of oats, treated them in the manner recommended, by continually
stopping the flowering stems, and the produce, in 1844, has been
for the most part ears of a very slender barley, having much the
appearance of rye, with a little wheat, and some oats; samples of
which are, by the favour of Lord Bristol, now before us.' The
learned writer then adverts to the 'extraordinary, but certain
fact, that in orchidaceous plants, forms just as different as
wheat, barley, rye, and oats, have been proved by the most rigorous
evidence, to be accidental variations of one common form, brought
about no one knows how, but before our eyes, and rendered
permanent by equally mysterious agency. Then says Reason, if they
occur in orchidaceous plants, why should they not also occur in
corn plants? for it is not likely that such vagaries will be
confined to one little group in the vegetable kingdom; it is more
rational to believe them to be a part of the _general system_ of
creation.... How can we be _sure_, that wheat, rye, oats, and
barley, are not all accidental off-sets from some unsuspected
species?'"

It may be so; but this would only prove that the "unsuspected species"
included greater varieties, not that a really defined species was
transmutable into another. But it is a point upon which no satisfactory
result can be arrived at, since naturalists are not agreed in the
classification of species, nor what attributes constitute one.

The Broomfield experiment is again brought forward, as decisive of the
power to originate new life from inorganic elements. It will be
remembered that Mr. WEEKES, of Sandwich, continued during three years to
subject solutions to electric action, and invariably found insects
produced in these instances, while they as invariably failed to appear