hardly fossilised, all the species were still living. That is to say, he collected shells which were of course dead, but they were similar to others which were alive on the floor of the sea close by. The individual had died, but the kind or species was still alive. He examined the latest strata in England, the crag of Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex, and found that the proportion of recent shells—that is to say, of dead individuals belonging to living species—is great. Some of the shells belonged to kinds which are not now living, and are extinct. He wrote, “I think we may lay it down as a rule, that if any given tertiary deposit in which we have found a few species of shells only, of which one half, or a third, or even less, are recent, and those recent ones inhabit the seas immediately adjoining, the formation will be pliocene.” This word was one of three invented by Dr. Whewell, of Cambridge, at Lyell’s suggestion to explain the gradual development of the recent animals and plants during the past history of the globe. The other terms were “miocene” and “eocene.” The most ancient deposit which was supposed by Lyell to contain evidences of existing genera was at the dawn of the last great geological period, the tertiary. It was called eocene from ηως, dawn, καὶνος, recent. The next deposits overlying these older ones contained, according to his estimate, seventeen per cent. of living species, all the rest being extinct; and they were called miocene, from μεῖον, less, and καὶνος, recent; expressing a minor proportion of recent species to that found in the topmost and most recent tertiary deposits. These last contain a large proportion of recent species, and are called pliocene, πλεὶον, more, and καὶνος, recent. It was a grand theory, which has remained almost unaltered, and it influenced the progress of geology, for it plainly inferred that the living things of the present have been linked with those of the past time by direct descent; that many forms of life have become extinct, and that there is some wonderful law relating to this. About this time many were the geological heresies, and the lovers of the notion of the violent actions of nature evolved theories about volcanoes and the occurrence of vast waves to account for the presence of the great masses of rock which are found strewn far and wide and away from their sources. These Lyell successfully antagonized. He then published the “Elements of Geology,” and his time was fully occupied in the meetings of the Geological Society, in criticising work, and in genial scientific society.