12 



To oppose my able friend Alpheus Hyatt, I would call up 

 the old renowned chief from Bohemia. The Silurian rocks 

 of that country were patiently examined during a lifetime by 

 the high intelligence and industry of Joachim Barrande. 

 They present most favourable conditions for the search ; in no 

 less than 665 species of cephalopods, crowded in a succes- 

 sion of strata generally similar in mineral composition, the 

 phenomena of progressive life forms are abundantly displayed. 

 Barrande writes that he was much struck with the contem- 

 poraneous appearance of orthoceras and cyrtoceras ; and on 

 the whole subject, as the result of his studies, he states that 

 the facts positively forbid the conclusion that " the numerous 

 and varied specific forms of each generic type are derived 

 from each other by a slow and imperceptible transformation, 

 under the influence of the surrounding medium.''^ 



Again he writes in his great work : — " In short, the 

 differences between the zoological and chronological evolu- 

 tion of the cephalopods are so great and so plain that it is 

 impossible to recognise any harmony between the two series ; 

 but both, being equally founded on facts and considerations 

 outside all arbitrary influence, have their origin in the laws of 

 nature. 



In the face of these difficulties, theory can have recourse to 

 the usual excuse, based on the lack of sufficient palseonto- 

 logical evidence. It can also call in either the unfailing 

 resource of infinite and boundless ages of time before the 

 beginning of the paleeozoic era, or finally complete destruc- 

 tion of the organic remains in the metamorphic rocks. '^ 



He verting again to a theory which would connect the 

 cephalopods in the chain of evolution, he says : — " Although 

 it is impossible to compare with accuracy the periods when 

 the cephalopods made their first appearance in different 

 countries, we may consider as the oldest representatives of 

 this order those which appeared in Canada and England 

 before the complete establishment of the second fauna. We 

 must then be astonished at seeing that in these two countries 

 the first forms belong to two different types. Thus in Canada 

 there are found small orfchoceratites in the passage-beds 

 between the Potsdam sandstone and overlying series; in 

 England, on the other hand, the first form is a little cyrtoceras 

 of the Tremadoc fauna. '^ * 



And still further : — " In other words, the absence of the 

 cephalopods in the primordial fauna cannot be reconciled with 

 any hypothesis which would tend to carry over the origin and 



* p. 155. 



