328 THE COMING OF AGE OF 



parison of our knowledge of the mammalian fauna of 

 the Tertiary epoch in 1859 with its present condition. 

 M. Gaudry's researches on the fossils of Pikermi were 

 published in 1868, those of Messrs. Leidy, Marsh, and 

 Cope, on the fossils of the Western Territories of Amer- 

 ica, have appeared almost wholly since 1870, those of M. 

 Filhol on the phosphorites of Quercy in 1878. The gen- 

 eral effect of these investigations has been to introduce 

 to us a multitude of extinct animals, the existence of 

 which was previously hardly suspected ; just as if zoolo- 

 gists were to become acquainted with a country, hitherto 

 unknown, as rich in novel forms of life as Brazil or 

 South Africa once were to Europeans. Indeed, the fos- 

 sil fauna of the Western Territories of America bids fair 

 to exceed in interest and importance all other known 

 Tertiary deposits put together; and yet, with the ex- 

 ception of the case of the American tertiaries, these in- 

 vestigations have extended over very limited areas ; and, 

 at Pikermi, were confined to an extremely small space. 



Such appear to me to be the chief events in the his- 

 tory of the progress of knowledge during the last twenty 

 years, which account for the changed feeling with which 

 the doctrine of evolution is at present regarded by those 

 who have followed the advance of biological science, in 

 respect of those problems which bear indirectly upon 

 that doctrine. 



But all this remains mere secondary evidence. It 

 may remove dissent, but it does not compel assent. Pri- 



