for _the eyes, represented, however, in the fossil by but blank masses of stone. And higher up, on each side of the spinal passage, there occur somewhat similar but smaller masses, _which occupy what seem to have been once the auricular chambers. This seventh specimen shows portions of the eye _ orbits,—the place of which, until this season, I had failed in ascertaining. With these, this eighth specimen seems to show, though imperfectly, those projecting processes of the _ occiput to which the apophyses of the spine must have been _ attached; but the projection is slightly mutilated. These ninth and tenth specimens show the inner side of the cranial buckler ; and this eleventh specimen its outer side, with the operculum attached. This curious and instructive suite it has taken years to collect ; but the story which it tells of

extinct peculiarities, and an old-fashioned strangeness of structure,—linked, however, by broad analogies to the fami- liar and the recent,—I deem more than worth the trouble | which the piecemeal disinterment of it has cost.

I had the pleasure, in the August of 1850, of introducing Professor Owen and Sir Philip Egerton to my collection. In arecent volume,—“ Foot-prints of the Creator,’—I had men- tioned that in all the cranial bucklers of the Old Red Sand-

stone with which I was acquainted there occurred a little

3294 NOTES ON THE STRUCTURE AND RELATIONS

medium plate, either between the eyes, as in the Coccosteus —

and Asterolepis, or a very little over them, as in the Osteolepis and Diplopterus ; and remarked that its never-failing recur- rence showed that it must. have had some meaning, though it might be difficult to say what. Both gentlemen expressed a desire to see the little plate, as shown in the cranial buckler of the Diplopterus ; and I submitted it to them in a specimen which exhibits it both in the outer and inner surface of the buckler. [Spec. 10.] “It is exactly as I had thought,” said the distinguished comparative anatomist to Sir Philip ;—“a pro- longation of the brain extended downwards from the brain-pan proper, and bore at its termination the pineal gland, which rested immediately under the little plate, and had its place indicated by it.” The revelation struck me as of strange and startling interest. One of the ancients would have said that the ever-recurring little plate which had attracted my notice marked out the exact points where the sowls of these ancient fishes of the Old Red Sandstone had their seats. During my late exploratory labours among the rocks of Caithness, I kept the remark of Professor Owen in view, and have succeeded, through the kindness of my friend Mr Dick, in procuring part of a cranium of Diplopterus, which illustrates, and, so far at least as the solid and less perishable parts of an organ- ism can confirm so occult a conclusion regarding the soft and perishable ones, confirms it. In this specimen the occipital

and parietal portions of the buckler are removed, showing the _

brain-pan underneath, and showing also a cavity running from

it towards the little plate, and along which a prolongation of the brain seems to have descended. I succeeded also in finding specimens that exhibit the nostrils of Diplopterus ; and a specimen of Asterolepis in which the pineal little plate of this gigantic fish presents its outer side,—a thing which I had attempted restoring in a woodcut from the inner surface ; but though the scope for error in so narrow a field was not

OF THE EARLIER GANOIDS. 325

great, the Society may see how much more elegant its out. line is in the actual fossil than in the restoration. This key- _ stone-shaped plate, which rested immediately under the pineal one, I picked up at nearly the same time with the other. It

enables me to complete the external surface of the cranial . buckler of this great ganoid, with all its unique but not un-

graceful tatooings. Of the little wedge-shaped plate I may _be permitted to relate a brief anecdote, illustrative of the ’ quickness of eye possessed by one of our most distinguished

geologists, Professor Sedgwick. It was wanting in the speci-

_ men from which I had figured the inner surface of the cra- _ nial buckler of Asterolepis in my “Foot-prints ;” and, as at that

time I had not seen the plate, instead of venturing to re- store it, I simply left vacant in the figure the space in which

ithad lain. The gap struck the eye of the Professor as un- _ natural : it was not the proper finish, he said ; and when in

autumn last he visited my collection, accompanied by Sir Ro- derick Murchison and Dr John Fleming, he brought the vo-

lume with him in his pocket, to compare the print with the

original. Ere his visit, however, I had procured, through the kindness of Mr Dick, a specimen in which the keystone- like plate occupied its proper place in the gap, presenting its inner side ; and I referred him to it, as a better illustration than the print of how nature had given the last finish to the cranial buckler of the Asterolepis. ‘ Ay,” he exclaimed, as he eagerly knelt down to examine the specimen, and passed his fingers over the keystone-like plate, “ Ay, this is a finish of the right kind ;—this will do.” There are several rare and a few unique fossils on the table illustrative of various points in the structure of the first ganoids, to which I van only refer the members of the Society generally as worthy of their examination. They are in part the fruits of a leisure fortnight spent this autumn among the rocks of Thurso ; but in still greater part I owe them to the kindness of my inde.

326 NOTES ON THE STRUCTURE AND RELATIONS

fatigable friend Mr Robert Dick, of whom I may well say, — that he “has robbed himself to do me service.” ;

I trust the members of the Society will excuse minute- ness of detail on a subject regarding which it is neces- ~ sary to be minute in order to be intelligible, and in which, though I have to deal with the oldest of the vertebrate exist- — ences of whose mechanism we can know anything positive, our knowledge is but in the forming, and still very incom- plete. Permit me, ere I conclude, to refer at some length to a subject closely connected with these organisms. I have exhibited to the Society this evening certain remains of the earliest ganoids that bear on two points which have already drawn the attention of naturalists, and which, judging from the recent writings of Agassiz, bid fair to attract their no- tice yet further. In the jaws of Asterolepis you have seen strongly-marked reptilian characteristics, which are exempli- fied at the present time, though less amply, in the upper jaw of the alligator, and in that of the most perfectly developed of all recent fishes,—the ichthyic-reptilian Lepidosteus. Of the vertebral mechanism of the Asterolepis there survive not a trace ; but in that of its contemporary the Coccosteus you have seen what is deemed a foetal peculiarity. The vertebree represented by but the blank space between the upper and under apophyses were cartilaginous ; and it is held that in all the other ganoids of the period the apophyses were as cartilaginous as the vertebre themselves, seeing that both are equally represented in their fossil remains by but a blank. And what is feetal peculiarity manifested in the immature in- dividuals of one class or genus, is accepted in Agassiz’s new scheme of classification, when manifested in the mature ani- mal of another class or genus, as a sign of inferiority. In his ‘‘ Principles of Zoology,” published in 1848, we find him exemplifying his scheme with great clearness and precision, by the white fish (one of the Salmonide of the American

OF THE EARLIER GANGOIDS. 327

_ Lakes) and the sturgeon. “The sturgeon and the white 4 fish,” he says, “are two very different fishes ; yet, taking into consideration their external form and care merely, it might be questioned which of the two should take the highest tank ; whereas the doubt is very easily resolved by an exa- “mination of their anatomical structure. The white fish has a skeleton, and, moreover, a vertebral column, composed of firm bone. The sturgeon, on the contrary, has no bone in _the vertebral column, except the spines or apophyses of the vertebra. The middle part, or body of the vertebra, is car- _ tilaginous ; the mouth is transverse, and-underneath the head ; and the caudal fin is unequally forked, while in the white fish it is equally forked. If, however, we observe the young white fish just after it has issued from the egg, the contrast will be less striking. At this period the vertebre are cartilaginous, like those of the sturgeon ; its mouth also is transverse, and _ its tail undivided. At that period the white fish and the _ sturgeon are therefore much more alike. But this similarity _ is only transient : as the white fish grows, its vertebree become _ ossified, and its resemblance to the sturgeon is comparatively slight. As the sturgeon has no such transformation of the _ vertebree, and is in some sense arrested in its development, _ while the white fish undergoes subsequent transformation, we conclude that, compared with the white fish, it is really in- _ ferior in rank.” Thus far Agassiz’s foetal principle of classi- fication. In his recent singularly interesting work, “ Lake _ Superior,” we find him thus referring to it, and to the blended character, high and low, fetal and reptilian, of the early fishes. ‘They may be said,” he states, “ to have embryonie peculiarities, in addition to their reptilian character ; and this fact, so simple in itself, and apparently so natural, is of the utmost importance in the history of animal life. It has gra- _ dually led me to more extensive views, and to the conviction that embryonic investigations ight throw as much light on

