ADDRESS. 



Ixxvii 



and there an exception may occur, but the mass of preserved relics would be 

 those of creatures so situated : and so we find it, the bulk of fossil remains 

 consists of fish and amphibia, shell-fisli form the major part of the geological 

 museum, limestone and chalk rocks frequently consisting of little else than 

 a congeries of fossil shells. Plants of reed or rush-like character, fish Avhicli 

 are capable of inhabiting shallow waters, and saurian animals form another 

 large portion of geological remains. 



Compare the shell-fish and amphibia of existing organisms with the other 

 forms, and what a small proportion they supply ; compare the shell-fish and 

 amphibia of Palaeontology with the other forms, and what an overwhelming 

 majority they yield. 



There is nothing, as Prof. Huxley has remarked, Uke an extinct order of 

 Birds or Mammals, only a few isolated instances. It may be said the ancient 

 world possessed a larger proportion of fish and amphibia, and was more 

 suited to their existence. 1 see no reason for believing this, at least to any- 

 thing like the extent contended for ; the fauna and flora now in course of 

 being preserved for future ages would give tlio same idea to our successors. 



Crowded as Europe is with cattle, birds, insects, &c., how few are geologi- 

 cally preserved ! while the muddy or sandy margins of the ocean, the 

 estuaries, and deltas are yearly accumulating numerous cnistacea and mol- 

 lusca, with some fishes and reptiles, for the study of future palteontologists. 



If this position be right, then, notwitlistanding the immense number of pre- 

 served fossils, there must have lived an immeasurably larger niimber of unpre- 

 served organic beings, so that tlic chance of filling up the missing links, except 

 in occasional instances, is very slight. Yet where circumstances have remained 

 suitable for their preservation, many closely connected species are preserved — 

 in other words, while the intermediate types in certain eases are lost, in 

 others they exist. The opponents of continuity lay all stress on the lost and 

 none on the existing links. 



But there is another difficulty in the way of tracing a given organism to 

 its parent form, which, from our conventional mode of tracing genealogies, is 

 never looked ixpon in its proper light. 



Where are we to look for the remote ancestor of a given form ? Each of 

 us, supposing none of our progenitors to have intermarried with relatives, 

 would have had at or about the period of the Norman Conquest upwards 

 of a hundred milUon direct ancestors of that generation, and if we add the 

 intonnediate ancestors, double that number. As each individual has a male 

 and female parent, we have only to multiply by two for each thirty years, 

 the average duration of a generation, and it will give the above result. 



Let any one assume that one of his ancestors at the time of the Norman 

 Conquest was a Moor, another a Celt, and a third a Laplander, and that 

 these three were preserved while all the others were lost, he would never 

 recognize either of them as his ancestor, he would only have the one-hundred 

 millionth of the blood of each of them, and as far as they were concerned 

 there would be no perceptible sign of identity of race. 



But the problem is more complex than that which I have stated ; at the 

 time of the Conquest there were hardly a hundred million people in Europe, 

 it follows that a great number of the ancestors of the 'propositus must have 

 intermarried with relations, and then the pedigree, going back to the time of 

 the Conquest, instead of being represented by diverging lines, would form a 

 network so tangled that no skill could unravel it ; the law of probabilities 

 would indicate that any two people in the same country, taken at hazard, 

 would not have many generations to go back before they would find a 



