[49] J. Pye Smith, Scripture and Geology, 5th Ed., p. 69. [50] In Dr. Pye Smith's Scripture and Geology, p. 382, (Ed. 1855.) [51] I would venture respectfully to suggest that the following argument by Mr. Babbage is vitiated throughout by a confounding of the phenomena observed with the conclusions inferred from them. "What, then, have those accomplished, who have restricted the Mosaic account of the creation to that diminutive period, which is, as it were, but a span in the duration of the earth's existence, and who have imprudently rejected _the testimony of the senses_, when opposed to their philological criticisms? The very arguments which Protestants have opposed to the doctrine of transubstantiation, would, if their view of the case were correct, be equally irresistible against the Book of Genesis. But let us consider what would be the conclusion of any reasonable being in a parallel case. Let us imagine a manuscript written three thousand years ago, and professing to be a revelation from the Deity, in which it was stated that the colour of the paper of the very book now in the reader's hands is _black_, and that the colour of the ink in the characters which he is now reading is _white_. With that reasonable doubt of his own individual faculties which would become the inquirer into the truth of a statement said to be derived from so high an origin, he would ask all those around him, whether to their senses the paper appeared to be _black_, and the ink to be _white_. If he found the senses of other individuals agree with his own, then he would undoubtedly pronounce the alleged revelation a forgery, and those who propounded it to be either deceived or deceivers."--_Ninth Bridgewater Treatise_, p. 68. [52] Dr. Pye Smith calls the hypothesis of progressive development "the crude impertinence of a few foreign sophists,"--and he states as a fact, "that all the great geologists repudiate such a notion with abhorrence, and give physical evidence of its falsehood."--_Scripture and Geology_, (5th Ed.) p. 420. See also Professor Owen in "Rep. Brit Assoc." 1842; Professor Sedgwick, in "Discourse on Stud. of Camb.;" Professor Whewell, in "Hist. of Inductive Sciences;" Professor Ansted, in "Anc. World;" &c. [53] Wallace's "Palms of the Amazon," p. 35. [54] Roxburgh. [55] Rumph, v. 100. [56] My observations rest on the fine specimen of this plant preserved in the British Museum. Dr. Harvey, however, says, "The growth of the trunk in _Kingia_ is very slow, and a specimen about ten feet high may probably be some hundreds of years old." Report of Dubl. Univ. Zool. and Bot. Assoc. for Feb. 25, 1857. See the note _infra_ on page 188. [57] Gaudichaud: Recherches Gen. sur l'Organographie, p. 129. [58] On the development of _Loranthus_, &c. Linn. Tr. xviii p. 71, (_abridged_).