pendicular cleavage, and limestone above, its light brown colour richly contrasting with the deep red below. The sandstone below limestone here, and limestone without sandstone on the opposite shore, would seem to indicate a geological fault." The following diagram exemplifies the case he describes:

LIMESTONE

LEVEL OF DEAD SEA

LIMESTONE

SANDSTONE

Again, we find him remarking (p. 378), in reference to the same region, which was that on which Abraham looked down when he "beheld the smoke thereof as the smoke of a furnace;"-"The inference from the Bible that this entire chasm was a plain, sunk and 'overwhelmed' by the wrath of God, seems to be sustained by the extraordinary character of our soundings. The bottom of this sea consists of two submerged plains, an elevated and a depressed one; the last averaging thirteen, the former about thirteen hundred, feet below the surface." There is no positive proof that these disruptions took place at the time alluded to, but neither is there any valid reason that I am aware of why they should not have done so. But the fact of the disturbance, and the time at which it occurred, are two distinct questions which must not be confounded together.

But after all, it is by no means improbable that the predicted phenomenon will be one of simple rent, or fissure, however caused, of which numerous examples may be given. Our own country affords one of great interest and beauty. I refer to the Avon at Bristol, the bed of which, there is every reason to believe, is the result of a convulsion which rent the rocks that now form its sides, and which rise on either side

to about three hundred feet from the bed of the river. The following sketch will serve to give to those who are unacquainted with the locality an idea of its character:

I had long been convinced that the valley through which this river flows was the result of a convulsion, and that it is a case of rent or fissure, not of denudation; but fearing to depend upon my own judgment in the matter, I requested a friend, without informing him of my object, to write to one of the best geological authorities of the district, Handel Cossam, Esq., F.G.S., for his opinion upon it, and the reply was as follows: "The Clifton gorge was undoubtedly a RENT. The sides match, and there is every indication that the cause was volcanic."

Here, therefore, in addition to the previous examples given, we have a striking and satisfactory illustration of the mode in which the predicted disruption of the Mount of Olives may be accomplished.

The order in which animal life has appeared on the globe is thus eloquently described by Professor Sedgwick, in his "Discourse on the Studies of the University of Cambridge: "—

"The elevation of the Fauna of successive periods was not made by transmutation, but by creative additions; and it is by watching these additions that we get some insight into Nature's true historical progress. Judging by our evidence (and by what else have we any right to judge?) there was a time when Cephalopoda were the highest types of animal life. They were then the Primates of this world; and, corresponding to their office and position, some of them were of noble structure and gigantic size. But these creatures were degraded from their rank at the head of Nature, and Fishes next took the lead: and they did not rise up in Nature in some degenerate form, as if they were but the transmuted progeny of the Cephalopoda; but they started into life (if we are to trust our evidence) in the very highest ichthyic type ever created. Following our history chronologically, Reptiles next took the lead, and (with some almost evanescent exceptions) they flourished during the countless ages of the Secondary Period as the lords and despots of the world; and they had an organic perfection corresponding to their exalted rank in Nature's kingdom; for their highest orders were not merely great in strength and stature, but were anatomically raised far above any forms of the Reptile class now living in the

world. We have seen, however, that this class was, in its turn, to lose its rank at the head of Nature, and what is more, we have seen that it underwent (when considered collectively) a positive organic degradation before the end of the Secondary Period, and (if we may trust our evidence) this took place countless ages before terrestrial Mammals of any living type had been called into being. Mammals were added next (near the commencement of the Tertiary Period), and seem to have been added suddenly. Some of the early extinct forms of this class, which we now know only by ransacking the ancient catacombs of Nature, were powerful and gigantic; and we believe they were collectively well fitted for the place they filled. But they, in their turn, were to be degraded from their place at the head of Nature, and she became what she now is, by the addition of Man. By this last addition she is more exalted than she was before. Man stands by himself . the despotic lord of the living world; not so great in organic strength as many of the despots that went before him in Nature's chronicle, but raised far above them all by a higher development of the brain — by a framework that fits him for the operations of mechanical skill — by superadded reason by a social instinct of combination by a prescience that tells him to act prospectively by a conscience that makes him amenable to law - by conceptions that transcend the narrow limits of his vision by hopes that have no full fruition here - by an inborn capacity of rising from individual facts to the apprehension of general laws - by a conception of a cause for all the phenomena of sense and by a consequent belief in a God of Nature. Such is the history of Creation.” — Discourse, p. ccxvi.

E.

Increase of Habitable Space through the Absence of Sea.

Note to p. 211.

It is at once manifest that the absence of sea has an important bearing on the question of the amount of habitable space that will be available hereafter on the earth's surface for those who will be its privileged inhabitants. At present more than three fifths of the surface are covered by the ocean; and if from the remaining part we deduct the space occupied by polar ice and eternal snow, by sandy deserts, sterile mountains, marshes, rivers, and lakes, the habitable portion will scarcely exceed one fifth of the whole." The absence of sea, therefore, will make a vast difference in the amount of the space that may be occupied by mankind.

But still, it may be urged, even this will go but a very short way in meeting the difficulty. When it is considered. what innumerable millions have already inhabited the earth, to say nothing of those who may yet do so, it seems impos sible that there should be space for them, even though the size of the earth should be much greater than it is at present.2

1 Bakewell, quoted by Buckland, Bridg. Trea. i. 101.

2 I have made the above remark because it has long seemed to me not improbable that the size of the earth may be greatly increased hereafter. There is, I conceive, great reason for believing that it was far greater at one time than it is now. My space forbids my attempting to discuss this subject at any length, but let a section of any of the more mountainous districts of the globe, such as the Alps or the North of Scotland or of Wales, be considered, and let it be observed what a length of line is afforded by the stratification, which, rising in some