224 Reports and Proceedings : 
Europe with three species of Elephant, two of them extinct (namely, 
the Mammoth and the Llephas antiquus), and a third, the same as 
that which still survives in Africa.’ 
The immensity of time to be allowed for even the Post-glacial 
and Glacial Periods is so great that Sir Charles warned his hearers 
that they must not be fettered by old traditional beliefs, but be 
ready to make liberal grants of time to the Geologist. 
The President, in conclusion, alluded ‘to two points on which a 
gradual change of opinion has been taking place among Geologists 
of late years. First, as to whether there has been a continuous 
succession of events in the organic and inorganic worlds, uninter- 
rupted by violent and general catastrophes ; and secondly, whether 
clear evidence can be obtained of a period antecedent to the creation 
of organic beings on the earth. I am old enough,’ he said, ‘to re- 
member when geologists dogmatized on both these questions in a 
manner very different from that in which they would now venture 
to indulge. I believe that by far the greater number now incline to. 
opposite views from those which were once most commonly enter- 
tained. On the first point it is worthy of remark that although a 
belief in sudden and general convulsions has been losing ground, as 
also the doctrine of abrupt transitions from one set of species of 
animals and plants to another of a very different type, yet the whole 
series of the records which have been handed down to us are now 
more than ever regarded as fragmentary. They ought to be looked 
upon as more perfect, because numerous gaps have been filled up, 
and in the formations newly intercalated in the series we have found 
many missing links and various intermediate gradations between the — 
nearest allied forms previously known in the animal and vegetable 
worlds. Yet the whole body of monuments which we are endea- 
vouring to decipher appears more defective than before. For my 
own part, I agree with Mr. Darwin in considering them as a mere 
fraction of those which have once existed, while no approach to a 
perfect series was ever formed originally, it having never been part 
of the plan of Nature to leave a complete record of all her works 
and operations for the enlightenment of rational beings who might 
study them in after-ages. 
‘In reference to the other great question, or the earliest date of 
vital phenomena on this planet, the late discoveries in Canada have 
at least demonstrated that certain theories founded in Europe on 
mere negative evidence were altogether delusive. In the course of 
a Geological Survey, carried on under the able direction of Sir Wil- 
liam E. Logan, it has been shown that northward of the River St. 
Lawrence there is a vast series of stratified and crystalline rocks of 
gneiss, mica-schist, quartzite, and limestone, about 40,000 feet in 
thickness, which have been called Laurentian. They are more 
ancient than the oldest fossiliferous strata of Europe, or those to 
which the term “primordial” had been rashly assigned. In the 
first place, the newest part of this great crystalline series is uncon- 
formable to the ancient fossiliferous or so-called primordial rocks 
which overlie it; so that it must have undergone disturbing move- 
