7584 Notices of New Books. 



the limitations of special types to special geographical areas. Again: 

 the pachydermatous monsters of tertiary Europe have no recent 

 representatives on that continent ; but this perhaps might be fairly 

 accounted for on Mr. Darwin's theory of exthiction through climatal 

 fluctuations; and we might expect to find their nearest allied de- 

 scendants driven down to warmer latitudes of the same continent, as 

 plants were, according to Mr. Darwin, during the glacial period ; but 

 it is a fact worthy of note that America possesses in its tapir a much 

 nearer ally to the extinct Dinotherium of Europe than any recent 

 species on the old continent. 



Mr. Darwin admits the imperfection of his evidence; of the evi- 

 dence, if it were perfect, as it stands, presenting grave objections ; but 

 says that the geological record is imperfect, does not contain a com- 

 plete record of the succession of organic life ; that the average cir- 

 cumstances attending the deposition of the geological strata were 

 such as to render a complete record impossible, and that our acquaint- 

 ance with this imperfect record is infinitely small, but that the broken 

 scraps of complete evidence we here and there get give us the 

 warrant for assuming the missing links. 



Dr. Bree will not admit this, — will not allow Mr. Darwin an era of 

 life in which to perfect his fauna as we find it at the apparent dawn 

 of geological life, or unrecorded periods in which to graduate transi- 

 tions in organic structure which here and there stagger him with their 

 abruptness. He demands that the geological record as it stands must 

 be taken as complete evidence, and that the sudden changes it here 

 and there displays, in the past history of organic life, are utterly 

 incompatible with Mr. Darwin's theory. 



The next division of natural evidence upon which Mr. Darwin rests 

 is that supplied by the phenomena of the distribution of plants and 

 animals, treated of in Chapters XI. and XII. Chapter XI. com- 

 mences, " In considering the distribution of organic beings over the 

 face of the globe, the first great fact that strikes us is that neither the 

 similarity nor dissimilarity of the inhabitants of various regions can be 

 accounted for by their climatal and other physical conditions. Of 

 late almost every author who has studied the subject has come to this 

 conclusion." The focts specially noted are — the arbitrary character, 

 as regards physical conditions, of the distribution of genera and 

 species along the same zones of latitude ; the affinity of the pro- 

 ductions of the same continent, and the distribution of species as 

 being mainly dependant on geographical peculiarity, especially as to 

 geographical barriers to free migration, defining the range of species, 



