THE IMPERFECTION OF THE GEOLOGICAL RECORD 295 



great pressure, have always seemed to me to require some special 

 explanation; and we may perhaps believe that we see in these 

 large areas the many formations long anterior to the Cambrian 

 epoch in a completely metamorphosed and denuded condition. 



The several difficulties here discussed, namely, that, though we 

 find in our geological formations many links between 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 manner in which several groups of species 

 first appear in our European formations, the almost entire ab- 

 sence, as at present known, of formations rich in fossils beneath 

 the Cambrian strata, are all undoubtedly of the most serious na- 

 ture. We see this in the fact that the most eminent palaeontologists, 

 namely, Cuvier, Agassiz, Barrande, Pictet, Falconer, E. Forbes, 

 etc., and all our greatest geologists, as Lyell, Murchison, Sedg- 

 wick, etc., have unanimously, often vehemently, maintained the 

 immutability of species. But Sir Charles Lyell now gives the sup- 

 port of his high authority to the opposite 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 undoubtedly at once reject the theory. For my part, follow- 

 ing out Lyell's metaphor, I look at the geological record as a his- 

 tory of the world imperfectly kept and written in a changing 

 dialect. Of this history we possess the last volume alone, relating 

 only to two or three countries. Of this volume, only here and there 

 a short chapter has been preserved, 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 forma- 

 tions, and which falsely appear to have been abruptly introduced. 

 On this view the difficulties above discussed are greatly diminished 

 or even disappear. 