328 NOTES ON THE STRUCTURE AND RELATIONS

the successive development of the animal kingdom during the successive geological periods, as upon the physiological de- velopment of individual animals ; and, indeed, Ican now show, through all classes of the animal kingdom, that the oldest representatives of any family agree closely with the embry- onic stages of the higher types of the living representatives of the same families; or, in other words, that the order of succession in animals, through all classes and families, agrees in a most astonishing measure with the degrees of develop- ment of young animals of the present age.” Such, on this curious and occult subject, are the conclusions of Agassiz ; and in some of the specimens on the table the Society may see, more distinctly, perhaps, than in any others yet found, two of the marked peculiarities of structure on which the conclusions are based. Let us see what it is these peculiarities actually tell.

To an external framework of a high order there was added in these ancient ganoids an internal framework, partly, or in whole, cartilaginous. Such, let me remark, is the fact: all the rest is hypothesis. In the Acanths, and all the Cephalas- pians save one genus, the whole internal skeleton was car- tilaginous, and has, in consequence, disappeared. In some of the Celacanths, the portions of the internal skeleton that formed the basis of the double fins, such as the ischiatic bones, to which the ventrals were attached, and at least the ulna and the style-like bone (clavicle) of the pectorals, were osseous ; but we find no trace of the vertebral mechanism, whether vertebre or apophyses. Again, in the Coccosteus,— the one exceptional genus of the Cephalaspians to which I have referred,—we find curiously-jointed apophyses, but no verte-

bra. Now, there is no doubt a certain vague analogical sense

in which we may term the peculiarity of a cartilaginous ver- tebral column embryonic. Cartilage in the embryo makes its appearance before bone. First, mere gelatinous threads harden

a — . 1s . a ee

OF THE EARLIER GANOIDS. 329

1 into cartilage, and then the cartilage becomes mottled at cer- _ tain centres with bony points, and gradually ossifies i-:to the

_ solid, unyielding substance which forms the internal frame-

_ work of all the mammals and reptiles, and of at leest two _ great orders of the fishes. As certainly, however, ay carti- lagemakes its appearance before bone in the endo-skeletal parts

_ of animals, does bone make its appearance before the forma-

1 tion of the dermo-skeletal parts. In two months after con- ception, ossification is perceptible in the arms, thighs, and

_ lower jaw of the human fetus; but not until the close of

the fourth month are there the rudiments of nails perceptible on the fingers and toes. In even seventh-month children the nails are very defective, there is no hair, and the teeth are mere semi-cartilaginous points, buried deep in jaws which have acquired the osseous consistency. J am informed by our respected ex-treasurer, Professor Dick, that in the fetus of the horse and cow the endo-skeletal parts are formed, in like manner, before the dermo-skeletal,—the bony framework before the hoofs, hair, and teeth ; in the osseous fishes, too, the foetus has escaped for a considerable time from the egg ere it is furnished with teeth or scales. As a general rule, the development of the dermo-skeletal parts of animals as cer- tainly succeeds the ossification of the internal framework, as that ossification takes place in a previously-existing frame- work of cartilage. But, in direct opposition to this embryo- nic law, we find in the ancient ganoids the development of the dermo-skeletal parts singularly complete. The external skeleton, consisting of scales, plates, spines, and teeth, of solid bone, encrusted with an enamel hard enough to turn the keen edge of a tool, completely covered the external parts of many species of these ancient ganoids, whose internal skeletons were either very partially ossified, as in the Ceelacanths, or, as in the Dipterians and most of the Cephalaspians, were not ossified at all. And, looking at this peculiarity, it is quite

330 NOTES ON THE STRUCTURE AND RELATIONS

as correct to say that they were remarkable for the non-em- bryonic characteristic of a dermal skeleton developed greatly in advance of an internal one, as to say, looking at their in- ternal framework alone, that they were marked by the em- bryonic characteristic of a cartilaginous skeleton.* I would humbly suggest that the peculiarity on which the distin- guished ichthyologist seems disposed to found so much is simply one of those partial resemblances useful in the /ite- rature of science for purposes of illustration, but which, be- cause they fail in certain points, and would inevitably lead to error if carried beyond a certain line, cannot be regarded as themselves screntific. They belong not to the province of science, but to the department of art: they are not things to be shown as true, but mere reflected lights by which true things may be shown. And in their own proper place, and regarded as merely artistic, not scientific, they have unques- tionably their use.

Let me, however, remark, in conclusion, that the distin- guished man,—first in his own special walk in the world. —whose embryonic views I would at once receive in the cha- racter of illustration, but not in the form of a theory ade- quately fitted to unlock the scheme of creation,—is, like all the practical geologists of the present day, a decided op- ponent of the Lamarckian hypothesis of hereditary develop- ment. In a reference, in one of his later works, the “ Prin- ciples of Zoology,” to that chain of progressive being which so strangely connects the present with the remote past, we find him remarking, that the connection is not to be regarded as the consequence of a direct lineage between the faunas of different ages. “ There is nothing,” he adds, “ like parental

* Tf, likewise, well-ossified vertebree have been in any case united with the early ganoid dermo-skeleton, as we have now the best reason to sup- pose, the ground is yet more completely cut away from beneath the assert

_ors of foetal development as a key to the history of creation.—L. M-

OF THE EARLIER GANOIDS. 331

_ descent connecting them. The fishes of the Palwozoic age are in no respect the ancestors of the reptiles uf the Second- ary age, nor does man descend from the mammals which pre- ceded him in the Tertiary age. The link by which they are connected is of a higher and immaterial nature, and their connection is to be sought in the view of the Creator him- self, whose aim in forming the earth, in allowing it to under- _ go the successive changes which Geology has pointed out,

and in creating successively all the different types of animals which have passed away, was to introduce man upon the sur- _ face of our globe. Man is the end towards which all the ani- mal creation has tended, from the first appearance of the first Palzozoic fishes.” Thus far Agassiz. Isee not why itshould be denied him to hold, in addition, that the same great Being who in an after period darkly revealed his will in a dispen- sation of types and symbols, may have spoken in creation, in the early geologic ages, after a similar style of embodied figure and allegory. The “ Archetypal Idea” of Owen,—“ the im- material link of connection” of all the past with the present, which Agassiz resolves into the fore-ordained design of the Creator,—may yet be found to resolve themselves into one great general truth, viz, that the Paleozoic and Secondary dispensations of creation were charged, like the Patriarchal and Mosaic dispensations of grace, with the “ shadows of bet- ter things to come.” Enough of the embryonic may have _ mingled in the structure of the earlier ichthyic vertebrata, to indicate, as if by figure, that the time was as yet foetal and immature ; and with these, enough of traits higher than the merely ichthyic, to foreshow in these uterine ages that higher existences,—among the rest, man himself,—were one day to come tothe birth. But for the purposes of the Lamarckian, the so-called foetal peculiarities of the first vertebrates are, as T have shown, too largely mingled with other peculiarities of a decided anti-feetal character, to be of much avail. Further,

