^S^nesis. 



5 So 



so 



siniilar 



* 



-ct that 

 ^nstantl 



u 



niore 





f^ilar devel 



most 



^y pointed out,'; 

 low and 



t 



rou?h so 



le advance in 



other handj 



I 



I 



c 



r\f\r 



era may have t 

 1 subsequent p 

 cly common 

 is all the laJ 



'It: 



io\v 



;tance 



• readily Arc^, 

 of dying 



I 



Dnin 



<r are, 



#■■ 



in 



?pla 

 )Ochs 



in- the 



.H 



the 



of ^^"^ ; 



facts, f' 





ep 





7W^ BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 



615 



L 



viving not only the changes of physical conditions^, 

 but persisting comparatively unaltered, while other 

 forms of life have appeared and disappeared.' 'Such 

 forms,' he says, ' may be termed " persistent types " of 

 life- and examples of them are abundant enough in 

 both the animal and the vegetable worlds.' He then 

 cites the following examples : — ' Amongst plants, for in- 

 stance ferns, club-mosses, and coniferae, some of them 

 apparently generically identical with those now living, 

 are met with as far back as the carboniferous epoch- 

 the cone of the oolitic Araucarla is hardly distinguish- 

 able from that of existing species ■ a species of 'Punh 

 has been discovered in the Purbecks, and a walnut 

 {Juglans) in the cretaceous rocks. All these are types 

 of vegetable structure abounding at the present day; 

 and surely it is a most remarkable fact to find them 



persisting 



epochs. . . . Every sub-kingdom of animals yields in- 

 stances of the same kind. The Glohiger'ma of the 



4 



Atlantic soundings is identical with the cretaceous 

 species of the same genus; 

 Silurian Foraminifera^ recently described by Ehrenberg, 

 assure us of the very close resemblance between the 

 oldest and the newest forms of many of the Protozoa. . . 

 Amongst the Ccelenterata^ the tabulate corals of the 



with so little change 



through such vast 



and the casts of lower 



^ Which, in accordance with the ' unformatarian view of teluric con- 

 ditions, so far as geological time is concerned/ he believes to have ' varied 

 within but narrow limits : so that even in Silurian or Cambrian times 

 the aspect of physical nature must have been much what it is now.' 



