of the geological
record, and to suppose facts and proofs may hereafter be discovered, when
few are now known to favor the new hypothesis. We can see no more reason
why a giraffe should have had a long neck, because he wished to crop the
leaves of tall trees, than that mankind should have become winged, because
in all times both children and men have wished to fly. Nor do we think Mr.
Wallace's opinion any better founded, that, owing to a dearth of leaves on
the lower branches of trees, all the short-necked giraffes died out, and
left the long-necked ones to continue the species. This theory reminds us
of the "_astronomical expirimint_" proposed by Father Tom to his
"_Howliness_" the Pope, of the goose and the turkey-cock picking the stars
from the sky. As to the ape-like skull of Engis Cave, and the human
skeleton found near Dusseldorf in a cavern, we think it would not be
difficult to find full as bad skulls on living shoulders, and equally bad
forms in skeletons now walking about. To us they are no evidence that the
first man was a gorilla or a chimpanzee, nor does his or Darwin's argument
convince us that all vertebrates were once fishes. This question, however,
is still mooted; and we have no objections that people should amuse
themselves in thus tracing back their ancestry.

To this class of inquirers Sir Charles Lyell's book will furnish food for
reflection; and they will see that even so enthusiastic a writer as this
new convert to the Darwinian doctrine can furnish but very slender support
to it from his geologic lore.

There is much interesting matter in the book besides the generalizations
we object to, and enough to render it welcome to the library of any one
interested in the study of Geology and of the antiquity of the animal
creation.

_Spurgeon's Sermons._ Preached and revised by the Rev. C.H. SPURGEON.
Seventh Series. New York: Sheldon and Co.

Spurgeon is emphatically of the earth, earthy. This we say, not as
anything against him intellectually or spiritually, but simply as
indicating the material ballast, which in this man is grosser and heavier
than in most men, pulling forever against his sails, and absolutely
forbidding that freer movement of the imagination which usually belongs to
minds of a power equal in degree to his. Not that this freedom flows
necessarily out of a great degree of mental power, or by any organic law
is associated with what we term _genius_. Every one would admit tha