332 | NOTES ON THE STRUCTURE AND RELATIONS, ETC.

the reptile has now been traced upwards to a period by much too early to serve the purposes of the Lamarckian. There are no portions of the Archegosaurus of the Coal Measures bet- ter preserved than its vertebre. The reptile, instead of, as it were, joming on to the fish in the history of creation, overlaps it; and thus the line of descent presumed by the Lamarckian is a line cut off

PAPER BY HUGH MILLER,

ON A CURIOUS SUITE OF FOSSILS FROM THE LOWER OLD RED SANDSTONE OF SCOTLAND. *

Read before the British Association, at the Meeting held in Edinburgh in 1849

_ It is my purpose to introduce to the notice of the Associa- _ tion, in this paper, a curious suite of fossils from the Lower Old Red Sandstone of Scotland, many of which are still with- _ out duplicate in the public museums of the empire, and but imperfectly represented in those of Russia. In one import- ant respect there attaches to them a peculiar interest: they belong to the earliest animals of the vertebral division of which our knowledge is not so much inferential as direct. Of the Silurian placoids we can know comparatively little : the paleontologist finds whole families represented by but a few defensive spines, a few teeth, or a few shagreen points ; and from the resemblance which these minute portions bear to corresponding portions in existing placoids can he alone decide regarding their structure, form, size, and character. He has to acquaint himself with them quite as much through the medium of signs as of things,—of minute signs, which he

* These fossils are likewise at present in the University of Edin-

_ burgh, to be arranged when the new premises shall have been completed.

—L. M

334 FOSSILS FROM THE

must read by the special signification attached to them, or te-

somewhat resembling signs in the existing scene of things, He is necessitated to interpret his ancient characters by a mo- dern key, whose resolutions are but approximations ; and thus his knowledge regarding them must be a knowledge consider- ably mingled with uncertainty. With, however, the ganoidal order of fishes the case is essentially different. From the peculiar armature of solid bone in which they were inclosed, many of them continue to exist, not as mere teeth, spines, and points, but as fishes ; they are things, not signs ; we may ac- quaint ourselves as completely with their external forms, and even much of their internal structure, as with the forms and structure of the fishes which still exist ; and know absolutely, from their study, under what peculiarities, and associated with what varieties of mechanism, vertebral life existed in the ear- lier periods of the world’s history.

Permit me at this stage to illustrate this special point to the Association by two sets of specimens, the exhibition of which, as some of them are new to Scotland, and some of them absolutely so to Geology, will at the same time carry on the proper work purposed in my paper. In these fragments of Caithness Flagstone there are exhibited the signs, if I may so express myself, of a placoid of the Old Red Sandstone. They exist as minute toothed ichthyodorulites,—those of the Homocanthus arcuatus,—which, though found in the Old Red Sandstone of Russia, and figured by Agassiz, have only very recently been detected in Scotland. I owe them to my friend Mr Robert Dick of Thurso, to whom I am also in- debted for this other ichthyodorulite of larger size [Spec. 2}, which bears a considerable resemblance to that of the Hop- lacanthus marginalis, another Russian placoid of the Old Red, though it may possibly belong to some undescribed spe- cies of acanth. In the spine of the posterior dorsal of Spinax acanthus,—the common dog-fish of our coasts,—we

LOWER OLD RED SANDSTONE OF SCOTLAND. 335

_ have one of the modern keys by which these ancient signs are interpreted. It tells us that they are true ichthyodoru- lites, but leaves us in doubt whether the larger spine, resem- bling that of Hoplacanthus, belonged to a placoid or ganoid, _ and gives us no positive information regarding the structure of the creature to which they belonged : we can merely in- fer that, perhaps in the degree in which the ancient spines _ resemble those of recent times, the ancient ichthyolite that bore them resembled the modern spine-bearing fish. The ganoidal remains, on the other hand, we find charged with positive, and often very minute information. In this speci- men [Spee. 3], specially referred to by Agassiz in his great work, and which I have derived from the fish-beds of Cro

marty, there is the head and upper part of the body of a ga- noid preserved,—the Osteolepis microlepidotus ; and it exists, not as the mere sign of a fish, but as a considerable portion of a fish, from the study of which interesting facts can be _ absolutely determined. It will be seen from the following _ passage what it is that Agassiz has positively determined from

_ this very fossil. “In a specimen of the Osteolepis microle-

_ pidotus,” says the distinguished ichthyologist, “which is to be seen in the collection of Mr Hugh Miller, three quarters of the head are preserved ; and as the superior surface and the sides are equally visible, I have succeeded in convin- cing myself that the nostrils, which are situated before the frontals, are separated in their whole length by a medial su- ture,—a peculiarity which in our day is only to be met with in the Lepidosteus of America.” There are several of the other fossils on the table that give equally conclusive evidence of the sense of smell, as indicated by the nostrils.

Let us inquire whether they can tell us aught regarding the other senses by which the fishes of the Old Red Sandstone took note of the material and external. We must, of course restrict the inquiry to the four cerebral senses ; for of the

336 FOSSILS FROM THE

existence in some degree of the universally diffused sense of feeling we neither need special evidence, nor can we receive any. ven of the existence of one of the cerebral senses, — that of taste,—we need expect no satisfactory proof : it is, of all the senses, that which fishes are held to possessin the lowest degree, and regarding which the comparative anatomist who pursues his researches among even the recent fishes succeeds in satisfying himself least. “ Fishes,” says Cuvier, in his “Animal Kingdom,” “can have little sense of taste.” “ Natu- ralists are generally disposed to conclude,” says Dr Fleming, in his “ Philosophy of Zoology,” “that the sense of taste can scarcely be said to belong to this class of beings.” “It does not appear,” the Doctor adds, “that it is ever used in the discrimination of food, and does not furnish any character for

classification to the ichthyologist.” And, of course, what it —

does not furnish to the ichthyologist, who expatiates among the living forms, it cannot be expected to present to the stu- dent of fossil ichthyology. Even had it left its sign im- pressed in the rocks, he could at best only doubtfully recog- nise it as indicated by perhaps one or two uncertain foramina. Respecting the sense of hearing in the first ganoids, our evi- dence is better ; and we find it, on evidence, charged with a curious and suggestive fact. The organs of hearing in the placoids,—sharks and rays,—differ considerably from those in the osseous fishes. The auricular passage opens externally, as in the reptiles; and the internal ear consists of a chamber

of considerable size, walled off from that of the brain by a car- ) tilaginous partition. The brain-pan exists as a central cham- ber, and the internal ears as two large closets placed beside and behind it, and each furnished with its separate passage that opens towards the nape. In the osseous fishes, on the other hand, the organs of hearing have no communication with the external surface, and they lodge in the same great chamber which accommodates the brain: they are at least

