224 president's address. 



mass of pre-Silurian formations, a new liypotliesis is produced, 

 certainly ingenious, but, to our minds, in the highest degree 

 improbable. Mr. Darwin fairly admits that his case is difficult, 

 but tries to satisfy the inquirer by the assurance, that his 

 witnesses are all drowned. " The present continents and oceans," 

 he tells us," have existed pretty much where they now do, ever 

 since the deposition of the oldest fossiliferous beds ; but, before 

 that epoch, other continents existed in the area now filled by 

 oceans. From their waste, formations were formed in the adjoining 

 seas. "The older continents, formed of formations older than any 

 known to us, may now all be in a metamorphosed condition, or may 

 lie buried under the ocean." And in those formations, one after 

 another, throughout millions of ages, the successive forms of the 

 primitive fauna and flora were silently entombed, but no eleva- 

 tory forces, no volcano, terrestrial or submarine, throughout the 

 countless ages that have since elapsed, have ever brought a 

 " single fragment of those buried continents to the light of day." 

 We shall probably prefer to accept the geologic evidence, so far as 

 it goes, imperfect though it be, than to invent so vast a pre- 

 geologic world. 



It is scarcely an answer to reply, that metamorphic action, 

 in the Cambrian and Silurian rocks, has obliterated the traces 

 of the progenitors of living power. What is preserved may be 

 surely accepted, quantum valeat, as evidence of the predominant 

 types, and if a Zostera could be preserved in the Silurian, and a 

 Crustacean {Cyclophtlialmus Bucklandi). in the coal measures, 

 there seems no reason why other forms as fragile should not 

 have remained had they abounded. Our induction is very im- 

 perfect ; but, in the present state of our knowledge, it would seem 

 safer to tread on it than to venture forth in the rudderless bark 

 of pure hypothesis. So far as our induction has yet gone, we 

 can only trace a few of the existing forms up to a certain point, 

 and there they cease. Down to a certain point the extinct 

 forms exhibit all their specific peculiarities, and there they 

 disappear for ever. So far our geologic museums tell of the 

 commencement and end of species, of their first and their last 



