ON THE PROGRESS OF GEOLOGY. 403 
I need scarcely add that every new addition to our know- 
ledge will assist us to gain more fully day by day an insight into 
the harmonious unity of the whole. 
It is not yet a quarter of a century (1859) since the Origin 
of Species appeared, but if we compare our knowledge of 
Palzontology at that time with that obtained at present, we 
find that a striking progress has been made. Instead of a col- 
lection of facts, more or less loosely connected, we now possess a 
system of remarkable strength and harmony, a powerful aid to 
an inductive science like Geology. 
Evolution might be compared to an architect, who succeeds 
in raising an edifice of pure and noble proportions, placed upon 
a stable and firm foundation, from a large accumulated material 
of finely and ingeniously wrought building stones stored up pro- 
miscuously without any apparent plan or order. 
Since the appearance of the “Origin of Species” I have always 
held this opinion ; and I may be allowed to mention that as far 
back as 1862, in my opening address as first president of the 
Philosophical Institute, I spoke of this incomparable book as 
“the great work of the age.” 
The researches of the paleontologist have shown already 
convincingly that there are innumerable intermediate links 
between present species and those which lived in past ages. I 
may here, to give only one instance, refer to Huxley’s important 
researches into the relations of the members of the family 
Equide, the Anchitherium, Hipparion, and Equus. At the 
same time the gulf between the different classes of vertebrates is 
being gradually bridged over by careful research. Thus Pro- 
fessor O. C. Marsh has shown that the jurassic bird Archzeop- 
teryx from Solenhofen is closely connected with the Dinosaurs, 
generally considered to be most nearly allied to birds. Archzop- 
teryx has besides true teeth in sockets, bi-concave vertebrz, the 
pelvic bones are separate, and the metatarsals either separate or 
at least imperfectly united. American fossil birds, such as 
Ichtyornis, have also bi-concave vertebre (like Fishes and some 
Saurians), and teeth in sockets. The skull of Otontopteryx 
toliapicus, found in the Isle of Sheppey, i in the London Clay, has 
also true teeth in sockets. 
There is, however, in Palzeobotany still a great deal that is 
in many respects unsatisfactory and inconclusive. This is mainly 
Owing to the fragmentary material at our command, consisting 
mostly of leaves, the determination of which in many instances 
may lead us to wrong inferences. To give only one instance, I 
wish to refer to O. Feistmantel’s latest researches on the 
palzozoic and mesozoic Flora of Australia, with which our own 
fossil Flora is closely connected. 
The eminent paleontologist of the Indian Geological Survey 
comes to the conclusion that Phyllotheca, in Europe and Siberia 
of j jurassic age, is paleeozoic in New South Wales and upper 
mesozoic in Victoria; Glossopteris, palzeozoic in Australia, is 
jurassic in India and Russia. Noeggerathiopsis, beginning to 