LOWER OLD RED SANDSTONE OF SCOTLAND, 337

separated from it by but a thin film. Now, itis a curious fact

that in an ancient ganoid of the Lower (Middle) Old Red ‘[Spee. 4], still unfurnished with a name, we may detect organs of hearing akin to those of the placoids,—more especially to those of the sharks. Under this occipital plate we find the upper part of a brain-chamber, surrounded by strong walls of bone ; immediately behind, we find the chambers of the in- ternal ears, with fragments of the comparatively slim parti- tions which separated them from that anterior portion of the spine which traversed the posterior part of the occiput. Ex- actly as in the shark, too, we have the auricular passages open- ing backwards, and presenting at their outer end the same angular form as in the dog-fish. It is surely interesting to be thus enabled to determine that the earliest ganoids of which we know anything were connected by very striking affinities to the placoids. There are several of the speci- mens on the table that exhibit the openings through which the eyes once looked out [Spec. 5]; and there are a good many more in my collection at home. In Pterichthys even the capsules are occasionally preserved. They are preserved in a Gamrie specimen figured in the “ Geological Journal”

for November 1848, by Sir Philip Egerton, and in a Dura _ Den specimen belonging to Mrs Bonar of Cupar Fife [Spee. 6],

_of which she has kindly given me the use. The form of the

_eye-orbit in these ganoids was various: in the Pterichthys it was circular ; it approximated in the Asterolepis to triangu- lar; it was lentiform in the Coccosteus, and elliptical in the _Diplopterus. I need scarce remind the Association that the elliptical and lenticular forms are the prevailing ones among existing placoids, In short, to conclude this part of my sub-

ject, we have in the specimens before us evidence of at least

three senses with which these ancient fishes took note, in an

incalculably remote period, of the sights, sounds, and odours. of the material world.

Y

338 FOSSILS FROM THE

The interior head of the unnamed ganoid whose auricular organs we have just examined, resembled, we have seen, that of a shark ; the interior head of another and better known ganoid of the same formation,—the Dipterus,—seems to have resembled that of the sturgeon. It was covered externally by strong osseous plates, but occupied within by a continuous mass of cartilage, in the middle of which we find the brain- pan scooped out like a cell in a sandbank, and the cerebral portion of the spinal cord communicating with it through a conical-shaped tube bent upwards, and wide at the nape, but narrower where it enters the brain-chamber. I have else- where compared this conical-shaped tube to the interior of a miniature buglehorn ; a second specimen, which I disinterred

last autumn from among the rocks of Thurso [Spee. 8], exhi-

bits a cross section of this spinal tube, and indicates the up- ward bend from a different point of view. In the unnamed ganoid the bend of the spinal tube seems to have been directed downwards.

Let me next remark, that the base of the skull differs —

greatly among the different fishes which still inhabit our seas. It is flat in the rays ; less flat in the sharks; while in most of the osseous fishes it exists as a narrow ridge, composed of three bones,—the base occipital bone, the sphenoid bone, and the vomer. In most of the ordinary fishes, the sphenoid bone is a mere beam, and it assumes nearly the same beam-like form in one of the most characteristic of existing ganoids, —the Lepidosteus. Now, among the ganoids of the Old Red Sandstone we find cranial bases of both the broad and the narrow type. I stated, in my little work on the Aste- rolepis, that I had no better evidence that some of the in- ternal bones figured belonged to that ichthyolite, than that they occur in the same beds with the dermal plates, which

bear the characteristic star-like markings,—that they are of © considerable size, —ana :nax they formed no part of the known

LOWER OLD RED SANDSTONE OF SCOTLAND. 339

_ fishesof the formation. I stated further, that fromthe existence _ of two kinds of large coprolites [Spec. 9] in the deposits, —the one traversed by spiral markings, the other by longitudinal strize,—and from several other appearances, I suspected there _had been at least one other large fish contemporary with the _ Asterolepis. Last autumn I satisfied myself that such had _ been actually the case, and that at least two of the internal bones which I had figured—mayhap three,—had not be- longed to the Asterolepis. One of the two is, I have con- vinced myself, from the examination of more entire specimens _ since found, and the study of the head of Diplopterus [Spec. _ 10.], a sphenoid bone of the beam-like type ; and the lateral

expansions, which I have described as resembling the barbed _ portion of the head of an ancient dart or arrow, correspond, I doubt not, to the somewhat similar expansion on the _ inner or occipital end of the sphenoid bone of the Lepidos- _ teus. The anterior or vomer end thus broadens and branches _ out into two forks, and seems to have rested on the interior _ part of the snout,—the homologue, in some of these ancient fishes, of the vomer. The Diplopterus [Spec. 11], as shown by - some of my newly-acquired specimens, possessed a sphenoid i bone of the beam-like form, which was forked at its anterior _ termination, and attached its two forks to two crescent-shaped _ ridges, armed with teeth. The larger sphenoid bones exhi- & bited did not, however, belong to the Diplopterus, but to some _ unknown fish. Even among these we find varieties of form, _ which may possibly indicate difference of species. The sphe-

- noid bone of the haddock is not more unlike that of the coal-

- fish or the cod, than one of the fossil sphenoids before us is _ unlike one of the others. [Spec. 12.]

__ There were at least two genera of the Old Red,—the Dip- % terus and Asterolepis,—whose skulls were of the broad-based _ type: ‘The existence of an interesting peculiarity of the ga- ‘ noidal head, exemplified in the base of the head of Dipterus,

———

340 FOSSILS FROM THE

and which that of Asterolepis also illustrates, I suspected, but was not prepared to establish, a few months ago, when I published my little work, the “ Foot-prints ;” but from spe- cimens since found, it can riow, I think, be substantiated. In most of the placoids, the teeth ranged along their jaws or palates, and the shagreen points spread over their skins, seem equally of dermal origin, and can be stripped off with the integuments on which they rest. And so nearly do they ap- proach in character, that there are cases in which they can scarce be distinguished ; the teeth may be taken for shagreen points, or the shagreen points for teeth. This is strikingly the case in Cestracion Phillipi (the Port-Jackson shark). We find immediately within the more characteristic pavement teeth of the animal, osseous points of an irregularly cruciform shape, that might be mistaken for the osseous points, also irregularly cruciform, that form the shagreen which covers its back and sides ; and the palate of Squatina (the angel fish) bristles as thickly with a shagreen hardly distinguish- able from that which the creature wears outside, as any part of its body. Now, inthe base of the head of Dipterus|Spec. 13], immediately between its angular patches of palatal teeth, we find exactly the same glossy enamel as that which covers its — dermal plates and scales ; the skin within the mouth, if one may so speak, completely corresponds with the skin outside. We find it bearing the same rich gloss, and punctulated by the same microscopic tubes. There occurs what seems to be a similar reproduction of dermal peculiarities within the mouth of the Asterolepis. It was lined with osseous plates, identical in their internal character with those which covered the head externally, and, like them too, was thickly fretted by tubercles, which in the older and Jarger individuals assumed the normal star-like character, and in both young and old manifested atendency, where they approached the true teeth, to assume tooth-like forms [Spec. 14.] The base of the head in

LOWER OLD RED SANDSTONE OF SCOTLAND. 341

Asterolepis was of great breadth,—greater proportionally than even that of the ray ; and the middle of the palate was oc-

_ cupied by a thickly-tubercled, well-marked plate, of which I

_ have possessed fragments for years, but whose place and form I have only recently ascertained, by means of a magnificent specimen now on the table, sent me by Mr Dick. [Spec. 15.] That tendency in dermal tubercles to assume in some of the ancient ganoids the form of teeth, and of teeth to assume in some of the existing placoids the appearance of dermal sha- green, is a curious and surely not uninstructive circumstance ; and it seems to throw light on some otherwise puzzling pecu- liarities in the dental structure of ichthyolites, such as the _ Coccosteus and Asterolepis. The teeth of Coccosteus, espe- cially those placed so uniquely in the symphysis (of which more anon), and all the ichthyic teeth of Asterolepis, seem to be scarce less mere continuations of the osseous plates on which they are based, than the external tubercles of these same plates. A very dissimilar state of things obtains among our ordinary fishes of the present time: the teeth are of a different formation from the bone on which they rest, and, in at least their earlier stages of growth, wholly independent of it ; but be it remembered that, as in the existing placoids teeth and shagreen are alike of dermal origin, so in not a few of the ancient ganoids teeth and tubercles were alike of dermo-osseous origin. The plates on which they grew acted as portions of jaws and palates, but they also represented skins, and differed very materially, in consequence, from the skin-covered jaws of the ordinary fishes.

