sk in a
vertical position? What the four-post bedstead but a reduplication of the
original type, a table placed on a table, the upper one being laid open?
If he had had the advantage of reading Mr Dickens, he would have
mentioned, in confirmation of this view, that young Mr Weller, when
sleeping under a table, congratulates himself upon enjoying the luxury of
a four-post bedstead. The coal-scuttle might perhaps present some
difficulties; but if he might be allowed to approach it through the
loo-table, he would doubtless succeed in tracing here also the unity of
composition. In the loo-table the four legs have collapsed into a central
column! The coal-scuttle is only a _loo-table_ with the edges of the disk
curled up--assuming a bonnet-like shape, the result, perhaps, of its long
domesticity. In short, we believe the only insuperable difficulty Martin
would encounter, would be, when, after having completed his survey, he
would run off to the joiner to convince him of the unity of plan on which
he had been so unconsciously working.

It was a bold step of our author's to adduce the geographical distribution
of the several species of animals as a proof of his law of development. To
most minds it would have immediately occurred as an objection. Each region
of the earth has its own peculiar _fauna_, and this difference is not
accountable on any known influence of soil or climate. What can explain
the peculiar fauna of New Holland? If all the varieties of animal life
spring from one and the same germ under the uniform laws of nature, how is
it that in some regions, fitted in every respect for the support of
animal life, no animals whatever of the higher order are found? "New
Zealand, which may be compared in dimensions to Ireland united with
Scotland, which extends over more than 700 miles in latitude, and is in
its many parts 90 miles broad, with varied stations, a fine climate, and
land of all heights, from 14,000 feet downwards, does not possess one
indigenous quadruped, with the exception of a small rat."--_Lyell's
Principles of Geology_, Vol. i. p. 102. Other instances equally striking
might be mentioned. How are we to explain them upon our author's
hypothesis? Are we to make supposition upon supposition, and presume that
the land of New Zealand had not been long enough emerged from the sea to
allow of the ample development of the original germ of life; and that, if
the rat had been left to himself, he would in process of