A small beginning has led us to a great ending.  If I were to put the bit of chalk with which we started into the hot but obscure flame of burning hydrogen, it would presently shine like the sun.  It seems to me that this physical metamorphosis is no false image of what has been the result of our subjecting it to a jet of fervent, though nowise brilliant, thought to-night.  It has become luminous, and its clear rays, penetrating the abyss of the remote past, have brought within our ken some stages of the evolution of the earth.  And in the shifting “without haste, but without rest” of the land and sea, as in the endless variation of the forms assumed by living beings, we have observed nothing but the natural product of the forces originally possessed by the substance of the universe.

FOOTNOTES: 

[29] See Appendix to Captain Dayman’s “Deep Sea Soundings in the North Atlantic Ocean, between Ireland and Newfoundland, made in H.M.S. Cyclops.  Published by order of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, 1858.”  They have since formed the subject of an elaborate Memoir by Messrs. Parker and Jones, published in the Philosophical Transactions for 1865.

[30] During the cruise of H.M.S. Bull-dog, commanded by Sir Leopold M’Clintock, in 1860, living star-fish were brought up, clinging to the lowest part of the sounding-line, from a depth of 1,260 fathoms, midway between Cape Farewell, in Greenland, and the Rockall banks.  Dr. Wallich ascertained that the sea-bottom at this point consisted of the ordinary Globigerina ooze, and that the stomachs of the star-fishes were full of Globigerinae.  This discovery removes all objections to the existence of living Globigerinae at great depths, which are based upon the supposed difficulty of maintaining animal life under such conditions; and it throws the burden of proof upon those who object to the supposition that the Globigerinae live and die where they are found.

[31] I have recently traced out the development of the “coccoliths” from a diameter of 1/7000th of an inch up to their largest size (which is about 1/1600th), and no longer doubt that they are produced by independent organisms, which, like the Globigerinae, live and die at the bottom of the sea.

[32] “Elements of Geology,” by Sir Charles Lyell, Bart.  F.R.S., p. 23.

X.

GEOLOGICAL CONTEMPORANEITY AND PERSISTENT TYPES OF LIFE.

Merchants occasionally go through a wholesome, though troublesome and not always satisfactory, process which they term “taking stock.”  After all the excitement of speculation, the pleasure of gain, and the pain of loss, the trader makes up his mind to face facts and to learn the exact quantity and quality of his solid and reliable possessions.

The man of science does well sometimes to imitate this procedure; and, forgetting for the time the importance of his own small winnings, to re-examine the common stock in trade, so that he may make sure how far the stock of bullion in the cellar—­on the faith of whose existence so much paper has been circulating—­is really the solid gold of truth.