In referring to the jaws of the earlier ganoids, I would first remark, that in the ordinary fishes the under jaw usual- ly consists of four bones,—two on each side ; whereas in the placoids,—sharks and rays,— it is composed, as in most of the mammalia, of but two bones,—one on each side. In man it forms but a single bone, which, however, in even the latter

342 FOSSILS FROM THE

stages of the foetal state, continues to manifest the usual mam- malian character, by presenting a strongly indicated suture at the symphysis, the mark of which can be traced, in at least the interior of the jaw, throughout life. Now, in the first ganoids, the under jaw usually consisted, as in the placoids and most of the mammalia, of two bones,—one on each side. Such was its character in the genera Asterolepis, Glyptolepis, Osteolepis, Diplopterus, and Coccosteus. There was, however at least. one of the ganoidal contemporaries. of these fishes,— the Dipterus [Spec. 16],—in which the under jaw formed, as in the human subject, a single bone. In the feetal state it consist- ed apparently of three bones, one on each side, and a central or keybone ; at least a line of foramina seems to indicate that on either side there had once existed a suture ; but in all the more perfect specimens of Dipteri yet found, the lower jaw, as a whole, is but one bone. In general form, though not in this circumstance of unity, it resembled, seen from be- low, the under jaw of some of the grampus family ; and it must altogether, especially in the well-defined character of its condyloid and coronoid processes, have been more like the jaw of a mammal than that ofa fish. [Spec. 17.] In most of the or-

dinary fishes, the hinging of the jaw, if I may so speak, is part-

ly osseous, partly cartilaginous : in these, too, and in the pla- coids, what may be termed the male half of the hinge belongs to the head, and the female half to the jaw. In the mam- malia, on the contrary, the hinge is altogether formed of solid bone, and the male and female halves of the hinge change places,—the male half being that of the jaw, and the female half scooped out of the head. This is strikingly the case in the head of the badger, in which the joint is so complete, and the cranial socket so thoroughly envelopes the condyloid ball, that without fracture dislocation of the jaw is impossible. It is also very complete, though less so in the head of the hyena ; and there are indeed few mammals that do not present an

LOWER OLD RED SANDSTONE OF SCOTLAND. 34%

approximation less or more remote in the jaw hinge to the ball and socket mechanism. Now, in this respect the Dipterus resembled the mammalia. As shown in an inte- _ resting specimen which I disinterred last autumn from among the rocks of Thurso, the condyles, as might be judged from - their character, were fitted into well-defined sockets in the © base of the skull. The same specimen also shows, better than any other I have yet seen, the various bones of which the base of the head consisted.

The under jaw of the Asterolepis, which, like that of the _ placoids and of most mammals, consisted, as I have said, of two pieces, was hinged after a different fashion. The jaw of Lepidosteus osseus is fitted into two lateral sockets, in each containing two antagonistic processes, on one of which the jaw shuts and opens, while the other serves as a check to preserve it from opening beyond a certain width. Were it to be forcibly expanded beyond the point at which the checking process comes into operation, fracture would en- sue. Now, as shown by a singularly interesting specimen which I found last autumn near Thurso, the jaw of Asterolepis was fitted into sockets furnished with antagonistic processes. [Spec. 18.] The plate on which these occur presents a curious subject of study to the comparative anatomist. As shown by the star-like markings on its outer side, it was a dermal bone ; while, as shown by the two processes in the jaw-socket, and the strong ridge on its interior surface, it performed in the osteological mechanism of the animal the part of an in- ternal one. The union, or rather identity, of the dermal plate with the internal bone, though rare among the verte- brates now, was by no means so in the first ganoidal ages. I may, however, instance, as an example among existing fishes, the scapula of the Lepidosteus osseus. It is externally a naked oblong scale, and internally a true bone, deeply im- bedded among the cervical muscles, ‘Iwo specimens on the

344 FOSSILS FROM THE

table [Spec. 19],—-style-like bones connected with thescapular belt of Asteroleys, and which Owen regards, when present in our existing fishes, as the homologue of the clavicle, and Cuvier as that of the coracoidan bone,—illustrate this pecu- _ harity in a manner equally striking : the head of each style bears the star-like markings, while its body must have tra- versed, like that of its analogue in the ordinary fishes, the integuments of the abdomen. In one specimen of Asterolepis before us, which I lately received from Mr Dick, and which exhibits several portions of the head not previously shown, there appear what seem to be the upper maxillary bones of the animal [large spec. 20],—bones which, in some of its con- temporaries, such as the Dipterus, Osteolepis, and Diplopterus, were wanting. In Osteolepis and Diplopterus, the interior end of each intermaxillary rested in a groove delicately chi- selled on the side of the snout ; and we find no place for upper maxillaries, and no use for them. [Spec. 21.]

In the new ichthyolite, still unfurnished with a name, the under jaw consisted of at least four bones: judging from appearances, and the analogy furnished by the central key of the under jaw of Dipterus, I am inclined to think, of five. There were two pieces on each side [Spec. 22], not pieced to- gether transversely, as in the jaws of the ordinary fishes, but longitudinally,—the slimmer of the two forming a sort of nether intermaxillary bone, which composed what I may term the creature’s under lip, and contained a row of ichthyic teeth. 1t was not a free bone, like the true intermaxillaries ; but we find it not unfrequently disunited from the massier bone on which it rested, and embedded in a detached form among the rocks, [Spec. 23.] The Holoptychius of the Upper Old Red Sandstone was also furnished, as shown by oneof my specimens, with a nether intermaxillary of the character which seems to have been greatly more slender, in proportion to its length, than that of the unnamed fish, and was simply a slip o1 lath of

LOWER OLD RED SANDSTONE OF SCOTLAND. 345

bone laid along the upper edge of the jaw, and set thick with ichthyic teeth. A curiously shaped bone, which must, from _ its form, have occupied a medial place in the jaw to which it belonged, and which bears the dermal markings of the un- known fish, formed in all probability a central key in the _ creature's nether jaw. [Spec. 24.] The provision seems a curiousone. And yet, strange as such a structure of jaw must _ be deemed, it was not by any means the strangest furnished by the Old Red Sandstone.

