Cosmogony. By Evan Hopkins, C.E., F.G.S. (Longman and Co.)— Another
pamphlet not so much in refutation of Dr. Colenso, as in defence of Moses and refutation of the geologists and astronomers. These last very competent persons must defend their own sciences themselves, but we should have more confidence in Mr. Hopkins if he did not use " demonstrative " as if it meant demonstrable, and had re- frained from such grammar as the following :—" In the northern part of Africa similar vegetation as those now found in Portland grow luxu- riantly." Also, considering the indignation he feels with the savants, whom he amuses of conspiring to stifle inconvenient truths, we are surprised to find him declaring it "derogatory to refer even to the strange and monstrous ideas of Lamark and his followers on the origin of species, as we cannot enter into discussion with those who do not believe in the perfect creation at starting." Mr. Hopkins's own theory is that all land moves from the south pole to the north, just as the ocean currents, impelled by magnetic force, so that "in the days of Adam, Greenland must have been in the parallel of Cairo." The question of course then arises, what becomes of the land when it reaches the north pole, and even Mr. Hopkins doubts. "Whether the ocean and the terrestrial substances. . . . become decomposed, and the hydrogen only passes through the axis, to re-appear and unite again with the oxygen at the antarctic pole, or that the whole substances pass in solution through a hollow or porous axis, are questions that cannot be answered." Probably not.
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