200 



THE OPAL SEA 



Changes in 

 the sea life. 



could result only in extinction, annihilation. 

 But no; the sea and its life have not declined 

 in any way. Again, one might think from the 

 enormous reproductive capacity of the ocean 

 broods, from the millions of eggs of each her- 

 ring, lobster, and oyster, that the sea would 

 overflow with swarming hordes. But no; it 

 has not gained or increased. Has it changed in 

 any way since the foundations of the earth 

 were laid down? Apparently not. The Cam- 

 brian, Ordovician, and Silurian rocks give tes- 

 timony that many a deep sea group has not 

 varied the slightest, has not evolved a scale or 

 a joint in, let us say, millions of years. Such 

 forms of life as the actinozoa, the brachiopods, 

 the gastropods, the pteropods, the Crustacea are 

 the same to-day as in the earliest ages; and it 

 is a fair inference that the medusce, the holo- 

 thurians and other life not found in fossil form, 

 because without shells, existed also in the Cam- 

 brian epoch. 



This is quite in accord with nature's most 

 obvious design. She is determined to maintain 

 the status quo — the existing order of things. 

 All her efforts are directed to that end. The 

 sea itself is in a continual state of transition, 

 and yet it remains the same. It changes by cur- 

 rent, tide, and evaporation, changes by tempera- 



Testimony 

 of the rocks. 



