74 THE EVO'LUT ION 1ST AT LARGE. 



as much, and between the lias and the lowest 

 Laurentian beds at nearly ten times as mfcch. 

 Just the same sort of lessening perspective 

 exists in geology as in ordinary history. 

 Most people look upon the age before the 

 Norman Conquest as a mere brief episode of 

 the English annals ; yet six whole centuries 

 elapsed between the landing of the real or 

 mythical Hengst at Ebbsfleet and the land- 

 ing of William the Conqueror at Hastings ; 

 while under eight centuries elapsed between 

 the time of William the Conqueror and the ac- 

 cession of Queen Victoria. But, just as most 

 English histories give far more space to the 

 three centuries since Elizabeth than to the 

 eleven centuries which preceded them, so 

 most books on geology give far more space 

 to the single aeon (embracing the secondary 

 and tertiary periods) which comes nearest our 

 own time, than to the rvine aeons which spread 

 from the Laurentian to the Carboniferous 

 epoch. In the earliest period, records either 

 geological or historical are wholly wanting ; 



