PALEONTOLOGY 97 



are not likely to be preserved, so that there might be 

 a great deficiency of fossils of such animals. 



But when we consider animals which have hard and 

 durable parts, such as the mollusks, there is no reason 

 for assuming that in a given stratum, all intermediate 

 forms between species should have been so uniformly 

 destroyed. 



Some evolutionists, it would seem, would abandon 

 paleontology in considering their theory. Romanes 

 says: "With so fragmentary a record as this to 

 study, I do not think it too much to say that no con- 

 clusions can be fairly based upon it, merely from the 

 absence of testimony. If we speak of it as a history 

 of the succession of life upon the planet, we must 

 allow, on the one hand, that it is a history which 

 merits the name of a ' chapter of accidents;' and, on 

 the other hand, that during the whole course of its 

 compilation pages were being destroyed as fast as 

 others were being formed, while even of those that 

 remain it is only a word, a line, or at most a short 

 paragraph here and there, that we are permitted to 

 see." * 



In answer to this I may say that we do not know it 

 to be a fact that the destruction of the record has 

 been so great as is here affirmed. As already stated, 

 Le Conte, who is an evolutionist, claims it to be other- 

 wise. This extreme fragmentariness of the record is 

 assumed as a matter of necessity in order to make it 

 harmonize with the theory. 



Suppose that there were 100 species of mollusks 

 within a given area at the same time. It is evident 

 that we must account for their origin either inside or 

 outside of the area where they are found. If there 

 are some hundreds of feet of continuous rocks full of 

 the remains of mollusks under the 100 species, then 



7 *D. and after D., p 159. 



