'The present number of named species of plants is about 280,000, spread in provinces over the known world. The greater part of this large number are peculiar in their habits, and arbitrary in their provinces of growth. The palms of the tropics would die in the ungenial atmosphere of the northern hemisphere; and the plants that flourish under the chilling blasts of the Arctic Regions would wither under {10} the scorching suns of the Torrid Zone. It is, therefore, a preliminary question--was this a multitudinous creation, assorted to their several localities, or a creation of one or two plants of a class from whence all the rest proceeded? If the former is alleged, I ask, as the ordered world was then only two days old, what provision was there, by known laws, to meet numerous physical wants of this immense creation? Were they created perfect plants, as we are informed they were, yielding seed, or only the germs for future growth? If perfect plants, I apprehend the periodical rings, the distinctive mark of the exogens, would, by natural laws, be wanting; but, I suppose, added in the plants proceeding from the parent stem. We have, then, a _development_ process at once admitted; a process, I conceive, manifestly opposed to the Mosaic narrative. 'Of the oneness of vegetable "creation," "making," or "formation," Genesis leaves no doubt. Now Geology, or rather palaeontology, adduces many proofs which, to unbiassed minds, I apprehend, will be conclusive, that such was not the case; but, on the contrary, the vegetable world progressed with the altered structural and climatic conditions of the earth. This is evidenced by the presence of special fossil vegetable productions in certain strata, and the absence of others. Negative evidence may, in some cases, be inconclusive; but it must be borne in mind that there are certain conditions or collateral circumstances which impart to _negative_ the force and conclusiveness of _positive_ and direct affirmative testimony. Thus, in considering the value of that evidence in favour of the existence of a certain class of vegetable life at any given period, if we find (says the Rev. B. Powell) that some vegetable forms existed, and a fitness at the same period for the existence of others, the non-appearance of the latter in such cases is tantamount to "non-existence." On evidence thus valued we will inquire into the simultaneous creation and existence of the vegetable world as related in the 11th and 12th verses. 'Through nearly the entire range of the immense Silurian deposits we find only traces of algae, the lowest form of plants of the Thallogens. Sir R. J. Murchison says, "there are _no traces of land plants_ in the great mass of the Silurian rocks."