15 



rier to migration, and that the mountains were more ancient than the 

 introduction of these particular quadrupeds and birds into the planet. 

 But the limitation of peculiar generic types to certain geographical 

 areas, now observed in so many parts of the globe, points to some 

 other and higher law governing the creation of the species itself, 

 which, in the present state of science, is inscrutable to us, and may, 

 perhaps, remain a mystery forever. The adaptation of peculiar 

 forms, instincts, qualities and organizations to the present geography 

 and climate of a region, may be a part only of the conditions which 

 govern in every case the relations of the animate beings to their hab- 

 itations. The past condition and changes of the globe and its inhab- 

 itants, throughout the whole period when the different beings were 

 entering, each in succession, upon the scene, and all the future con- 

 ditions and changes to the end of vast periods, during which they 

 may be destined to exist, ought to be known, before we can expect to 

 comprehend why certain types were originally selected for certain 

 areas, whether of land or water." [Second visit to the United States, 

 Vol. 1, p. 223.] 



These remarks were printed before the establishment of the theory 

 of evolution which now prevails among the naturalists of all coun- 

 tries and which has expanded our notions of the development of 

 species by combining with our knowledge of the never-ceasing 

 change and variations of animals and plants the laws governing the 

 survival of the fittest under other environments and conditions; but 

 the same mystery surrounds the peculiar limitation of certain 

 genera to small geographical areas that did when Lyell wrote the 

 above quotation. And the Darwinian theory offers us no assistance 

 in accounting for such a fossil genus as Agaricocrinns. We may 

 suppose that the various species could have been evolved, in the 

 geological ages, from one type; but granting as actual facts all that 

 we may suppose, yet the beginning of the genus and the ending re- 

 main absolutely unaccounted for even in theory. The development 

 of all vegetable and animal life from a single monad is quite as 

 chimerical as the special creation of each species out of the ele- 

 ments or from nothing. The invertebrate fossils, from the palaeo- 

 zoic rocks, afford no evidence to prove such fanciful imaginations. 

 They show us that species were subject to such variations as we 

 find now among living species, and they preserve for us the evi- 

 dences of injury inflicted during life, showing that they recovered 



