ter, that the vegetation of the land had
been derived originally from that of the ocean. "In a word," we find him
saying, "do not herbs, plants, roots, grains, and all of this kind that
the earth produces and nourishes, come from the sea? Is it not at least
natural to think so, since we are certain that all our habitable lands
came originally from the sea? Besides, in small islands far from the
Continent, which have appeared a few ages ago at most, and where it is
manifest that never any men had been, we find shrubs, herbs, and roots.
Now, you must be forced to own that either those productions owed their
origin to the sea, _or to a new creation, which is absurd_." And then
Maillet goes on to show, after a manner which--now that algaeology has
become a science--must be regarded as at least curious, that the plants
of the sea, though not so well developed as those of the land, are
really very much of the same nature. "The fishermen of Marseilles find
daily," he says, "in their nets, and among their fish, plants of a
hundred kinds, with their fruits still upon them; and though these
fruits are not so large nor so well nourished as those of our earth, yet
their species is in no other respects dubious. There they find clusters
of white and black grapes, peach-trees, pear-trees, prune-trees,
apple-trees, and all sorts of flowers." Such was the sort of wild fable
invented in a tract of natural science in which I found it of interest
to acquaint myself with the truth. I have since seen the extraordinary
vision of Maillet revived, first by Oken, and then by the author of the
"Vestiges of Creation;" and when, in grappling with some of the views
and statements of the latter writer, I set myself to write the chapter
of my little work which deals with this special hypothesis, I found that
I had in some sort studied in the school in which the education
necessary to its production was most thoroughly to be acquired. Had the
ingenious author of the "Vestiges" taken lessons for but a short time at
the same form, he would scarce have thought of reviving in those latter
ages the dream of Oken and Maillet. A knowledge of the facts would to a
certainty have protected him against the reproduction of the hypothesis.

The lesson at Nigg was of a more curious kind, though, mayhap, less
certainly conclusive in its bearings. The house of the proprietor of
Nigg bordered on the burying-ground. I was engaged in cutting an
inscription on the tombston