110 PEOF. J. LOGAN LOBLEY^ F.G.S._, P.K.G.S._, ON 



Nautilus, which both preceded and survived it. And if 

 Professor Hyat is right in saying tliat the efforts of the 

 orthoceratite " to become completely a littoral crawler developed 

 the Amnionoidea," it was a step that led to nothing further, since 

 there is no genus that we can regard as being developed from 

 the Ammonite, for the Nautilus is the only living tetra- 

 branchiate. 



The extinct Palaeozoic brachiopods cannot either be said to be 

 lower steps towards higher genera in Secondary times since 

 Terehratula, Rhynclionella, Discina and Lingula, all lived in 

 Palaeozoic times contemporaneously with Frodudus, Spirifer, 

 Chonctes, Pentamerus, etc., and Lingula earlier than any. The 

 two Palaeozoic Orders of Echinodermata, Cystoidea and Blastoidea 

 passed away without being followed 1)}^ any more highly 

 developed successors, for the only three existing Orders of that 

 Class, the Asteroidea, the Echinoidea, and the Crinoidea, were 

 in existence as early as the two Orders that have become 

 extinct, so that the several Orders of the Echinodermata were 

 geologically contemporaneous in their appearance. Though 

 the Pterodactyles had afhnities with both reptiles and birds, 

 they have passed away without leaving any developed successors, 

 and the only creatures having affinities with them in their chief 

 peculiarity are the mammalian bats. And writing of fossil 

 plants, the eminent botanist, Mr. W. Carruthers, says : " Ferns, 

 equisetums, and lyco[)ods, appear as far back as the Old Eed 

 Sandstone, not in simple or more generalised but in more 

 complex structures than their living representatives."* It may 

 indeed be said generally that in the case of very many species 

 it is quite impossible to find any cause for saying that a newer 

 is higher than an older form, or to see any reason in their 

 structure for the order in time which they have made their 

 appearance. 



But apart from these special instances, there is the great 

 general fact of the introduction of new genera and species of 

 lower Classes all through the Secondary and Tertiary epochs 

 after the higlier Classes of Yertebrata had come into existence. 

 That supernatural interference with the Laws of Nature should 

 be employed to produce a Cardium, a Trophon, or a Littorina, 

 in addition to the vast multitude of similar genera, occupying 

 a similar position and playing a similar part in the cosmos, and 

 when there were already much higher animals in existence, is 

 incredible. 



* Geological Magazine^ 187G, p. 362. 



