W LOWEST FOSSILIFEROUS STKaTA. 321 



tability of species. But Sir Charles Lyell now gives the 

 support of his hi^h authority to the opposite side, and most 

 geologists and palaeontologists are much shaken in their 

 former belief. Those who believe that the geological record 

 is in any degree perfect, will undoubtedly at once reject tha 

 theory. For my part, following out Lyell 's metaphor, I look 

 at the 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 eacri page, only here and 

 there a few lines. Each word of the slowly-changing lan- 

 guage, more or less different in the successive chapters, may 

 represent the forms of life, which are entombed in our con- 

 secutive formations, and which falsely appear to have been 

 abruptly introduced. On this view the difficulties aboye 

 discussed are greatly diminished or even disappear. 



