188 
the Purbeck beds. To say that these multitudinous diversified 
successive forms may have existed^ although not one of them 
has yet been found, is simply conjecture, and must not rank 
as science. Evolution is an hypothesis founded too much 
upon conjecture. Professor Huxley speaks about the demon- 
strative evidence of evolution. There is no demonstrative 
t.'vidence of evolution. It is a necessary postulate of the 
doctrine of evolution, that from the highest animal down to 
the lowest speck of protoplasmic matter in which life can be 
manifested there must be a series of gradations leading from 
one end to the other AVe come to the Cretaceous, and no part 
of such series can be shown. So far as the present evidence 
goes, there is a break in the continuity of mammalian life in 
the Cretaceous period. 
Gl. I have also attempted to show that there w'as a break in 
the continuity of mammalian life in the Glacial epoch, which 
occurred in the Pleistocene period. Now either of these 
breaks proves fatal to Dr. Darwin^s hypothesis of evolution. 
The Chairman (J. E. Howard, Esq., E.R.S.). — I am sure I may offer 
Mr. Callard the best thanks of this meeting. I regard his paper as a most 
valuable contribution to our knowledge. My own acquaintance with geology, 
however, is too limited to discuss the whole question of breaks in the con- 
tinuity of mammalian life, though I believe Mr. Callard to be correct in his 
statements. 
In a portion of the Festiniog district, specially known to me, the rocks 
above Cwmorthin present very markedly the features described by Mr. 
Callard. Above 1,300 feet from the sea-level the crags of Moel M’'ymi rise 
sharp and distinct with slaty cleavage — below that level commence almost sud- 
denly the roches mouionnes, indicating submergence under an icy sea, rather 
than a glacier, if I read them aright. A little lower is a fine specimen of an ice- 
carried boulder, perched fantastically and as if artificially placed upon a 
rock. Mr. Callard might have considerably strengthened his argument as 
to South America, by referring to D’Orbigny’s Voyage dans VAmcrigv.e 
Meridionale^ which happens to be in my possession, and from which extracts 
will be found in my appendix to The Caves of South Devon. This 
geologist, whose work on South America is second only to Humboldt’s, 
shows that the immense deposit of the Pampas, occupying nearly 24,000 
square leagues of surface, was “ in some sort deposited in a very short time, 
as the result of a great terrestrial commotion'^ This immense deposit presents 
for seven degrees and a half in breadth the same features, the same peculiar 
red clay, and the remains of the same creatures, all swept to destruction. 
This flood reached to a height of 4,000 metres (13,000 feet and more) above 
* Dr. Huxley’s American Addresses, Lecture 2, p. 46. 
