IN EVOLUTION FROM A GEOLOGICAL POINT OF VIEW. 185 
I can only conclude that natural selection must be untenable. 
The Secrerary (Professor Epwarp Hutt, Lb.D.).—I think it is 
the duty of a Secretary to hold his peace except when he is called 
upon to speak in his own province as Secretary, but I suppose 
as a brother geologist to the author of this paper it would be 
looked upon as an act of disrespect on my part if I did not make 
some observations upon it, 
In the first place allow me to say, as 1 think you will have all 
gathered from the paper itself, that Mr, Whidborne is admirably 
furnished with the necessary knowledge and experience to deal 
with this problem on geological lines. He is a good geologist 
himself—a worker in the field—a Fellow of the Geological and of 
the Paleontographical Soc'eties, in which he has taken an impor- 
tant part, and 1 am happy to say he has taken an equal interest 
and important part in the work of the Victoria Institute. 
Some of the points to which I intended to refer have really 
been anticipated by the author. 
It has always appeared to me that there are some tremendous 
difficulties, which geology presents to us, in accepting any theory 
of evolution. In the first place what the last speaker referred to 
is very strong when we look at the remarkably sudden and early 
appearance of very high types of life amongst the strata of the 
globe. That remarkable and widespread zone known as “the 
primordial zone” of SBarrande, contains Trilubites, crustacea 
furnished with limbs, and with beautifully constructed eyes, like 
those of the dragon-fly ; and they are very highly organized marine 
animals indeed. Where does the group of Trilobites come in the 
geological record P Does it come with the Devonian or the 
Upper Silurian, or even the Lower Silurian; the Lower Silurian 
being the direct successor of the primordial zone and amongst 
the oldest fossiliferous strata we know of? Not at all. It comes 
in with the primordial zone itself in Britain, Sweden, Bohemia 
and other parts representing the earliest fossiliferous strata. 
And along with this type of crustacea we have the Cephalopods 
—not altogether dissimilar from the Nautilus of the present day. 
Thus we have the highest type of the mollusca coming in at this 
early stage of biological history. 
Then as to the appearance of plant life on the globe. Through 
the long ages down to the upper Cretaceous, the flora of the world 
was represented by lowly organized types such as alg, lichens, 
