been gone through during the Carboniferous or the Silurian period; for all truly chemical and electrical experiments would have resulted in manifestations of the same phenomena then as now:—an acid would have effervesced as freely with an alkali; and each fibre of an electrified feather—had feathers then existed—would have stood out as decidedly apart from all its neighbors. We must therefore hold, if we believe with the author of the “Vestiges,” first, from the Weekes experiment, that in all times, and in all places, every centre of a certain chemical and electric action would have become a new centre of creation to certain _recent_ species of low, but not _very_ low, organization; and, second, from his doctrine regarding the identity of the British and Continental floras, that in the course of subsequent development from these low forms, the process in each of many widely-separated centres,—widely separated both by space and time,—would be so nicely correspondent with the process in all the others, that the same higher _recent_ forms would be matured in all. And to doctrines such as these, the experience of all Geologists, all Phytologists, all Zoologists, is diametrically opposed. If these doctrines be true, _their_ sciences are false in their facts, and idle and unfounded in their principles. THE TWO FLORAS, MARINE AND TERRESTRIAL. BEARING OF THE EXPERIENCE ARGUMENT. Is the reader acquainted with the graphic verse, and scarce less graphic prose, in which Crabbe describes the appearances presented by a terrestrial vegetation affected by the waters of the sea? In both passages, as in all his purely descriptive writings, there is a solidity of truthful observation exhibited, which triumphs over their general homeliness of vein. “On either side Is level fen, a prospect wild and wide, With dykes on either hand, by ocean self-supplied. Far on the right the distant sea is seen, And salt the springs that feed the marsh between; Beneath an ancient bridge the straitened flood Rolls through its sloping banks of slimy mud; Near it a sunken boat resists the tide, That frets and hurries to the opposing side; The rushes sharp, that on the borders grow, Bend their brown florets to the stream below, Impure in all its course, in all its progress slow. Here a grave Flora scarcely deigns to bloom, Nor wears a rosy blush, nor sheds perfume. The few dull flowers that o’er the place are spread, Partake the nature of their fenny bed; Here on its wiry stem, in rigid bloom, Grows the salt lavender, that lacks perfume; Here the dwarf sallows creep, the septfoil harsh, And the soft slimy mallow of the marsh. Low on the ear the distant billows sound, And just in view appears their stony bound.”