168 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. 



the historical table published in Lyell's 'Manual' 

 will bring home the truth, how accidental and rare is 

 their preservation, far better than .pages of detail. 

 Nor is their rarity surprising when we consider how 

 large a proportion of the bones of Tertiary mammals 

 have been discovered either in caves or in lacustrine 

 deposits ; and that not a cave or true lacustrine 

 bed is known belonging to the age of our secondary 

 or Palaeozoic formations." 1 



But if the formation of fossils be rare and some- 

 thing wholly exceptional, when we consider the 

 myriad organisms which are never fossilized ; if 

 shells and bones are always disintegrated unless 

 adequately protected from the countless unfavorable 

 and destructive agencies to which they are exposed, 

 their preservation, after having been formed, is 

 something which, when the facts of the case are 

 known, must appear even more remarkable. 



Romanes on Difficulties Attending Preservation of Fossils. 



Mr. George Romanes, Darwin's favorite and most 

 ardent disciple, has so accurately and picturesquely 

 described the divers agencies which contribute to 

 the annihilation of fossil forms, that I need make no 

 apology for quoting him at length. 



"But of even more importance, "he writes, "than 

 this difficulty of making fossils in the first instance, is 

 the difficulty of preserving them when they are 

 made. The vast majority of fossils have been 

 formed under water, and a large proportional num- 

 ber of these, whether the animals were marine, ter- 



1 Ibid, pp. 59 and 60. 