It is the under jaw of the Coccosteus that must be regarded as the most extraordinary of the period,—perhaps of any pe- _ riod. It consisted of two bones,—one on each side,—which _ were furnished each with its group of from five to eight teeth, _ placed exactly where in the human subject the molars occur. _ And these groupes seem to have acted against corresponding groupes in the upper jaw. But at right angles with these molar groupes, exactly in the symphysis, there was another _ group of teeth from three to five in number ; and these, so far as appears, could not have acted against teeth placed in the upper jaw, but were directly opposed, the terminal group in the one bone that formed the half jaw, to the terminal group in the other jaw. [Spec. 25.] Icalled the attention of paleontologists, about nine years ago, to something very pe- culiar in the jaws of Coccosteus, and solicited inquiry respect- ing them ; but the restoration of Agassiz, who had been mis- led by imperfect specimens, several of them derived from my own collection, had been regarded as determining the point against the peculiarity ; and it was only during the last sea- son that I was enabled to demonstrate from newly-found Coc- costet that it in reality existed. One of the best of these I owe to a lady of Cromarty, Mrs James Hill,—an intelligent geologist and successful collector. [Spec. 26.] The teeth of the Coccosteus, viewed as prepared transferences in the microscope, somewhat resemble those of a Hybodus of the Oolite, which f

346 FOSSILS FROM THE

have found occurring in considerable numbers in a shelly de- posit of the island of Higg; and are of great interest and beauty. They are formed of true bone, and thickly sprinkled over, towards their bases, with the characteristic life-points ; whereas towards the apex they abound in anastomising canals, which throw out to the sides and points of each tooth nume- rous minute, nearly parallel branches, that give to the bone in these parts a structure very much approximating to ivory. It would seem as if in these ancient teeth we had caught bone passing into that finer substance of which the teeth of all the higher vertebrata, and all the reptile teeth of all the sau- roid fishes of the Coal Measures, are composed.

My earlier found specimens of Coccosteus, which indicated this marked peculiarity in the setting of the teeth, were in so imperfect a state of keeping, that I could not demonstrate its existence. I may, however, be permitted to state to the

Association the line of inference on which I deemed myself

justified in soliciting inquiry regarding it ; and my first, and, for about nine years, only reference to it, amounted to no more. In three specimens of jaws, unlucky fractures sepa- rated the anterior portion, containing the teeth in the sym- physis, from the middle portion, containing the teeth of the molar region ; and though all three presented the peculiarity of position which seems to render it impossible that the two groupes could have acted in the same plane, or with the same action of the condyles, it was of course possible that the pe- culiarity was an effect of misplacement. The chances, how- ever, against the occurrence of exactly the same misplacement in three jaws seemed very considerable ;—each of the ante- rior pieces of jaw separated by the fracture had four sides, only one of which was furnished with teeth. It was as one chance

out of four, then, that these teeth should be presented in one ~

of the jaws (supposing the misplacement of the fractured piece) in the line of the symphysis ;—it was as one chance out of

;

LOWER OLD RED SANDSTONE OF SCOTLAND. 347

sixteen that they should be presented in the symphysis of twe of the jaws ;—it was as one chance out of sixty-four that they should be presented in the symphysis of three of the jaws ; —and that the fractured pieces should be retained so exactly in the lines, each of its jaw, while in the ordinary contingen- cies of misplacement they might have been shifted to any part of the stone, or that they should have been all turned round in the same angle, furnished, of course, other and still more formidable sets of chances against the hypothesis of misplace- ment. Nor did it seem legitimate to oppose to these another set of chances, by arguing that the jaws of many thousands of the vertebrata were well known, and that none of them presented a character so anomalous ; seeing that this mode of argument would equally militate against all these possibili- ties of creation, which the earlier anatomists would have re- garded as very anomalous indeed, but which the researches of the paleontologists have since fully realized. Such a strange combination of parts as occurs in the Ichthyosawrus or Plesio- saurus is scarce less anomalous, measured by what now ex- ists in the vertebral sub-kingdom, than such a structure of jaw as that exemplified in the Coccosteus. Such were some of my reasonings on the subject, and the result has shown that they were not wholly incorrect. But the peculiarity of the jaws of this ancient fish being now determined on surer grounds than can be supplied by any line of mere inference, I leave to the naturalist the consideration of its meaning and value,

I may be permitted, however, one other remark regarding _ this jaw. From the character of its surface on both sides, it seems to have been covered, like jaws of the more modern type, by integuments. It was altogether an internal, not a dermal bone; and is, so far as I know, the oldest internal bone that has yet presented its structure to the microscope. And it is surely not uninteresting to see the osseous substance,

348 FOSSILS FROM THE

—destined to perform so important a part in the animal eco- nomy,—presenting in this early age its distinguishing cha- racteristics ; in especial, those numerous life-points from which its organization begitis, and which still remain open, as the sheltering cells in which vitality should reside. Was it impossible in the nature of things that life should be equal- ly diffused over hard and rigid earth, built up into this new animal substance, bone? and was it therefore merely thick- ly sown over it in hollow microscopic points? Is bone a thing rather strongly garrisoned by vitality, than itself vital 7

There are laid on the table, among the other Old Red Sand- stone fossils, specimens of a well-marked though doubtfully in- terpreted bone, which, in all the osseous fishes, and in almost all the ganoids, forms the largest and most important part of - the scapular belt or ring. [Spec. 27.] In common parlance, and at our tables, it bears the name of the shoulder-bone,— a name, however, which properly belongs to the much smaller bone attached to it above by a squamose joining, and which is similarly attached, in turn, to the forked super-scapular bone which fixes the scapular belt to the head. This massy bone, —in most of the osseous fishes one of the largest which oc- curs in the skeleton,—whether we regard it, with Professor Owen, as coracoidan, or, with Mr James Wilson, as the humerus, or leave, with Agassiz, its homologues undeter- mined,—is evidently of great importance in the ichthyic economy, as at once furnishing a base to the pectorals, a strengthening belt to the abdomen, like that furnished in the higher animals by the bones of the breast and sides, and as supplying, yet further, a firm, unyielding basement on which the gill-covers may fit tightly down. In all our existing placoids of the shark type, if we except the genus chimera, which does not appear in geologic history until after the com- mencement of the Secondary ages, the scapular arch is placed, as in birds and mammals, at a considerable distance from the

LOWER OLD RED SANDSTONE OF SCOTLAND. 349

head ;—all the placoids, in short, that expire the water taken in for respiratory purposes through more than one gill-open- ing on each side, possess that disposition of the scapular belt which is its prevailing place in the vertebrata. And from

_ this general type, the arrangement which, in all fishes fur-

nished with but one gill-opening on each side, fixes it to the back of the head, seems to be an aberration. Judging from all we yet know, the placoids of the Silurian system were fishes in which the aberration did not occur : their analogues lie not with the Chimerides, but with the Cestracionts ; and so, reasoning from our acquaintance with these fishes as they now exist,—of course under that protest,—against the obscu- rity incident on reasoning from the known to the unknown, to which I have referred, we infer that in their first proto- types, as in the mammals, the birds, the reptiles, the sharks, and the rays, the scapular arch was not attached to the head, but occupied its ordinary place down along the vertebra. Our earliest examples of misplaced scapular belts or cinctures, —of scapular belts removed upwards, and fixed to the back of the head,—occur in those fossiliferous beds of the Old Red Sandstone in which fishes furnished with gill-covers and single gill-openings on each side first appear. Some of the specimens on the table are perhaps the most ancient ex- amples of this coracoidan bone yet found.*

We find in Professor Owen’s work on limbs some of the profoundest thinking on this subject to which the compara- tive anatomist has yet attained. When spending a happy

* Tf both placoids and ganoids had their origin about the same pe- riod, as is most probable, or if ganoids really had the start, as they have now, by a single stage of discovery, this theory of misplacement as a mark of degradation will not hold. We infer from the position of the pectorals in Cephalaspis, immediately under the gill-covers, that it was constituted, in respect of the scapular belt, like other-ganoids. The pas- sage following,—a piece of pure reasoning, irrespective of precedence, — forms probably the true solution.—L. M.

