34 ANNUAL REPORT OF 



the innumerable creatures that have become preserved to us 

 from earth's early days, and calling them to life again in our im- 

 agination. We interrogate these ancient inhabitants of the earth 

 whence they were derived : 'Speak to us and say whether you 

 are isolated remnants, disseminated here and there throughout 

 the immensity of the ages, without an order more comprehensible 

 to us than the scattering of flowers over the prairie? Or are 

 you in verity linked one to another, so that we may yet be able, 

 amid the diversity of nature, to discover indications of a plan 

 wherein the Infinite has stamped the impression of his unity T 

 The unraveling, of the plan of creation, this is the goal toward 

 which our efforts aspire nowadays." 1 



General Notions of Pakvichthyology. — If this cursory review 

 of the scope and province of palaeontology has shown us anything, 

 it must convince us that fossils are to be regarded as precious and 

 authentic historical documents, which, in so far as they 

 reveal important truths of nature, have vastly widened our com- 

 prehension of the organic world, and materially assist us in arriv- 

 ing at a unification of truth. What is true of fossils in general 

 is true in particular degrees of fossil fishes, which we have now 

 to consider somewhat more fully. Enough has already been said 

 to< show that the history of the group of fishes, the most primitive 

 and most ancient of the vertebrate phylum, is of fascinating inter- 



1 Gaudry, A., Les Enchainements du monde animal, etc., p. 3. Paris, 1883. 



The continuation of this striking passage we shall do better to give in its- 

 original choice diction, as follows : 



" Les paleontologistes ne sont pas d' accord sur la maniere dont ce plan a 

 ete realise ; plusieurs, considerant les nombreuses lacunes qui existent encore 

 dans la serie des etres, croient a 1' independance des especes, et admettent que 

 l'Auteur du monde a fait apparaitre tour a tour les plantes et les animaux des 

 temps geologiques de maniere a simuler la filiation qui est dans sa pensee; d* 

 autres savants, frappes au contraire de la rapidite avec laquelle les lacunes 

 diminuent, supposent que la filiation a ete realisee materiellement, et que Dieu 

 a produit les etres des diverses epoques en les tirant de ceux qui les avaient 

 precedes. Cette derniere hypothese est celle que je prefere; mais, qu' on 

 1' adopte ou qu' on ne 1' adopte pas, ce qui me parait bien certain, c' est qu' il y 

 a eu un plan. Un jour viendra sans doute ou les paleontologistes pourront 

 saisir le plan qui a preside au developpement de la vie. Ce sera la un beau 

 jour pour eux, car, s' il y a tant de magnificence dans les details de la nature, 

 il ne doit pas y en avoir moins dans leur agencement general." 



