s of
other formations. We see in the world of fashion old modes of ornament
continually reviving: the range of invention seems limited; and we find
it revolving, in consequence, in an irregular, ever-returning cycle. But
Infinite resource did not need to travel in a circle, and so we find no
return or doublings in its course. It has appeared to me, that an
argument against the transmutation of species, were any such needed,
might be founded on those inherent peculiarities of structure that are
ascertained thus to pervade the entire texture of the framework of
animals. If we find one building differing from another merely in
external form, we have no difficulty in conceiving how, by additions and
alterations, they might be made to present a uniform appearance;
transmutation, development, progression,--if one may use such
terms,--seem possible in such circumstances. But if the buildings differ
from each other, not only in external form, but also in every brick and
beam, bolt and nail, no mere scheme of external alteration can induce a
real resemblance. Every brick must be taken down, and every beam and
belt removed. The problem cannot be wrought by the remodelling of an old
house: there is no other mode of solving it save by the erection of a
new one.

Among the singularly interesting Old Red fossils of Mr. Duff's
collection I saw the impression of a large ichthyolite from the superior
yellow sandstone of the Upper Old Red, which had been brought him by a
country diker only a few days before. In breaking open a building stone,
the diker had found the inside of it, he said, covered over with
curiously carved flowers; and, knowing that Mr. Duff had a turn for
curiosities, he had brought the flowers to him. The supposed flowers are
the sculpturings on the scales of the ichthyolite; and, true to the
analogy of the diker, on at least a first glance, they may be held to
resemble the rather equivocal florets of a cheap wall-paper, or of an
ornamental tile. The specimen exhibits the impressions of four rows of
oblong rectangular scales. One row contains seven of these, and another
eight. Each scale averages about an inch and a quarter in length, by
about three quarters of an inch in breadth; and the parallelogramical
field which it presents is occupied by a curious piece of carving. By a
sort of pictorial illusion, the device appears as if in motion: it would
seem as if a sudden explosion had taken place in the middle of the
fie