644 Proceedings. 



shallower and finally disappeared. In the latter case we may 

 hope that the missing links, if there be any, may yet be 

 found. 



But it must be observed that such gaps are somewhat 

 exceptional. "We have series of strata of immense thickness 

 which are evidently consecutive, and in them we find new 

 forms arising without any apparent connection with what has 

 gone before. 



Some modern German scientists are of opinion that Dar- 

 winism will belong only to history after a few decennaries. 

 "Without going so far as this, it is yearly becoming more clear 

 that heredity, natural selection, and migration will not account 

 for a very large number of the facts of nature. In an interest- 

 ing paper by Dr. Karl Miiller, of Halle, which is printed in 

 the "Transactions of the New Zealand Institute" for 1892, 

 he shows that, apparently, the same conditions of habitat and 

 climate are associated with the same types of life, irrespective 

 of time and space ; and, although it seems possible that in some 

 cases his conclusions may not be justified, and that minute 

 spores or life-germs have been carried in the air through vast 

 distances until at length they have found a congenial home, 

 yet it is becoming increasingly evident that the laws wliich, 

 by their interworking, have produced all the endless varieties 

 of life on our earth are very subtle and complicated, and that 

 heredity and natural selection will by no means explain all 

 the facts of nature, although they probably have been eminent 

 amongst the many causes at work. As Professor Nicholson 

 puts it in his " Manual of Palaeontology," -p. 53, " Certain 

 classes of animals are always likely to flourish in places and 

 times in which favourable conditions are present, wholly irre- 

 spective of any genetic connection betv^^een successive faunas." 

 And again at page 93, " Palaeontology points in the main to 

 the operation of some general law of evolution whereby the 

 later forms of life have been derived from the older ones. 

 That this law has acted along with, and has sometimes been 

 counteracted by, some other and as yet obscure law regulating 

 the appearance of new types, seems equally certain." 



If with our present knowledge we were now to attempt to 

 describe in a brief and general way the gradual development, 

 or progress, or evolution of the w^orld, the description would 

 accord remarkably with that given in that grand series of 

 pictures of typical periods in the world's history in the Book 

 of Genesis. 



Of the first and second days or periods we can of course 

 have little or no trace now left on the face of the earth ; yet 

 astronomical science and geology combine their testimony in 

 favour of the probable truth of the statements in Genesis, — 

 assuming that the earth was at first intensely hot, and that it 



