same constancy in the employment of means toward a final end, may be read still more clearly in the study of the fossils of the different creations. The species of all the creations are materially and genealogically as distinct from each other as those of the different points on the surface of the globe. I have compared hundreds of species reputed identical in various successive deposits,--species which are always quoted in favor of a transition, however indirect, from one group of species to another, --and I have always found marked specific differences between them. In a few weeks I will send you a paper which I have just printed on this subject, where it seems to me this view is very satisfactorily proved. The idea of a procreation of new species by preceding ones is a gratuitous supposition opposed to all sound physiological notions. And yet it is true that, taken as a whole, there is a gradation in the organized beings of successive geological formations, and that the end and aim of this development is the appearance of man. But this serial connection of all successive creatures is not material; taken singly these groups of species show no relation through intermediate forms genetically derived one from the other. The connection between them becomes evident only when they are considered as a whole emanating from a creative power, the author of them all. To your special questions I may now very briefly reply. Have fishes descended from a primitive type? So far am I from thinking this possible, that I do not believe there is a single specimen of fossil or living fish, whether marine or fresh-water, that has not been created with reference to a special intention and a definite aim, even though we may be able to detect but a portion of these numerous relations and of the essential purpose. Are the present fishes superior to the older ones? As a general proposition, I would say, NO; it seems to me even that the fishes which preceded the appearance of reptiles in the plan of creation were higher in certain characters than those which succeeded them; and it is a strange fact that these ancient fishes have something analogous with reptiles, which had not then made their appearance. One would say that they already existed in the creative thought, and that their coming, not far removed, was actually anticipated.