thought. Indeed, if there can be grades in legitimacy, certain
branches of science have the advantage over astronomy, in so far
as their retrospective prophecies are not only susceptible of
verification, but are sometimes strikingly verified.

Such a science exists in that application of the principles of
biology to the interpretation of the animal and vegetable
remains imbedded in the rocks which compose the surface of the
globe, which is called Palaeontology.

At no very distant time, the question whether these so-called
"fossils," were really the remains of animals and plants was
hotly disputed. Very learned persons maintained that they were
nothing of the kind, but a sort of concretion, or
crystallisation, which had taken place within the stone in which
they are found; and which simulated the forms of animal and
vegetable life, just as frost on a window-pane imitates
vegetation. At the present day, it would probably be impossible
to find any sane advocate of this opinion; and the fact is
rather surprising, that among the people from whom the circle-
squarers, perpetual-motioners, flat-earthed men and the like,
are recruited, to say nothing of table-turners and spirit-
rappers, somebody has not perceived the easy avenue to
nonsensical notoriety open to any one who will take up the
good old doctrine, that fossils are all lusus naturae.

The position would be impregnable, inasmuch as it is quite
impossible to prove the contrary. If a man choose to maintain
that a fossil oyster shell, in spite of its correspondence, down
to every minutest particular, with that of an oyster fresh taken