98 



THE ZOOLOGIST. 



peculiarities in the formation of the placenta deemed to be con- 

 clusively human are present in the Anthropoid Apes. Haeckel, 

 indeed, asserts that the descent of man from extinct Tertiary 

 Anthropoid Apes is proved as plainly as the descent of birds 

 from reptiles, or the descent of reptiles from amphibians. The 

 Neanderthal skull and the fossil Ape-man {Pithecanthropus 

 erectus) from Java are unhesitatingly believed by Haeckel to be 

 "the missing links."] 



Undismayed by the difficulties presented by the geological 

 record, Darwin goes on to account for the absence of ancestry to 

 the occasionally complex fossils in the old Silurian rocks by 

 hinting that perhaps we see in the granitic rocks the trans- 

 formed strata long anterior to the Silurian epoch. Dr. Car- 

 penter is of opinion that an important link is to be found in 

 Eozoon, which he and its discoverers, Sir William Logan and 

 Dr. Dawson, consider to be a gigantic Foraminifer. Careful 

 observation by others, however, negative this view. 



It is a well-known fact that a species which has been extin- 

 guished never reappears. The evolutionists ask with force — Why, 

 on the hypothesis of independent creation, were the failing 

 species not re-created in those regions so well adapted for their 

 well-being? They assert, for instance, that no part of the 

 world now offers more suitable conditions for Wild Horses than 

 the Pampas and other plains of South America, a fact that is 

 well enough proved by the facility with which they have run 

 wild and multiplied enormously since their introduction by the 

 Spaniards in comparatively recent times. Why, on the principle 

 of original and direct adaptation of species to climate, were they 

 not reproduced ? Darwin's hypothesis alone, say they, gives the 

 clue. The chain of direct descent was completely broken by the 

 extinction of the first race of Horses. 



In the most distant parts of the earth, again (such as North 

 America, Tierra del Fuego, India, and the Cape of Good Hope), 

 the organic remains in certain beds have a close resemblance to 

 each other. Natural Selection, says Darwin, has caused this by 

 gradually spreading the dominant forms of life throughout the 

 successive strata. 



Agassiz states that Darwin's whole chapter on the geological 

 record appears to him as a series of illogical deductions and 