350 FOSSILS FROM THE

day among the rocks of Thurso in disinterring some of these very specimens, it occurred to me to inquire whether tae — misplacement of the thoracic cincture,—now for the first time apparent among the rocks,—might not have a simpler as well as a more complex reading, like those chapters of the sacred volume that, while charged with high mystery for the future to read, had also their plain, easily-understood lessons for the men of the age in which they were first promulgated. What, I asked, may be the simpler meaning of this strange aberration, now so prevalent in the ichthyic kingdom? and my thoughts in reply to the query arranged themselves thus: —In fishes in which the gills are fixed, and the gill-openings small and numerous, the common action of the muscles, un- assisted by any extraordinary mechanism, seems sufficient to carry on the work of respiration, and to regulate the open- ing and shutting of the sluices through which the water must be expired, but through which it must not be inhaled. But when the openings are restricted to two, and are compara- tively of large size, we find that the important mechanism of a gill-cover is required, and of a strong well-fitted band of bone on which the cover may tightly fasten down. In order to shut a box firmly, and with precision, it is not only neces- sary ‘that its lid and sides should be well fitted, but that they should also possess considerable rigidity of substance. And this rigidity of substance the gill-cover—or box-lid of my illustration—always possesses. It is usually composed, in the earlier ganoids, of one, two, or more plates of enamel- led bone, completely united and delicately hinged. But how impart the necessary rigidity to these soft abdominal integu- ments, on which, from their latero-ventral position, the gill- covers must necessarily rest? "Without some means of im- parting rigidity to these (the sides of the box), the rigidity of the lid would be of no avail ; the gill-openings would ad- mit the water; and the fish, when exposed to powerful

LOWER OLD RED SANDSTONE OF SCOTLAND. 351

waves or strong currents, would infallibly perish. For it is a fact of which every angler who, in killing his salmon, takes care to keep its head down the stream, is well aware, that fishes can be as certainly drowned in their own element by reversing the course of the respiratory current, and sending it through the gill-openings to the mouth, as any of the air- breathing vertebrata by ordinary immersion. Nature, how- ever, imparts the necessary solidity to the soft abdominal parts ; and this, not by the introduction of a new bit of mechanism into the ichthyic skeleton,—for she is always chary of introducing new pieces into her machine,—but by altering, adapting, and imparting a new function to a pre- viously existing piece. Such is the mode, 1 say, in which Nature works. Let us remark, by way of iliustration. how many various functions, as we ascend in the scale of verte- brate existence, we find her making one little organ—the tongue—perform. In the fish we see it fixed, and not un- ‘frequently teeth-covered. It mayhap serves in this class,— though, as already remarked, in a very low degree,—as an organ of taste, and forms the base on which certain food-de- taining hooks or thorns are placed. Higher up in the scale we find an insectivorous reptile,—the chameleon,—that re- quires a javelin-like organ, with which to strike down and seize its light-winged prey. It receives, not a new organ, but a moCification of an old oue,—the tongue ; and the required javelin is placed at its command. Higher still we perceive that the herbivorous mammal stands in need of an organ with which to turn round its food in its mouth, so that the _ grinders may be brought to bear upon every portion of it in succession. And here another modification of the tongue takes place, and the mammal isfurnished, in consequence, with the necessary organ. We gohigherstill. It is essential that thinking, reasoning man have an instrument of speech by which to convey his thoughts in words, and give expression

52 FOSSILS FROM THE LOWER OLD RED SANDSTONE

to his wants and desires: a yet further modification of the

tongue takes place ; the end is attained, and man communi- cates his mind to his fellows. Now, it seems to be on this principle of adapting previously existing parts, with definite functions assigned to them, to entirely new uses, that the scapular belt is brought forward, in the ganoids and the ordi- nary fishes, from what is its normal place in the placoids and the higher vertebrata, and made fast to the cranium in the character of an opercular cincture. It serves also in this position to strengthen, by its attachments at the isthmus and super-scapular bones, what would be otherwise, from the great size of the gill-openings, a weak part of the animal. And its original use as a base of the pectorals it continues to serve as fully and adequately in its position of misplacement, as if it had been applied to no other. Such seems to be thie simpler reading of the riddle furnished by that ichthyic at tachment of the scapular belt to the skull, which Nature has adopted in the mechanism of the ganoid fishes,

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E. May, Author of ‘ Alfred and his Mother,’ etc. etc. 8. Max Wild, the Merchant’s Son ; and other Stories for the Young. 9. Noble Mottoes: Familiar Talks with Peter Glenville on the Mottoes of Great Families. By Cuartzs Bruce, Author of ‘Lame Felix,’ etc, 10, The Castaway’s Home; or, the Story of the Sailing and the Sinking of the Good Ship ‘Rose.’ By Mrs. Harpy (Janst Gorpon), Author of ‘Afloat and Ashore with Sir Walter Raleigh,’ etc.

. Afloat and Ashore with Sir Walter Raleigh. By Mrs. Hardy |

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a gilt back and side, gilt edges, price 2s. each. 1. Life’s Crosses, and How to Meet them. Tales for Girls, By T. S. ARTHUR.

2. A Father’s Legacy to his Daughters, etc. A Book for Young Women. By Dr. Grecory.

8. Labours of Love: A Tale for the Young. By Winifred Taylor. 4. Mossdale: A Tale for the Young. By Anna M. De Iongh.

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6. The Minister's Daughter, and Old Anthony’s Will. Tales for ___the Young. By M. M. Po.zarp. 7. The Two Sisters. By M. M. Pollard. 8. A Needle and Thread: A Tale for Girls. By Emma J. Barnes, Author of ‘Faithful and True, or the Mother’s Legacy.’ 9. neat A Story of the Days of Julian the Apostate. By Ellen

'ALMER. 10. An Earl’s Daughter. AStory for the Young. By M. M. Pollard, Author of ‘ The Two Sisters,’ etc. etc. t 11. Doing and Dreaming. A Tale for the Young. By Edward GARRETT, Author of ‘Occupations of a Retired Life,’ ‘Crooked Places, ‘By Still Waters,’ etc. '

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Sundav-School Reward Books. Foolscap 8vo, cloth extra, gilt edges, Illustrated, price 1s. 6d. each. 1. Bible Blessings. By Rev. Richard Newton.

2. One Hour a Week: Fifty-two Bible Lessons for the Young. 3. The Best Things. By Rev. Richard Newton. 4. The Story of John Heywood: A Tale of the Time of Harry vilr. By CHArtes Bruce, Author of ‘How Frank began to Climb,’ etc. . Lessons from Rose Hill; and Little Nannette.

5 6. Great and Good Women: Biographies for Girls. By 7.

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10 ©6©Books published by William P. Nimmo,

Nimmo’s Sunday and Week-Day Reward Books. Foolscap 8vo, cloth extra, gilt edges, Illustrated, price 1s. 6d. each. 1. The Sculptor of Bruges. By Mrs. W. G. Hall.

2. From Cottage to Castle; or, Faithful in Little.

A Tale

founded on Fact. By M. H., Author of ‘The Red Velvet Bible,’ ete.

. Christmas at the Beacon. . The Sea and the Savages.

By Ellen Palmer. By Harold Lincoln.

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By Mrs. W. G. Hat.

. The Story of a Moss Rose.

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By Charles Bruce.

By E. Rosalie Salmon.

