Moreover it is becoming the Britons, whether scientific or unscientific, who boast at all fitting occasions of their aptitude to rule the waves, should know something of the population of their saline empire, especially of those parts of it immediately in contact with their terrestrial domain, and the coasts of the Continent to which our United Kingdom appertains.

Zero of Animal Life probably about 300 fathoms.

Palaeontological research exhibits, beyond question, the phenomenon of provinces in time, as well as provinces in space. Moreover, all our knowledge of organic remains teaches us, that species have a definite existence, and a centralization in geological time as well as in geographical space, and that no species is repeated in time.

...It is a very remarkable fact that the species of shell-fish common to Greenland and Finmark are not all inhabitants of deep or moderately deep water .... That these littoral mollusks indicate by their presence on both sides of the Atlantic, some ancient continuity or contiguity of coast-line is what I firmly believe.

The corals do not look much worn, but still appear to have been dead. There are some delicate shells of molluscs from depths beyond 500 fathoms, where they were certainly living.

People without independence have no business to meddle with science. It should never be linked with lucre.

[Geology] may be looked upon as the history of the earth's changes during preparation for the reception of organized beings, a history, which has all the character of a great epic.