GEOLOGICAL CONTEMPORANEITY AND PERSISTENT 

 TYPES OF LIFE. 



MERCHANTS occasionally go through a wholesome, though 

 troublesome and not always satisfactory, process which they 

 term &quot; taking stock.&quot; After all the excitement of speculation, 

 the pleasure of gain, and the pain of loss, the trader makes up 

 his mind to face facts and to learn the exact quantity and 

 quality of his solid and reliable possessions. 



The man of science does well sometimes to imitate this pro 

 cedure ; and, forgetting for the time the importance of his own 

 small winnings, to re-examine the common stock in trade, so that 

 he may make sure how far the stock of bullion in the cellar 

 on the faith of whose existence so much paper has been circulating 

 is really the solid gold of truth. 



The Anniversary Meeting of the Geological Society seems to 

 be an occasion well suited for an undertaking of this kind for 

 an inquiry, in fact, into the nature and value of the present 

 results of palasontological investigation ; and the more so, as all 

 those who have paid close attention to the late multitudinous 

 discussions in which paleontology is implicated, must have felt 

 the urgent necessity of some such scrutiny. 



First in order, as the most definite and unquestionable of all 

 the results of palaeontology, must be mentioned the immense 



