SUDDEN APPEARANCE OF GROUPS 363 



epoch in a completely metamorphosed and denuded con- 

 dition. 



The several difficulties here discussed, namely — that, 

 though we find in our geological formations many links be- 

 tween the species which now exist and which formerly 

 existed, we do not find infinitely numerous fine transitional 

 forms closely joining them all together; — the sudden man- 

 ner in which several groups of species first appear in our 

 European formations; — the almost entire absence, as at 

 present known, of formations rich in fossils beneath the 

 Cambrian strata, — are all undoubtedly of the most serious 

 nature. We see this in the fact that the most eminent 

 palaeontologists, namely, Cuvier, Agassiz, Barrande, Pictet, 

 Falconer, E. Forbes, &c., and all our greatest geologists, as 

 Lyell, Murchison, Sedgwick, &c., have unanimously, often 

 vehemently, maintained the immutability of species. But 

 Sir Charles Lyell now gives the support of his high author- 

 ity to the other side ; and most geologists and palaeontologists 

 are much shaken in their former belief. Those who believe 

 that the geological record is in any degree perfect, will un- 

 doubtedly at once reject the theory. For my part, follow- 

 ing out Lyell's metaphor, I look at the geological record 

 as a history of the world imperfectly kept, and written in 

 a changing dialect; of this history we possess the last vol- 

 ume alone, relating only to two or three countries. Of this 

 volume, only here and there a short chapter has been pre- 

 served; and of each page, only here and there a few lines. 

 Each word of the slowly-changing language, more or less 

 different in the successive chapters, may represent the forms 

 of life, which are entombed in our consecutive formations, 

 and which falsely appear to have been abruptly introduced. 

 On this view, the difficulties above discussed are greatly 

 diminished, or even disappear. 



