146 GENESIS VERSUS NATURE iv 



Either the geological record is sufficiently com- 

 plete to afford us a means of determining the order 

 in which animals have made their appearance on 

 the globe or it is not. If it is, the determination 

 of that order is little more than a mere matter of 

 observation ; if it is not, then natural science 

 neither affirms nor refutes the " fourfold order/' 

 but is simply silent. 



The series of the fossiliferous deposits, which 

 contain the remains of the animals which have 

 lived on the earth in past ages of its history, and 

 which can alone afford the evidence required by 

 natural science of the order of appearance of their 

 different species, may be grouped in the manner 

 shown in the left-hand column of the following 

 table, the oldest being at the bottom : 



Formations First known appearance of 



Quaternary. 

 Pliocene. 

 Miocene. 



Eocene . . . Vertebrate a^r-population (Bats). 



Cretaceous. 

 Jurassic . . Vertebrate fltt'r-population (Birdsand 



Pterodactyles). 

 Triassic. 



Upper Palaeozoic. 



Middle Palaeozoic . Vertebrate tod-population (Am- 

 phibia, Reptilia [?]). 

 Lower Palaeozoic. 



Silurian . . Vertebrate water- population (Fishes). 



Invertebrate air and land- population 

 (Flying Insects and Scorpions). 



Cambrian . Invertebrate wa^r-population (much 



earlier, if Eozoon is animal). 



