arise a stratum far to the west which, though occupying the same position relatively to other beds, formed of like materials, and containing like fossils, will yet be perhaps a million years later in date. * * * * * But the illegitimacy, or at any rate the great doubtfulness, of many current geological inferences, is best seen when we contemplate terrestrial changes now going on: and ask how far such inferences are countenanced by them. If we carry out rigorously the modern method of interpreting geological phenomena, which Sir Charles Lyell has done so much to establish--that of referring them to causes like those at present in action--we cannot fail to see how improbable are sundry of the received conclusions. Along each line of shore that is being worn away by the waves, there are being formed mud, sand, and pebbles. This detritus, spread over the neighbouring sea-bottom, has, in each locality, a more or less special character; determined by the nature of the strata destroyed. In the English Channel it is not the same as in the Irish Channel; on the east coast of Ireland it is not the same as on the west coast; and so throughout. At the mouth of each great river, there is being deposited sediment differing more or less from that of other rivers in colour and quality; forming strata that are here red, there yellow, and elsewhere brown, grey, or dirty white. Besides which various formations, going on in deltas and along shores, there are some much wider and still more contrasted formations. At the bottom of the AEgaean Sea, there is accumulating a bed of Pteropod shells, which will eventually, no doubt, become a calcareous rock. For some hundreds of thousands of square miles, the ocean-bed between Great Britain and North America, is being covered with a stratum of chalk; and over large areas in the Pacific, there are going on deposits of coralline limestone. Thus, throughout the Earth, there are at this moment being produced an immense number of strata differing from each other in lithological characters. Name at random any one part of the sea-bottom, and ask whether the deposit there taking place is like the deposit taking place at some distant part of the sea-bottom, and the almost-certainly correct answer will be--No. The chances are not in favour of similarity, but very greatly against it.