r 



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ccessin. }\ 



ion of 



contr,' 



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• niost 



'twee 



t 



n 



some 



state 



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i 



) 



n. 



'*^. 



^ fossil 



conditions 1, 



in the present li;| 

 ilarly removed i» 



comp 



.tent aoP 



ling 



the stni*' 



icliberate stated; 



r fundam 



ental # 



time 



iferoustr; 



409)^ 



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little 



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.,86^P'" 



r^^ BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 



619 



on he says : — ' Tlie Foraminiferous Fauna of otir own 

 seas probably present a greater range of variety tlian 

 existed at any previous period ; but there is no indication , 

 of any tendency to elevation towards a higher type/ 



Again, it has been not unreasonably urged by some 

 persons that if the organic world had been really 

 evolved by the agencies which Mr. Darwin seems to 

 believe almost exclusively influential, demands would 

 have to be made upon time of so exorbitant a nature as 



iten even the most liberally disposed geologists 



lally resembled ;■ and physicists. And this is believed by many to be a 



matter of some moment. 



Wm 



)■ i and if the c^ 



5f oceans arcii' has given reasons for the opinion that no such vast 

 it that forms t' periods of time can have elapsed since the surface of 

 from the primt our earth became sufficiently cool to permit of the 

 be similar to 4 presence of living things. He thinks this stage of 



the Earth's history cannot have been attained more 

 than 400,000,000 of years ago. The subject is, perhaps^ 

 one in which the data may be insufficiently known to 



4 



permit of a reliable calculation being made, thoudi 



tj 



no one could speak with higher authority on such a 

 problem than Sir Wm. Thomson. 



We may, how 



ever confidently state that the alarming demands 



t> 



for very vast periods of time made by biological evo- 

 lutionists would be materially diminished if views 

 hke those which we have advanced were commonly 

 entertained 2. 



^ ' Trans, of Geolog. Soc. of Glasgow/ vol. lU. 

 2 See p. 429, note. 



