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Darwin's 'Origin of Species.'—At page 7594 of the 'Zoologist' we read, relative to the presumed relationship between species, that "If Mr. Darwin could believe he was dealing with plants or animals, instead of inactive mineral elements, he could weave them into a genealogical series more remarkably consistent than the blood affinities he assumes exist in the organic kingdom;" and again, in the same page, his

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assumed principle "is strikingly paralleled in some unrelated part of creation; for instance, the analogy between the system of arrangement of the heavenly bodies," &c. In all this it is apparently taken for granted that such a thing as relationship between the heavenly bodies on the one hand, and the so-called terrestrial elements on the other, is altogether too absurd for belief. But these analogies may be more than analogies,— may be true homologies. Our fifty or sixty assumed elementary bodies may at any moment be reduced to a dozen or fewer; and even if they are not, the bromides, iodides, &c., do indeed form very pretty family groups; and despite the "loves of the triangles," the loves of the elements may have yet to be sung. Sexual distinctions are wanting, but the generation of new forms (as water by the union of oxygen and hydrogen) is constantly effected by the union of one or more parental elements. In the planetary bodies the indications of common origin are more striking and conclusive; and there is ample room for believing that our solar system is literally the family of the sun. If the great Creator has willed that from a few simple forms the manifold yet subordinated varieties of heaven and earth should be eliminated, have we cause to wonder that it should please Him to form us thus? Of course I do not attempt to identify Mr. Darwin with the ideas mentioned above: he may or may not hold them; but his theory, I would submit, is applicable, with modifications, to the whole of the known creation.— W. D. Crotch; Uphill House, Weston-super-Mare, August 5, 1861.