EVIDENCES FROM PALAEONTOLOGY 69 
estimates within the bounds of Lord Kelvin’s older calculations. Wal- 
cott, in 1893, on the basis of the stratigraphic record and the known 
discharge of sediment by rivers, concluded that 70,000,000 years had 
elapsed since sedimentation began in the Archeozoic. Sir Archibald 
Giekie places the time at 100,000,000 years, and most geologists have 
tried, although with difficulty, to fit the record within these estimates. 
“Since the discovery of radium, all of the calculations previously 
made have been set aside by the new school of physicists, and now 
the geologists are told they can have 1,000,000,000 or more years as 
the time since the earth attained its present diameter... .. Even 
if finally it shall turn out that the physicists have to reduce their 
estimates as to the age of certain minerals and rocks, geologists 
nevertheless appear to be on safer ground in accepting their estimates 
than those based either on sedimentation, chemical denudation, or loss 
of heat by the earth.” 
[The last decade has seen the demise of the outworn objection to 
evolution based on the idea that there has not been time enough for 
the great changes that are believed by evolutionists to have occurred: 
Given 100,000,000 or 1,000,000,000 years since life began, we can then 
allow 1,000,000 years for each important change to arise and establish 
itself. We can also understand why it is that so little change can be 
noted in the majority of wild animals and plants within the historic 
period. A thousand years in the development of the race is like a 
second in the development of an individual and, though no one can 
notice any change in a growing creature in a second or a minute, very 
radical changes can be noted in an hour ora day ora year. We cannot 
see any movement in an hour hand of a clock, but it moves with 
certainty around the dial in a relatively short time. There is there- 
fore no shortage of time. Evolution may have been infinitely slow, 
but time has been infinitely long. The accompanying time scale 
shows the lapse of time and the distribution in time of the main 
groups of animals (Fig. 1).—Ep.] 
ON THE PRINCIPAL GENERAL FACTS REVEALED BY A 
STUDY OF THE FOSSILS 
[z. None of the animals or plants of the past are identical with 
those of the present. The nearest relationship is between a few species 
of the past and some living species which have been placed in the same 
families. 
