GEOLOGY 27 



not those which have chanced to be the oldest not 

 destroyed, or the first which existed in profoundly 

 deep seas in progress of conversion from sea to land : 

 if they are first they {? we) give up. Not so Button 

 or Lyell : if first reptile 1 of Red Sandstone (?) really 

 was first which existed : if Pachyderm 2 of Paris was 

 first which existed : fish of Devonian : dragon fly of 

 Lias : for we cannot suppose them the progenitors : 

 they agree too closely with existing divisions. But 

 geologists consider Europe as (?) a passage from sea 

 to island (?) to continent (except Wealden, see Lyell). 

 These animals therefore, I consider then mere intro- 

 duction (?) from continents long since submerged. 



Finally, if views of some geologists be correct, my 

 theory must be given up. [Lyell's views, as far as 

 they go, are in favour, but they go so little in favour, 

 and so much more is required, that it may (be) 

 viewed as objection.] If geology present us with 

 mere pages in chapters, towards end of (a) history, 

 formed by tearing out bundles of leaves, and each 

 page illustrating merely a small portion of the 

 organisms of that time, the facts accord perfectly 

 with my theory 3 . 



1 I have interpreted as Sandstone a scrawl which I first read as Sea ; 

 I have done so at the suggestion of Professor Judd, who points out that 

 " footprints in the red sandstone were known at that time, and geologists 

 were not then particular to distinguish between Amphibians and Reptiles." 



2 This refers to Cuvier's discovery of Palceotherium &c. at Montmartre. 



3 This simile is more fully given in the Origin, Ed. i. p. 310, vi. p. 452. 

 " For my part, following out Lyell's metaphor, I look at the natural 

 geological record, as a history of the world imperfectly kept, and 

 written in a changing dialect ; of this history we possess the last volume 

 alone, relating only to two or three countries. Of this volume, only here 

 and there a short chapter has been preserved ; and of each page, only here 

 and there a few lines. Each word of the slowly-changing language, in 

 which the history is supposed to be written, being more or less different 

 in the interrupted succession of chapters, may repi'esent the apparently 

 abruptly changed forms of life, entombed in our consecutive, but widely 

 separated formations." Professor Judd has been good enough to point out 

 to me, that Darwin's metaphor is founded on the comparison of geology to 

 history in Ch. i. of the Principles of Geology, Ed. i. 1830, vol. i. pp. 1 4. 

 Professor Judd has also called my attention to another passage, Principles, 

 Ed. i. 1833, vol. iii. p. 33, when Lyell imagines an historian examining "two 

 buried cities at the foot of Vesuvius, immediately superimposed upon each 



