INCESSANT CHANGES 



years ago. A thousand years brings about 

 enormous changes, quite a different state of 

 things in fact. There are now cities where 

 forests were growing. Animals which existed a 

 thousand years ago have altogether gone. And 

 this history of change has been going on, not 

 merely for a thousand years, but for hundreds 

 and thousands and millions of years. The 

 changes have been incessant, and have been 

 very great. 



The difficulty in this study of extinct animals 

 and in the geology connected with it is to think 

 of long enough lapses of time. If you look at 

 that clock you cannot see the hand moving, 

 and yet it is moving. And thus even in a 

 human lifetime you will hardly notice any 

 difference in the rivers and the sea-shore and 

 the cliffs. But if you range over a long enough 

 time, say a thousand years or several thousands 

 of years, and compare the condition which 

 existed a thousand years ago with what exists 

 to-day you will be able to observe great change. 

 The difficulty is to realize this change, for it 

 comes about too slowly for our short lives to give 

 us any real definite experience of it, just as we 

 fail to see the hands of the clock moving when 



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