82 FROC. COTTESWOLD CLUB vol. xiii. (2) 



fairly certain. But the question still presses upon us — 

 what preceded these annelids ? We know of nothing 

 which is certain!}' organic and certainly older. We are 

 apparently not much lower down in the scale of living 

 beinos than we were in the Lower Cambrian ; and we 

 have still beyond us a vast gulf of time which has to be 

 .occupied by fossiliferous formations, if our knowledge of 

 the earliest forms of life is to advance beyond the specula- 

 tive stage. Why is it that the required evidence has not 

 been forthcoming ?. 



There is one reply to this question which will cover a 

 part of the ground. There can be little doubt that the 

 earliest plants and animals were composed entirely of 

 perishable tissue. The first forms of life were probably 

 unicellular marine plants. These could exist in the 

 absence of an organic environment, since they were able 

 to elaborate their protoplasm out of inorganic materials. 

 Their tissue would provide food for the earliest animals. 

 Long ages must have passed before the organisms that 

 tenanted the Archaean seas came to be protected by a 

 shell or test of any kind. The need of such protection 

 could not have arisen until the ocean began to teem wdth 

 living beings, and the struggle for life grew intense and 

 forceful. It is probable that the open- ocean was the 

 habitat of the earliest animals ; but, as competition grew 

 fierce, some of the species would be driven to take refuge 

 from their fellow-creatures amidst the dangers of the 

 shore. Here protection would be needed against the 

 attacks of the waves as it had been required against the 

 living tyrants of the deep. 



Another cause of the scarcity of fossils in Pre-Cambrian 

 rocks is the fragmentary state of the Archaean succession. 

 This is the natural result of the extreme antiquity of these 

 formations. They have, of course, been exposed to the 

 forces of denudation much more frequently than other 



