300 
IMPEKFECTION OF THE 
Chap. IX. 
intervals betv/een some few groups less wide than they 
otherwise would have been, yet has done scarcely any¬ 
thing in breaking down the distinction between species, 
by connecting them together by numerous, fine, inter¬ 
mediate varieties; and this not having been effected, 
is probably the gravest and most obvious of all the 
many objections which may be urged against my views. 
Hence it will be worth .wliile to sum up the foregoing 
remarks, under an imaginary illustration. The Malay 
Archipelago is of about the size of Europe from the 
North Cape to the Mediterranean, and from Britain to 
Eussia; and therefore equals all the geological forma¬ 
tions which have been examined with any accuracy, 
excepting those of the United States of America. I fully 
agree with Mr. Godwin-Austen, that the present con¬ 
dition of the Malay Archipelago, with its numerous large 
islands separated by wide and shallow seas, probably re¬ 
presents the former state of Europe, whilst most of our 
formations were accumulating. The Malay Archipelago 
is one of the richest regions of the whole world in organic 
beings; yet if all the species were to be collected which 
have ever lived there, how imperfectly would they repre¬ 
sent the natural history of the world! 
But we have every reason to believe that the terres¬ 
trial productions of the archipelago would be preserved 
in an excessively imperfect manner in the formations 
which we suppose to be there accumulating. I suspect 
that not many of the strictly littoral animals, or of those 
which lived on naked submarine rocks, would be em¬ 
bedded ; and those embedded in gravel or sand, would 
not endure to a distant epoch. Wherever sediment did 
not accumulate on the bed of the sea, or where it did not 
accumulate at a sufficient rate to protect organic bodies 
from decay, no remains could be preserved. 
I believe that fossiliferous formations could be formed 
