148 Clay Street, S. F.
Footnotes:
[1] I ought surely to except the work of Professor Bachman, which I have not read, but which was certainly written by an able naturalist.
[2] I am not aware that this reply to the objection was ever advanced, till the publication, by myself, last year, of a sermon on the Resurrections of Spring, in a small volume of sermons, entitled Religious Lectures on some peculiar Phenomena in the Four Seasons. I may be mistaken; but I cannot see why this reply does not completely meet the difficulty, and free an important doctrine from an incubus under which it has long lain half smothered.
[3] I hope it is not vanity to say that this subject, also, was first suggested in the sermon referred to in the preceding note. If correct, it opens an animating prospect to the afflicted Christian.
[4] The first edition of this work was republished in this country. In England it has reached the fifth edition, much enlarged.
[5] Two or three years since Professor Bronn described twenty-six thousand six hundred and seventy-eight species; and, upon an average, one thousand species are discovered every year. M. Alcide D’Orbigny, in 1850, stated the number of mollusks and radiated animals alone at seventeen thousand nine hundred and forty-seven species.
[6] The news has just reached us that this venerable man is no more. I was present last summer at Homerton, when he resigned the charge of that beloved institution. From his addresses and his prayers, so redolent of the spirit of heaven, I might have known that he was pluming his wings for his upward flight. I am thankful that I was permitted to see the man, whom, of all others in Europe, I most desired to see. But Dr. Buckland I did not meet; for he was in an insane hospital, with no prospect of recovery. Alas! how sad to think of such Christian philosophers, so soon removed from the world, or from all concern in it! Could I dare to hope that I shall meet them and kindred spirits before the throne of our common Redeemer, how should I exclaim with Cicero, “O preclarum diem, quum in illud animorum concilium cœlumque proficiscar, ut quum ex hac turba et colluvione discedam!”
[7] This had always seemed to me a very strong case, as I had seen it described. But a recent visit to the spot (September, 1850) did not make so strong an impression upon me as I expected. In the first place, I found the head of Lake Lehman, where the Rhone enters, to be so narrow, that the detritus brought down by the river cannot spread itself out very far laterally. Secondly, I found, on ascending the Rhone, that it is every where a very rapid stream; and, on account of the origination of its branches from glaciers, it is always loaded with mud. So that the process of deposition must be going on continually. This cannot be the case in one in ten of other rivers, whose waters, for most of the year, are clear. This case, then, is only a quite unusual exception, and cannot be regarded as a standard by which to judge of the rate of deposition at present, or in past times.