276 
We must now take another step upwards, and pass from the 
Oolitic system to that of the Tertiary. Speaking of this transi- 
tion, Professor Williamson says : — I may observe here that 
in all probability, if we except some foraminiferous creatures 
of low organization, no one species of animal that lived pre- 
vious to the close of the Chalk age survived that period. 
Except one doubtful shell, all these species found in the 
Mezozoic strata became extinct. None of them are to be 
found in the Tertiary strata.^^ 
In one sense, therefore, life seems at this time to have 
begun de novo, and the records of these rocks lead us up step 
by step to the present day. Hence the use of the three terms 
by the great geologist, Lyell, to distinguish the three main divi- 
sions of those rocks : the Eocene — the dawn of recent life ; the 
Miocene — the less recent; and the Pliocene — the more recent. 
Now, what is the answer given by these rocks to the ques- 
tion, Is evolution proved ? Let us listen. 
In the Eocene series are found the remains of fishes — 
perches and others, all allied to modern forms. Now, also, 
are found terrestrial and aquatic mammals ; the former repre- 
sented by animals somewhat like the modern tapirs and ante- 
lopes, the latter by the zeuglodons — a monster of over seventy 
feet in length. If these latter creatures had been evolved out 
of more ancient ichthyosaurus there must have been hundreds 
of transmutations. Where are these links ? We look for 
them in vain. 
Entering the Miocene series of rocks we find a marvellous 
outburst of animal life — monster mammoths and mastodons, 
but from what previous forms of mammalian life they were 
evolved we are not told. On this point the rocks are silent. 
Passing from the Miocene to the Pliocene deposits, abundant 
evidence is obtained of the profusion of animal life. Now are 
found the remains of true whales, also of many other mammals 
which are found on the earth at the present time — and not 
only mammals, but birds, reptiles, and fishes. But from what 
creatures they were evolved is not revealed, nor yet any of 
the successive links in the chain of development from the 
lower to the higher. But we are told by the evolutionist that 
we must modify our statement that no links are found in the 
process of development, for Professor Huxley has clearly shown 
that the horse of the present day was evolved out of the 
hipparion of the Pliocene age, and this again was evolved out 
of the anchitherium of the earlier tertiary times. 
But this, it must be remembered, is, after all, but an assump- 
tion, not a proof. 
Referring to this subject. Professor Owen, in his Anatomy 
