INCESSANT CHANGES 



years ago. A thousand years brings about 

 enormous changes, quite a different state of 

 things in fact. There are now cities where 

 forests were growing. Animals which existed a 

 thousand years ago have altogether gone. And 

 this history of change has been going on, not 

 merely for a thousand years, but for hundreds 

 and thousands and millions of years. The 

 changes have been incessant, and have been 

 very great. 



The difficulty in this study of extinct animals 

 [and in the geology connected with it is to think 

 [of long enough lapses of time. If you look at 

 jhat clock you cannot see the hand moving, 

 md yet it is moving. And thus even in a 

 fhuman lifetime you will hardly notice any 

 difference in the rivers and the sea-shore and 

 the cliffs. But if you range over a long enough 

 time, say a thousand years or several thousands 

 [of years, and compare the condition which 

 [existed a thousand years ago with what exists 

 to-day you will be able to observe great change. 

 The difficulty is to realize this change, for it 

 ;Comes about too slowly for our short lives to give 

 us any real definite experience of it, just as we 

 fail to see the hands of the clock moving when 



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