48 



served in a fossil state, else they would 

 pr()l)al)ly supply additional testimony 

 to the antiquity of our existing vegeta- 

 tion, its wide diffusion over the north- 

 em and now frigid zone and its en- 

 forced migration under changes of 

 climate. 



Concluding, then, as we must, that 

 our existing vegetation is a continua- 

 tion of that of the Tertiary period, may 

 we suppose that it absolutely originated 

 then? Evidently not. The preceding 

 Cretaceous period has furnished to 

 Carruthers in Europe a fossil fruit like 

 that of the Sequoia gigantea of the fa- 

 mous groves, associated with pines of 

 the same character as those that accom- 

 pany the present tree; has furnished to 

 Heer, from Greenland, two more Se- 

 quoias, one of them identical with a 

 Tertiary species, and one nearly allied 

 to Sequoia Langsdorfi, which in turn is 

 a probable ancestor of the common 

 Californian redwood; has furnished to 

 Newberr}' and Lesquereux in North 

 America the remains of another ancient 

 sequoia, a Glyptostrobus, a Liquidam- 

 bar which well represents our sweet- 

 gum-tree, oaks analogous to living ones, 

 leaves of a plane-tree, which are also in 

 the Tertiar)', and are scarcely distin- 

 guishable from our own Platanus oc- 

 cidentalism of a magnolia and a tulip- 

 tree, and "of a sassafras undistinguish- 

 able from our living species." I need 

 not continue the enumeration. Suffice 

 it to say that the facts justify the con- 

 clusion which Lesquereux— a scrupu- 

 lous investigator— has already an- 

 nounced: that "the essential t}'pes of 

 our actual flora are marked in the 

 Cretaceous period, and have come to 

 us after passing, without notable 

 changes, through the Tertiary forma- 

 tions of our continent." 



According to these views, as regards 

 plants at least, the adaptation to succes- 

 sive times and changed conditions has 

 been maintained, not bv absolute re- 

 newals, but by gradual modifications. 



PtlYTOGEOGRAPHY AND EXPLORATION 



I, for one, cannot doubt that the pres- 

 ent existing species are the lineal suc- 

 cessors of those that garnished the 

 earth in the old time before them, and 

 that they were as well adapted to their 

 surroundings then, as those which flour- 

 ish and bloom around us are to their 

 conditions now. 



Such ideas as these, though still re- 

 pugnant to some, and not long since 

 to many, have so possessed the minds 

 of the naturalists of the present day 

 that hardly a discourse can be pro- 

 nounced or an investigation prosecuted 

 without reference to them. I suppose 

 that the views here taken are little, if at 

 all, in advance of the average scientific 

 mind of the day. I cannot regard them 

 as less noble than those which thev are 

 succeeding. An able philosophical 

 writer. Miss Frances Power Cobbe, has 

 recently and truthfully said: 



It is a singular fact that, when we can 

 find out how anything is done, our first 

 conclusion seems to be that God did not 

 do it. No matter how wonderful, how 

 beautiful, how intimately complex and 

 delicate has been the machinery which 

 has worked, perhaps for centuries, per- 

 haps for millions of ages, to bring about 

 some beneficent result, if we can but 

 catch a glimpse of the wheels its divine 

 character disappears. 



I agree with the writer that this first 

 conclusion is premature and unworthv 

 —I will add, deplorable. Through what 

 faults or infirmities of dogmatism on 

 the one hand, and skepticism on the 

 other, it came to be so thought, we 

 need not here consider. Let us hope, 

 and I confidently expect, that it is not 

 to last; that the religious faith which 

 survived without a shock the notion of 

 the fixity of the species which inhabit 

 it; that, in the future even more than 

 in the past, faith in an order, which is 

 the basis of science, will not— as it can- 

 not reasonablv— be dissevered from 

 faith in an Ordainer, which is the basis 

 of religion. 