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| NPN NNN NIN NN NINN

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to. Unexpected Pleasures; or, Left alone in the Holidays. By Mrs. Georcse Corpses, Author of ‘ Norrie Seton,’ etc.

ir, The Beauties of Shakespeare. With a General Index by the Rev. Witt1aAM Dopp, LL.D.

12, Gems from ‘ The Spectator.’ A Selection from the most ad- mired Writings of Addison and Steele.

13. Burns’ Poetical Works. With a Complete Glossary.

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1. Four Little People and their Friends.

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1 The Man of the Mountain. And other Stories.

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Tuts Series of Books will be found unequalled for genuine inter

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1. In the Brave Days of Old; ae For Toye clipe The Story of the Spanish

2. The Lost Ruby. By the Author of ‘The Basket of Flowers,’ eto.

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12. Peace and War. By the Author of ‘The Basket of _ + . Flowers,’ etc.

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1s, Hawks’ Dene: A Tale for Ohildren. By Katharine B.

May.

16. Little Maggie. And other Stories. By the Author of ‘The Joy of Well-Doing,’ etc. eto.

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18. The Little Sisters; or, Jealousy. And other Stories for the Young. By the Author of ‘Little Tales for Tiny Tots,’ ete.

19. Kate’s New Home. By Oecil Scott, Author of ‘ Ohryssie Lyle,’ etc.

14

Books published by William P. Nimmo,

a oo

ON OPP oC DE

Hinns’s Sixpenny Juvenile Books,

Demy 18mo, Illustrated, handsomely bound in cloth, price 6d. cach.

. Pearls for Little People.

Great Lessons for Little People.

Reason in Rhyme: A Poetry Book for the Young.

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. Grapes from the Great Vine.

. The Pot of Gold.

. Story Pictures from the Bible.

The Tables of Stone: Illustra- tions of the Commandments.

By

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HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.

. The Red-Winged Goose. . The Hermit of the Hills. . Effies Christmas, and other

Stories. By ADELAIDE AUSTEN.

. A Visit to Grandmother, and

other Stories for the Young.

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People. By ADELAIDE AUSTEN.

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Dog Cesar. By Mrs. SHERWOOD.

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for the Young. By ADELAIDE AUSTEN.

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and other Stories for the Young.

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ren. By ADELAIDE AUSTEN.

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for the Young.

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mals: told for Children. ADELAIDE AUSTEN.

By

23. 24,

25. 26. 27. - 28. 29. 30. dl. 32.

30.

34. 35. 36. 37. 38.

Little Henry and his Bearer. By Mrs. SHERWOOD.

The Holidays at Wilton, and other Stories. By ADELAIDE AUSTEN. ‘

Chryssie Lyle: A Tale for the Young. By Crom Scorr.

Little Elsie among the Quarry- men. . By ELLEN PALMER.

The Lesson of Obedience. By the Rev. R1cHARD NEwrToy, D.D.

The Lesson of Diligence. B theRev. RicHarD NewrToy, DD.

Fergus: A Tale by Jacob

ABBOTT.

Gilbert and his Mother. By JACOB ABBOTT. The Shepherd of Salisbury

Plain. By Spl Morgz. Emily Barton, and other Stories. By CHARLES and Mary LAMB. Elizabeth Villiers, and other Stories. By CHARLES and MARY

The Grateful Negro. By MARIA EDGEWORTH. By

Forgive and Forget. MARIA EDGEWORTH. |

Waste not, Want not. By MARIA EDGEWORTH.

The False Key. By Maria EDGEWORTH.

The Bracelets. By Maria EDGEWORTH. Rise

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The above Series of Books is also kept in embossed and illuminated paper cover, beautifully printed in gold from entirely new designs, price 4d. each.

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IN PACKETS.

PENNY BOOKS. Twelve Books in Packet.

In demy 18mo, 16 pp., Illustrated. Coloured Wrapper with beautiful design. Price 1s. each Packet.

PAOKET I., Twelve kinds. | PAOKET IV., Twelve kinds.

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In demy 18mo. 32 pp., Illustrated. Coloured Wrapper with beautiful design. Price 1s. each Packet.

PAOKET I., . Six kinds, | PACKET IV.,. Six kinds,

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The above SUNDAY SCHOOL REWARD PACKETS also kept in Volumes, demy 18mo, cloth extra, price 1s. each, or in gilt back and edges, price 1s. 6d. each, under the following titles:

. George and his Penny, by Mrs. SuHmrwoop; and other Tales. . The Young Apprentice, by Janz Taytor; and other Tales.

. Faithful unto Death, by OCnArLes Bruce; and other Tales. My Little Teachers, and other Tales.

. Brave and True, and other Tales.

. Emily’s Temptation, and other Tales.

. The Negro Servant, by Rev. Lucu Ricumonp; and other Tales. . The Orange Girl of St. Giles, and other Tales.

. The Orange Grove, by Mrs. SHERWwoop; and other Tales.

10. Little Nat, and other Tales.

11. Learning by Experience, and other Tales.

12. The Orphan’s Friend, by James F. Cops; and other Tales.

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*.* The above Series of SUNDAY ScHOOL REWARD BOOKS comprises some of _the best selected Tales, written specially for Youth, by Mrs. SHERWOOD, JANE TAYLOR, RICHARD Rowe, JAMES F. Cops, F.R.G.S., CHARLES Bruor, and other popular and well-known Authors. The moral teaching in each, though given in the form of a Story, is sound, healthy, aud unmistakeable, while they wre all written in a way which cannot fail to prove interesting and attractive to the very youngest class of reader's.

Ooh ee

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16 Books published by William P. Nimmo.

NIMMO’S NATIONAL LIBRARY. In crown 8vo, with Steel Frontispiece and Vignette, handsomely

bound, cloth extra, price 5s. each; also in full gilt side, back,

and edges, price 6s. each. -

The English Circumnavigators: The most re- markable Voyages round the World by English Sailors. (Drake, Dampier, Anson, and Cook’s Voyages.) With a Preliminary Sketch of their Lives and Discoveries. Edi with Notes, Maps, etc., by Davin Laine PURVES an R. CocHRANE.

The Book of Adventure and Peril. A Record of Heroism and Endurance on Sea and Land. Compiled and Edited by CHARLES Brucsz, Editor of ‘Sea Songs and Ballads,’ ‘The Birthday Book of Proverbs,’ etc.

The Great Triumphs of Great Men. Edited by

JAMES MAson. Illustrated.

Great Historical Mutinies, comprising the Story of the Mutiny of the ‘ Bounty,’ the Mutiny at Spithead and the Nore, the Mutinies of the Highland Regiments, and the Indian Mutiny, etc. Edited by Davin Hersert, M.A.

Famous Historical Scenes from Three Centuries. Pictures of celebrated events from the Reformation to the end of the French Revolution. Selected from the works of Standard Authors by A. R. Horpz Moncriezrr.

The English Explorers; comprising details of the

more famous Travels by Mandeville, Bruce, Park, and Living-

stone. With Map of Africaand Chapter on Arctic Exploration. —

The Book for Every Day; containing an In- exhaustible Store of Amusing and Instructive Articles. Edited by JAMES Mason.

The Book of Noble Englishwomen: Lives made Illustrious by Heroism, Goodness, and Great Attainments. Edited by CHARLES BRUCE.

A Hundred Wonders of the World in Nature and Art, described according to the latest Authorities, and profusely Illustrated. Edited by Jonn Smatt, M.A.

A Book about Travelling, Past and Present. Profusely Illustrated. Edited by THomas A. CROAL.

Other Popular and Standard Volumes in preparation.

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