United States or Guatemala ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
It will be preferable to turn to the positive facts of palaeontology, and to inquire what they tell us. Journ. Geol.
Fossils are solid bodies which, by some natural process, have come to be contained within other solid bodies, namely, the rocks in which they are embedded; and the fundamental problem of palaeontology, stated generally, is this: "Given a body endowed with a certain shape and produced in accordance with natural laws, to find in that body itself the evidence of the place and manner of its production."
Long ago so long indeed that this is one of the first affirmations of science when, quitting the bowels of the earth, the glaciers and grottoes, it ceased to call itself geology and palaeontology and became the history of man humanity passed through a crisis not wholly unlike that which now lies ahead of it, or is actually menacing it at the moment; the difference being only that in those days the dilemma seemed vastly more tragic and more unsolvable.
Taylor, by his own confession, is no authority in either geology, biology, or palaeontology. He has neither collected, observed, nor experimented in these fields. He does not know how many facts have been discovered in them, or what bearing they have on other facts in other fields. Therefore, he is entirely unable to say whether Huxley is arguing from things "known or proved" or not.
The conclusion, then, in palaeontology, which would be drawn from these facts is, that man must have existed in Europe at the same time with the fossil elephant and rhinoceros, the gigantic hyena, the aurochs, and the elk, and even the cave-bear.
Looking back still further into the Tertiary epoch, of which the vegetable remains indicate many analogous, but few, if any, identical forms, he concludes, with Heer and others, that specific changes of form, as well as changes of station, are to be presumed; and, finally, that "the theory of a succession of forms through the deviation of anterior forms is the most natural hypothesis, and the most accordant with the known facts in palaeontology, geographical botany and zoology, of anatomical structure and classification: but direct proof of it is wanting, and moreover, if true, it must have taken place very slowly; so slowly, indeed, that its effects are discernible only after a lapse of time far longer than our historic epoch."
Those who have attended to the progress of palaeontology are aware that evidence of the character which I have defined has been produced in considerable and continually-increasing quantity during the last few years. Indeed, the amount and the satisfactory nature of that evidence are somewhat surprising, when we consider the conditions under which alone we can hope to obtain it.
Standard writers on palaeontology, as has been seen, assume that she can.
It is almost superfluous to remark that hardly any fossil-fish are known from south of the equator; and by running through Pictet's Palaeontology it will be seen that very few species are known from several formations in Europe.
I survey the whole space that stretches overhead; it is as desert as the shore was. Still my imagination carried me away amongst the wonderful speculations of palaeontology. Though awake I fell into a dream. I thought I could see floating on the surface of the waters enormous chelonia, preadamite tortoises, resembling floating islands.
Word Of The Day