222 GEOLOGICAL TIME 



is legible and consistent. From the latest to the 

 earliest of its chapters the story is capable of clear 

 and harmonious interpretation by a comparison of its 

 pages with the present condition of things. We know 

 infinitely more of the history of this earth than we 

 do of the history of the sun. Are we then to be told 

 that this knowledge so patiently accumulated from 

 innumerable observations and so laboriously co-ordi- 

 nated and classified, is to be held of none account 

 in comparison with the conclusions of physical science 

 in regard to the history of the central luminary of 

 our system ? These conclusions are founded on as- 

 sumptions which may or may not correspond with 

 the truth. They have already undergone revision, and 

 they may be still further modified as our slender know- 

 ledge of the sun, and of the details of its history, is 

 increased by future investigation. In the meantime, we 

 decline to accept them as a final pronouncement of 

 science on the subject. We place over against them the 

 evidence of geology and palaeontology, and affirm that 

 unless the deductions we draw from that evidence 

 can be disproved, we are entitled to maintain them 

 as entirely borne out by the testimony of the rocks. 

 Until, therefore, it can be shown that geologists 

 and palaeontologists have misinterpreted their records, 

 they are surely well within their logical rights in claim- 

 ing as much time for the history of this earth as the 

 vast body of evidence accumulated by them demands. 

 So far as I have been able to form an opinion, one 

 hundred millions of years would suffice for that portion 

 of the history which is registered in the stratified rocks 

 of the crust. But if the palaeontologists find such 



