58 THE POORNESS OF OUR [Chap. X 



On the Poorness of Palccontological Collections. 



Now let us turn to our richest geological museums, 

 and what a paltry display we behold ! That our col- 

 lections are imperfect is admitted by every one. The 

 remark of that admirable palaeontologist, Edward Forbes, 

 should never be forgotten, namely, that very many fossil 

 species are known and named from single and often 

 broken specimens, or from a few specimens collected on 

 some one spot. Only a small portion of the surface of 

 the earth has been geologically explored, and no part 

 with sufficient care, as the important discoveries made 

 every year in Europe prove. Xo organism wholly soft 

 can be preserved. Shells and bones decay and disappear 

 when left on the bottom of the sea, where sediment is 

 not accumulating. We probably take a quite erroneous 

 view, when we assume that sediment is being deposited 

 over nearly the whole bed of the sea, at a rate 

 sufficiently quick to embed and preserve fossil remains. 

 Throughout an enormously large proportion of the ocean, 

 the bright blue tint of the water bespeaks its purity. 

 The many cases on record of a formation conformably 

 covered, after an immense interval of time, by another 

 and later formation, without the underlying bed having 

 suffered in the interval any wear and tear, seem 

 explicable only on the view of the bottom of the sea not 

 rarely lying for ages in an unaltered condition. The 

 remains which do become embedded, if in sand or 

 gravel, will, when the beds are upraised, generally be 

 dissolved by the percolation of rain-water charged with 

 carbolic acid. Some of the many kinds of animals 

 which live on the beach between high and low water 

 mark seem to be rarely preserved. For instance, the 



