132 Report of the State (xeologist. 



Despite the immense increase of material brought to light 

 throughout the world during the last half century, we are far 

 from able to state that extinct beings are known in their entirety. 

 It would be illusory to suppose that all the questions propounded 

 in regard to the origin of created beings have received a satis- 

 factory solution. It may even be observed that new problems 

 have arisen from the discovery of creatures entirely extinct and 

 whose nature or origin remains doubtful. But despite these diffi- 

 culties, notwithstanding the gaps which still exist, Palaeontology 

 has brought to light almost unexpected solutions of problems 

 already existing, and it may be asserted, without fear of contra- 

 diction from any of the students engaged in this science, that it 

 produces every day convincing testimony in support of the 

 doctrine of Evolution. 



Palaeontology and Geology. — The relations of Palaeontology 

 with Geology are of another order, but not less close. . The 

 knowledge of the phenomena which have modified the surface 

 of the earth, the determining of the relative age of the la^^ers 

 which compose the terrestrial crast, evidently imply a simulta- 

 neous study of the beings which have inhabited the lands and 

 the seas, of all the organisms indeed which have been found in 

 the various deposits. The principle on which stratigraphical 

 studies have lately been almost exclusively carried forward, con- 

 sists in this, that the deposits of the same age contain in general 

 the same kinds of fossils, which is to say that the same beings 

 simultaneously inhabited the various seas during the same 

 periods. As there is no region where the succession of beds is^ 

 presented without interruption, we are obliged, in order to estab- 

 lish the age of a newly discovered formation, to compare care- 

 fully the fauna and flora of any stratum with those of a correspond- 

 ing stratum of other regions. The formations which contain the 

 same kinds of fossils are considered as dating from the same 

 epoch, and are given the same names, and this principle of the 

 identity of the fauna at any epoch has long been considered as 

 absolute. We shall see further on, that some restrictions are to 

 be admitted, but the result of these is not to lessen the suggestive 

 importance of Palaeontology, but rather to augment ' it and 

 give it greater precision. The variations of faunas, as they 

 become better known, are found to be closely connected with 



