FIELD AND STUDY 



If at any time during the past history of the globe 

 there was but one pair of animals through which 

 man could come, what a wonder that he ever got 

 here ! The conditions that produced a species in one 

 part of the globe, would they not produce the same 

 species in some other part? The vital, the physi- 

 cal laws are universal. Take Eocene times in this 

 country and in Europe, and in Asia and Africa; 

 was the progenitor of man in each of them, and 

 was he the same in each? But all this is a pathless 

 wood. 



It is difficult to conceive of life as a tree with only 

 one trunk, and starting in one particular part of the 

 earth. It is easier to think of it under the image of 

 the grass, at home everywhere. The old seas were 

 universal; here life had its origin. In one part of that 

 sea, or in all parts? When it got upon the land, was it 

 at one point only? Or, to turn the question around 

 a little, the seal, the whale, the manatee, are de- 

 scendants of land animals. Did 6ach race originate 

 in a single pair that first took to the water? How 

 Nature covers up her footsteps or wipes out her 

 missing links ! Foolish Nature ! 



§ 

 I love to dwell upon these different stages of 

 world growth, and see in imagination how it fared 

 with our continent during each one of them. The 

 Cretaceous was evidently an age of low lands, 

 especially in the southern and western parts of the 

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