296 The Morality of Nature 



would appear in a very few generations as species more dis- 

 tinct than many of those now so classified. 



Now with this glimpse of the evolutionary process in liv- 

 ing types still in mind, let us turn to the geological record. 

 This again invites most faithful search, yet we can only 

 allude to the essential features, and must assume a familiar- 

 ity with the subject on the part of the student. The gener- 

 ally well known position of the rocks of the earth's crust is 

 a wonderful inspiration for, or confirmation of, the argu- 

 ments of evolution. 



Of course the evolution of inanimate matter is the 

 primary record of this great object lesson. The masses of 

 ancient stone, deposited by the primeval seas, upon parts of 

 the earth then covered by water, to be later raised into hills 

 and plains; are plainly the direct descendants of the still 

 more ancient granites, which were formed when the melting 

 furnace of energy cooled enough to change them from 

 fluid to solid condition. And still later rocks are as surely 

 seen to be built of the debris of the intermediate ones, which, 

 once beneath seas, had risen again to where torrential rivers 

 tore them from the new made hills, and spread them in the 

 beds of lakes and oceans. Alternate rising and falling of 

 the land seems to have been repeated many times, so that 

 over and over again the land at the borders of continents 

 was submerged. It is probable that in the early ages of 

 cataclysmic action, this work was done more violently and 

 more rapidly than now, but it is not necessarily so, time 

 was not lacking, and haste has no place in evolution. Fragile 

 things preserved show that delicate forms lived and grew, 

 and were overwhelmed and buried, without destructive 



