IN ANY SINGLE FORMATION. 311 



repeatedly advanced as a most serious objection against 

 my views. 



It may be worth while to sum up the foregoing remarks 

 on the causes of the imperfection of the geological record 

 under an imaginary illustration. The Malay Archipelago 

 is about the size of Europe from the North Cape to the 

 Mediterranean, and from Britain to Russia, and therefore 

 equals all the geological formations which have been exam- 

 ined with any accuracy, excepting those of the United States 

 of America. I fully agree with Mr. Godwin-Austen, that 

 the present condition of the Malay Archipelago, with its 

 numerous large islands separated by wide and shallow seas, 

 probably represents the former state of Europe, while most 

 of our formations were accumulating. The Malay Archi- 

 pelago is one of the richest regions in organic beings ; yet if 

 all the species were to be collected which have ever lived 

 there, how imperfectly would they represent the natural 

 history of the world ! 



But we have every reason to believe that the terrestrial 

 productions of the archipelago would be preserved in an 

 extremely imperfect manner in the formations which we 

 suppose to be there accumulating. Not many of the strictly 

 littoral animals, or of those which lived on naked submarine 

 rocks, would be embedded ; and those embedded in gravel or 

 sand would not endure to a distant epoch. Wherever sedi- 

 ment did not accumulate on the bed of the sea, or where it 

 did not accumulate at a sufficient rate to protect organic 

 bodies from decay, no remains could be preserved. 



Formations rich in fossils of many kinds, and of thick- 

 ness sufficient to last to an age as distant in futurity as the 

 secondary formations lie in the past, would generally be 

 formed in the archipelago only during periods of subsidence. 

 These periods of subsidence would be separated from each 

 other by immense intervals of time, during which the area 

 would be either stationary or rising ; while rising, the fos- 

 siliferous formations on the steeper shores would be de- 

 stroyed, almost as soon as accumulated, by the incessant 

 coast-action, as we now see on the shores of South America. 

 Even throughout the extensive and shallow seas within the 

 archipelago, sedimentary beds could hardly be accumulated 

 of great thickness during the periods of elevation, or become 

 capped and protected by subsequent deposits, so as to have 

 a good chance of enduring to a very distant future. During 

 the periods of subsidence, there would probably be much 



