4 
The Australasian Scmitific Magazine. [August i, 1885. 
If an objection is raised to transmutation, that from the carboniferous 
epoch scorpions have not changed, I say that as each creature was 
peculiarly adapted to that situation destined to be occupied by it, then the 
conditions being favourable the species remained ; if conditions became 
unfavourable the species was lost. 
If we should allow the Argali to be the parent of our sheep, and, conse- 
quently, admit that the differences are explicable by degeneration, no 
difficulty can any longer exist about the unity of the human race. The 
Argali (avis ammon) was a large animal, fleet as a stag, armed with horns 
and thick hoofs, and covered with long coarse hair. It resisted the wolf, 
and jumped frightful precipices. A horn of it weighs nine pounds, and 
can be seen in Gottingen museum. 
The species of animals of one period lived only in that period. The 
same species is never found in two strata of a given period. 
Taking, as Richardson states, the faunas of the oldest strata, as composed 
of the simplest organized elements, their degree of perfection will increase 
in proportion as we approach epochs more recent. 
Lyell, when speaking of the great changes continually going on, said — 
k< That the movements of the inorganic world is obvious and palpable, and 
might be likened to the minute-hand of a clock, the progress of which can 
be seen and heard ; ” but when referring to the evolutionary changes in 
animals, remarks, “ whereas the fluctuations of the living creature are 
nearly invisible, and resemble the motion of the hour-hand of a time-piece, 
it is only by watching it attentively for some time, and comparing its 
relative position after an interval, that we can prove the reality of its 
motion/ 5 
Now, if we enter into the study of Morphology, evolution will be seen to 
proceed in regular grades, thus animals become advanced and changed by 
almost imperceptible gradations, until the adult type is attained in a certain 
number of days or years. 
Although this evolution is going on daily within our experience, yet many 
persons cannot conceive that the same process of evolution can have taken 
place in past ages, so as to produce from such minute beginnings, all the 
varied fauna of our globe. 
The natural forces which in a few days develop a chick out of a little 
protoplasm and three or four teaspoonsful of yolk, are pronounced incom- 
petent to originate slowly, but surely, a gradually developing series of 
creatures under changed conditions of life, and I may say a counterpart of 
ourselves and co-partners on this earth. 
To my mind the one is as great a wonder as the other, in fact, both are 
different phases of one history of organised life. 
Mohammed believed in a progressive evolution, for, to quote the Koran, 
he says, “ It needs not that I swear by the sunset redness, and by the night 
and its gatherings, and by the moon when at her full, that from state to 
state ye shall surely be carried forward. 0 (Koran, Cap. Ixxxii). 
Referring to Geology, which treats of the earth’s strata, I may say that if 
it is in the least to be relied on, any moderately educated person will see 
that the world was not made backwards, but originated by slow metamor- 
phoses; he will also infer that, at a definite epoch of refrigeration, life was 
evolved in a natural manner, and that during this transformation of the crust 
of the globe, creatures were gradually increasing, differentiating, and cstab- 
ishing themselves. 
Professor Seely (Galignani, 1S77) asserts that “extinct types of life exist 
which go far to bridge over the gap in organization in different groups, as 
