links Mr Darwin has to run the gauntlet of all the rocks from the Cretacean down to the Cambrian, thence to the basal rocks of the Silurian, and thence to Chaos and old Night.'

So then in all this immense series, in all these 'millions. of ages' required for forming the rocks, between the Tertiary and the Silurian, there is not a particle of evidence to be adduced for the help of Natural Selection. Why then appeal to a pre-Silurian imaginary formation? here is space enough to find what is wanted, how comes it that nothing which is wanted can be found?

Mr Darwin has told us that 'species very rarely endured for more than a geological period' (171), an admission which, though true, is startling from this quarter, as it is a clear acknowledgment of the negative evidence in paleontology, which Mr Darwin has declared to be worthless. It is obvious that this his rule can only stand on negative evidence; a species that has existed in one formation, is not found in the next. Therefore, argues Mr Darwin, it has ceased to exist, convinced of the fact simply because he cannot find the species. In this case the negative evidence in paleontology satisfies Mr Darwin, as it does us also.

But now we ask why, if the negative evidence is admitted as a proof in one instance, is it rejected in another? We say that the elephant, &c., did not exist, or that its antecedent link did not exist, in the Secondary, because there is no trace of them to be found in that formation; and this we urge against the existence of an animal which has only a theoretical standing, and whose real existence is the thing to be proved. Negative evidence against a creature that cannot be produced, is inevitable.

the mammifers are never found-that the marine mammifers have appeared before the terrestrial, because the marine mammifers are found in strata, where the terrestrial mammifers are never found, and that is not all, this relation between strata and species proves to us, that even with the terrestrial mammifers there has been a succession of species, and a very remarkable succession.'

This latter remark may be best explained in the words of Cuvier: First of all, all the genera now unknown, the palæotheriums, the anoplotheriums, &c., belong to the most ancient soils of which we are speaking, to those which rest on the Calcaire* grossier-in the second place, the most celebrated of the unknown species, which are connected with known genera, or to genera very nearly allied to those which are known, as the elephants, the rhinoceros, the hippopotamus, the fossil mastodons, are not found together with the most ancient genera-it is only in the soils of transport that they are found. In fine, the bones of species which seem to be the same as ours, are not met with except in the last deposits of the alluvium.'

We have here established by the testimony of geology distinct deposits and distinct genera belonging to them, they are not found previously, and in most instances they are not found afterwards in the succeeding deposits.

Let us hear the testimony of another celebrated † geologist. Every plant and animal that now lives upon earth began to be during the great Tertiary period, and had no place among the plants and animals of the great secondary

• Calcaire grossier is a formation of the Paris basin, take the chalk system (secondary) as the base, then we have resting on it the plastic clay, next in ascending scale the Calcaire grossier, and then the Gypsum of Montmartre-after which upper marine, &c.

Hugh Miller, Testimony of the Rocks (195).

division. We can trace several of our existing quadrupeds, such as the badger, the hare, the fox, the reindeer, and the wild cat up to the earlier times of the Pleistocene, and not a few of our existing shells, such as the great pecten, the edible oyster, &c., up to the greatly earlier times of the coralline crag. But at certain definite lines in the deposits of the past, representative of certain points in the course of time, the existing mammals and molluscs cease to appear, and we find their places occupied by other mammals and molluscs; even such of our British shells as seem to have enjoyed as species the longest term of life cannot be traced beyond the times of the Pleiocene deposits. . . . . . We thus know that in certain periods, nearer or more remote, all our existing mollusca began to exist, and that they had no existence during the previous periods, which were, however, richer in animals of the same great molluscan group than the present time-a great number of still older shells have been detected in a single deposit of the Paris Basin, the Calcaire grossier, and a good many more in a more ancient formation still, the London clay. On entering the chalk, we find a yet older group of shells, wholly unlike any of the preceding ones, and in the Oolite and Lias yet other and different groups,' &c.

Thus testimonies to the same effect might be multiplied from almost every respectable book on geology. All writers agree on the subject that certain genera or species have made their appearance for the first time in certain deposits; and as this is fatal to the Theory, we need not be surprised to hear Mr Darwin stoutly declaring that this evidence is false; this is his own word, 'why do whole groups of allied species appear, though certainly they often falsely appear, to come in suddenly on the several geological

stages? (497). So their sudden appearance is acknowledged, only we are to understand that they had also existed in antecedent formations, though they cannot be found. Before, however, we hear the explanation offered to us of these sudden appearances, we must yet more closely press the evidence before us.

We clearly understand then that the last great formation of the Tertiary, with its classification of ages in chronological succession, introduces us to the fauna and flora that now exist; for though there is a manifest difference, if we compare the organic beings of the lower divisions with those of the Pleistocene, and of the present era, called sometimes the post-Tertiary, yet there is still a similitude and a connection, and everything seems in this formation, taken as a whole, to be preparing for the present state of things, and the introduction of the actual inhabitants of the earth. When we reflect,' says Lyell, 'on the tranquil state of the earth, implied by some of the lacustine and marine deposits of this age, and consider the fulness of all the different classes of the animal kingdom, as deduced from the study of the fossil remains, we are naturally led to conclude, that the earth at that period was in a perfectly settled state, and already fitted for the habitation of man' (iv. 129).

The Tertiary formation is separated from the preceding chalk formation with such marked difference, the character of the two eras is so wide apart, the biological chasm is so vast between them, that palæontologists speak of them as if they were distinct worlds. The Tertiary is, as it were, severed and walled off from the next formation beneath it, and by this strong separation the argument too is hemmed in and confined to a comparatively small compass.

M. Deshayes first pointed out that which Lyell fully confirms that no species of fossil shell has yet been found common to the Secondary and Tertiary formations. This marked discordance in the organic remains of the two series is not confined to the testacea, but extends, as far as careful comparison has yet been instituted, to all other departments of the animal kingdom, and to the plants. I am informed by M. Agassiz that after examining about 500 species of that class, in formations of all ages, he could discover no one common to the Secondary and Tertiary rocks-nay, all the Secondary species hitherto known to him, belong to the genera distinct from those established for the classification of the Tertiary and recent fishes. There appears to be a greater chasm between the remains of the Eocene and Maestrecht beds (Secondary) than between the Eocene and recent strata; for there are some living shells in the Eocene formations, whilst there are no Eocene fossils in the newest Secondary group' (iv. 217). Similar are the statements of Professor Ansted. 'At the close of the Secondary period (that is, the commencement of the Tertiary) all these older forms appear have been completely destroyed, the newer forms becoming much more abundant and widely distributed, and not one species remaining identical with anything that exists in the Secondary rocks' (ii. 71).

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By all this then we see that the Eocene formation of the Tertiary begins the grand drama of the existing state of things. The curtain of creation rises, and Nature is seen earnestly occupied in her grand laboratory, introducing in well-considered pauses the animated scale which is to terminate in man. We find in the Eocene, carnivorous land-animals unknown before, and by their pre