328 
paleontological geology 
section, or as far behind Cambric time as the latter is from the 
Present. 
In onerous attempt to carry back farther than Cambric time 
the geologic record of life on our globe progress, through a 
period of more than two generations, seemed so inappreciable that 
many students of ancient organic remains almost dispaired of 
ever seeing their efforts in this direction rewarded. At no stage, 
however, during these long years was the problem actually en¬ 
tirely without hope of solution. Latterly there was rapid accumu¬ 
lation of pertinent facts. So suggestive were some of them that 
an eminent English geologist only a decade ago was led to predict 
with no little confidence the final differentiation of the pre-Cam¬ 
brian complex into orderly succession of formations not very un¬ 
like that of the familiar Paleozoics. Results of the past lenstrum 
or two without warning more than fulfilled the most sanguine 
expectations. 
The wide interest aroused by these recent discoveries of abund¬ 
ant well-preserved organic remains in rocks of unquestionable 
pre-Cambrian age is secondary only to the enthusiasm produced 
a short while ago by the actual location of the fossiliferous hori¬ 
zons in the general geological column. As definitely determined 
these oldest fossil-bearing levels are stratigraphically more than 
two miles beneath all other previously known horizons yielding 
traces of life. These revelations are, of course, as important bio¬ 
logically as geologically. They materially modify all our previous¬ 
ly held views on the subject. They open up to us a more inviting 
field of investigation than awaited the paleontologists of the first 
half of the last century when they started to unravel the life 
record anterior to Cretacic time. They promise even greater tri¬ 
umphs than when the Paleozoics first revealed their inscrutible 
secrets to Murchison, Sedgwick and Lonsdale. 
We fast approach that nethermost level so remote that we may 
not expect to find hard parts of organisms, because not yet formed 
in the course of organic evolution. Thus we have already almost 
reached a point beyond which paleontologist can not go, beyond 
which he must seek in vain for further treasure, and beyond which 
the paleontological vesta is forever hidden from the human eye. 
Keyes. 
