CHAPTER V 



CREATURES OP THE PAST 



Beginning Palajontological Work — Fossil Amphibia and Rep- 

 tilia — Ancestry of Birds — Ancestry of the Horse — Imper- 

 fect European Series Completed by Marsh's American 

 Fossils — Meaning of Geological Contemporaneity — Uni- 

 formitarianism and Catastrophism Compared with Evolu- 

 tion in Geology— Age of the Earth — Intermediate and 

 Linear Types. 



AIvTHOUGH Huxley took a post connected with 

 Geology only because it was the most convenient 

 opening for him, it was not long before he became 

 deeply interested not only in the fossils, which at first 

 he despised, but in the general problems of geology. 

 He began by co-operation with Mr. Salter in the de- 

 termination of fossils for the Geological Survey. The 

 mere work of defining genera and species and naming 

 and describing new species appealed very little to him. 

 He had none of the collector's passion for new species ; 

 his interest in a creattire being not whether or no it was 

 new to science, but what general problems of biology 

 its structure helped to elucidate. While he assisted in 

 the routine work of determining the zoological position 

 of the fossils sent in to the museum by the Survey, he 

 carried investigations much farther than the duties of 



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