IMPERFECTION OF THE GEOLOGICAL RECORD 49 



the forms reproduced. These examples tend to show that the 

 imperfection of the record may not depend on the record itself, 

 but on the incompleteness of our work. We must make large 

 allowance for imperfect collecting, and especially for the too 

 prevalent habit of remaining content with few and incomplete 

 specimens, and of grudging the time and labour necessary to 

 explore thoroughly the contents of special beds, and to work 

 out all the parts of forms found more or less in fragments. 



The point of all this at present is that patient work is needed 

 to fill up the breaks in our record. A collector passing along 

 the shore at Metis might have picked up a fragment of a fossil 

 sponge, and recorded it as a fossil, or possibly described the 

 fragment. This fact alone would have been valuable, but to 

 make it bear its full fruit it was necessary to trace the fragment 

 to its source, and then to spend time and labour in extracting 

 from the stubborn rock the story it had to tell. Instances of 

 this kind crowd on my memory as coming within my own ex- 

 perience and observation. It is hopeful to think that the re- 

 cord is daily becoming less imperfect ; it is stimulating to 

 know that so much is only waiting for investigation. The his- 

 tory never can be absolutely complete. Practically, to us it is 

 infinite. Yet every series of facts known may be complete in 

 itself for certain purposes, however many gaps there may be 

 in the story. Even if we cannot find a continuous series be- 

 tween the snails of the Coal formation or the sponges of the 

 Quebec Group and their successors to-day, we can at least see 

 that they are identical in plan and structure, and can note the 

 differences of detail which fitted them for their places in the 

 ancient or the modern world. Nor need we be too discontented 

 if the order of succession, such as it is, does not exactly square 

 with some theories we may have formed. Perhaps it may in 

 the end lead us to greater and better truths. 



Another subject which merits attention here is the evidence 

 which mere markings or other indications may sometimes give 



