THE TESTIMONY OF THE ROCKS. 57 
The late Prof. Joseph LeConte, of the University of 
California, writes in his book, “Religion and Science:” 
“The evidence of geology to-day is that species seem 
to come in suddenly and in full perfection, remain sub- 
stantially unchanged during the term of their existence, 
and pass away in full perfection. Other species take 
their places apparently by substitution, not by transmu- 
tation.” 
Dr. Robert Watts uses these emphatic words: “The 
record of the rocks know nothing of the evolution of a 
higher form from a lower form. Neither the paleozoic 
age nor the living organisms of our world reveal an 
authentic instance of such evolution. Both nature and 
revelation proclaim it as an inviolable law that like pro- 
duces like.” 
And Hugh Miller went one step further when he 
testified: “I would ask such of the gentlemen whom I 
now address as have studied the subject most thoroughly, 
whether, at those grand lines of division between the 
Palaeozoic and Secondary, and again between the Second- 
ary and Tertiary periods, at which the entire type of or- 
ganic being alters, so that all on the one side of the gap 
belongs to one fashion, and all on the other to another 
and wholly different fashion—whether they have not 
been as thoroughly impressed with the conviction that 
there existed a Creative Agent, to whom the sudden 
change was owing, as if they themselves had witnessed 
the miracle of creation?” (Presidential address before 
the Royal Physical Society of Edinburgh, 1852.) 
But we have not yet done with this part of our in- 
vestigation. The argument from geology is based on 
the assumption that the chronological order of the earth’s 
layers has been determined at least with great approxi- 
mation to certainty, so that we may say with some as- 
