EVIDENCES OF EVOLUTION 37 



volume, only here and there a short chapter 

 has been preserved; and of each page, only 

 here and there a few lines." And again he 

 said : " We shall perhaps best perceive the 

 improbability of our being enabled to connect 

 pecies by numerous fine intermediate fossil 

 links, by asking ourselves whether, for in- 

 stance, geologists at some future period will 

 be able to prove that our different breeds of 

 cattle, sheep, horses and dogs are descended 

 from a single stock or from several aboriginal 

 stocks. . . . This could be effected by the 

 future geologist only by his discovering in 

 a fossil state numerous intermediate grada- 

 tions; and such success is improbable in the 

 highest degree." 



OTHER PAL^EONTOLOGICAL EVIDENCES. 

 There is a sublime suggestiveness in the broad 

 fact that in successive periods of the earth's 

 history higher and higher animals appear. 

 Fishes make their appearance in the Silurian, 

 Amphibians in the Carboniferous, Reptiles 

 in the Permian, and Birds in the Jurassic. 

 The record as regards plants is perhaps more 

 striking in some of its details than in its broad 

 outlines (see Dr. Scott's volume in this series 

 on " The Evolution of Plants "), but every 

 one will allow that there were Cryptogams 

 before there were Phanerogams, and Cycads 



