32 THE HISTORY OF CEEATIOX. 



become possible by means of these two most ancient in- 

 scriptions to reconstruct the histoiy of ancient Egypt, and 

 to decipher all hieroglyphic writings, so in many cases a few 

 bones of an animal, or imperfect impressions of a lower 

 animal or vegetable form, are sufficient for us to gain the 

 most important starting-points in the history of the whole 

 group, and in the search after their pedigree. A couple of 

 small back teeth, which have been found in the Keuper 

 formation of the Trias, have of themselves alone furnished 

 a sure proof that mammals existed even in the Triassic 

 period. 



Of the incompleteness of the geological accounts of 

 creation, Darwin, agreeing with Lyell, the greatest of all 

 recent geologists, says : — 



" I look at the geological record as a history of the world 

 imperfectly kept, and wiitten in a changing dialect ; of this 

 history we possess the last volume ^ alone, relating only to 

 two or three countries. Of this volume, only here and there 

 a short chapter has been preserved ; and of each page, only 

 here and there a few lines. Each word of the slowly- 

 changing language, more or less different in the successive 

 chapters, may represent the forms of life which are en- 

 tombed in our consecutive formations, and which falsely 

 appear to us to have been abruptly introduced. On this 

 view, the difficulties above discussed are greatly diminished, 

 or even disappear."— Origin of SiJecies, 6th Edition, p. 289. 



if we bear in mind the exceeding incompleteness of 

 palaeontological records, we shall not be surprised that we 

 are still dependent upon so many uncertain hypotheses when 

 actually endeavouring to sketch the pedigree of the different 

 organic groups. However, we fortunately possess, besides 



