("Collected Essays," VIII., page 305). This is a criticism of Lord
Kelvin's paper "On Geological Time" ("Trans. Geolog. Soc. Glasgow," III.).
At page 336 Mr. Huxley deals with Lord Kelvin's "third line of argument,
based on the temperature of the interior of the earth." This was no doubt
the point most disturbing to Mr. Darwin, since it led Lord Kelvin to ask
(as quoted by Huxley), "Are modern geologists prepared to say that all life
was killed off the earth 50,000, 100,000, or 200,000 years ago?" Mr.
Huxley, after criticising Lord Kelvin's data and conclusion, gives his
conviction that the case against Geology has broken down. With regard to
evolution, Huxley (page 328) ingeniously points out a case of circular
reasoning. "But it may be said that it is biology, and not geology, which
asks for so much time--that the succession of life demands vast intervals;
but this appears to me to be reasoning in a circle. Biology takes her time
from geology. The only reason we have for believing in the slow rate of
the change in living forms is the fact that they persist through a series
of deposits which, geology informs us, have taken a long while to make. If
the geological clock is wrong, all the naturalist will have to do is to
modify his notions of the rapidity of change accordingly.")


LETTER 384. TO J.D. HOOKER.
February 3rd [1868].

I am now reading Miquel on "Flora of Japan" (384/1. Miquel, "Flore du
Japon": "Archives Neerlandaises" ii., 1867.), and like it: it is rather a
relief to me (though, of course, not new to you) to find so very much in
common with Asia. I wonder if A. Murray's (384/2. "Geographical
Distribution of Mammals," by Andrew Murray, 1866. See Chapter V., page 47.
See Letter 379.) notion can be correct, that a [profound] arm of the sea
penetrated the west coast of N. America, and prevented the Asiatico-Japan