150 Outlook to Nature 



" Beginning with what is called c the primor- 

 dial zone ' which covers the earliest stage of 

 biological history and coming down to more 

 recent times there will be found, as a matter of 

 fact, multitudes of species that have shown no 

 improvement since their creation. The algae 

 or seaweeds, that appeared in the distant Silu- 

 rian deposit, millions of years ago, were no less 

 perfect than those of the same class found in 

 our modern seas. The oak, birch, hazel, and 

 Scotch fir, easily traced back at least to the ice 

 age, have remained in all these thousands of 

 years without the slightest improvement. 



" And, too, in the animal kingdom the same 

 discoveries are made ; the insects that built the 

 first coral reefs of Florida, in the three hundred 

 centuries of their existence show no improve- 

 ment." 



It is not true that evolutionists hold that all 

 animals and plants are now in process of active 

 evolution. Some forms are essentially matured, 

 some have passed their zenith and are in pro- 

 cess of extinction, some are long since lost, 

 others are just now in the stage of marked de- 



