peesident's address 65 



present sea. I have tried to indicate some of the relations which 

 those areas probably had with our present continent, and to draw 

 intelligible inferences, from the character of the fossil remains which 

 represent some of the early forms of life, as to the conditions under 

 which those forms then existed, and their relations to the now ex- 

 isting life of this continent. I have also offered suggestions con- 

 cerning some of the changes of land and sea which, from time to 

 time in the past, have probably taken place within and near the 

 great area which is now occupied by the North American continent, 

 and I have spoken also concerning what seem to be the results of 

 those changes upon the life then existing, as well as upon that 

 which now exists. 



If my remarks shall have seemed in some respects desultory, I 

 may, perhaps, claim that the nature of my subject has made them 

 so. If, in the absence of tangible proof of the ancestry of some 

 of the highly organized faunas and floras, whose remains are found 

 in the strata of the different geological periods, I have assumed that 

 such evidence has once existed, but that it has been destroyed or 

 undiscovered ; if, in attempting to explain these discrepancies, I 

 have ignored the possibility of special creations — a belief which 

 I am well aware is still popularly held — I have done it with no 

 irreverent or antagonistic intent. As a naturalist, I must accept 

 only natural explanations of natural phenomena. That I may have 

 erred in judgment with regard to these questions, it would be folly 

 for me to deny; but I claim to have been actuated in my study of 

 them by a desire, which is the attribute of every true naturalist, to 

 know the truth and the truth only. If you should not be disposed to 

 accept the conclusions which I have reached, surely the facts I have 

 stated cannot fail to interest you. 



The subject which embraces these facts is an exceedingly broad 

 one, and upon them may be based other discussions than those 

 which I have attempted. Other lessons may also be drawn from 

 them, one of which is that, in the accomplishment of her ends, 

 Nature is extravagantly wasteful, and terribly cruel. 



