152 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. 



during the times of the mound-builders in the 

 Mississippi valley, and during the reign of the Incas 

 in Peru, were specifically the same and of as good 

 quality as those harvested by the scientific farmer 

 of to-day. 



And yet more. We may even go so far back as 

 the Glacial and pre-Glacial periods periods so re- 

 mote that, according to the calculations of Lyell, 

 Ramsay and others, they antedate our own era by 

 fully two hundred and fifty thousand years and we 

 fail to find from an examination of the vegetable re- 

 mains of the time, that there has been any transi- 

 tion from one species to another. Scores of trees 

 and plants are known to have existed during pre- 

 Glacial times, which were in every respect, even in 

 the venation of the leaf, identical with their living 

 representatives of the present day. And yet, it is 

 urged by anti-transmutationists, this is not what one 

 should expect if the teachings of Evolution be true. 

 For as Mr. Carruthers pertinently observes : " The 

 various physical conditions which necessarily af- 

 fected these species, in their diffusion over such 

 large areas of the earth's surface, in the course of, 

 say, two hundred and fifty thousand years, should 

 have led to the production of many varieties, but 

 the uniform testimony of the remains of this con- 

 siderable pre-Glacial flora, as far as the materials 

 admit of a comparison, is that no appreciable change 

 has taken place." 



Views of Agassiz, Barrande and Others. 

 One of the favorite arguments of Professor 

 Louis Agassiz against the transmutation of species, 



