EVIDENCES OF EVOLUTION. 103 



had long baffled the efforts of the keenest investi- 

 gators of the old school, and a simple explanation 

 is afforded of difficulties and apparent anomalies 

 which, without this hypothesis, are simply inexpli- 

 cable. A few simple examples will illustrate my 

 meaning, and at the same time indicate the nature of 

 one of the arguments adduced in favor of organic 

 Evolution. 



De Candolle and Baird. 



The eminent Swiss botanist, M. Alphonse de 

 Candolle, as the result of an exhaustive study under 

 particularly favorable circumstances, of the oak, es- 

 pecially the oak of the Old World, comes to the con- 

 clusion that current notions regarding this important 

 genus must be materially modified ; that far from 

 having the large number of species usually attrib- 

 uted to it, the number is in reality very small; that 

 what are so frequently considered as species, are at 

 best but varieties and races ; that there is every rea- 

 son to believe, if indeed there is not positive proof, 

 that all the multitudinous gradations observed among 

 oaks are originally derived from but a few forms, or 

 that all of them may be traced back to the same pri- 

 meval ancestor. His investigations regarding the oak, 

 demonstrate beyond question what other naturalists 

 had observed and suspected, viz : that what appears 

 to be a distinct species, when only a few specimens 

 from a limited area are examined, proves on the ex- 

 amination of a larger number of specimens, from a 

 wider geographical area, to be, at most, but a race 

 or a variety. 



