ZOOGENESIS 



land rising above the water. There must also have 

 been winds, if only feeble winds, carrying the water 

 vapor back from the seas and lakes and marshes over 

 the land areas. 



Chemical and physical disintegration of the rocks 

 tvas taking place in exactly the same way in which it 

 is taking place today. The elements which are essen- 

 tial for the growth of plants were being released and 

 recombined, and soils were being formed just as they 

 are at the present time. Muds and sands and gravels 

 were being washed into the sea, there forming 

 sediments. 



Of course most of the rock disintegration taking 

 place today is affecting the so-called sedimentary rocks 

 which are themselves made up of the more or less 

 selected and consolidated residues which have resulted 

 from the previous disintegration of archasan rocks 

 and of earlier sedimentary rocks. But this does not 

 in any way affect the truth of the statement that rock 

 disintegration is releasing the same elements and form- 

 ing soils in the same way now as in the past. 



The fact that, in so far as it concerns the sedi- 

 mentary rocks, geological history is interpreted en- 

 tirely by comparison with what is occurring at the 

 present time is an acknowledgment of the truth of 

 this. Yet if it be true then it is evident that at the 

 time of the first beginnings of life there were the same 

 potentialities for the support of a varied fauna that 

 there are today. 



To deny this would mean to deny the validity of 

 the comparisons between the geological processes of 



