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This last hypothesis was directly at variance with his own statements, that the remains of the mammoth and hyaena were identical in appearance, colour, and chemical condition with those of the bear and other associated fossil animals, none of which exhibited signs of having been previously enveloped in any dissimilar matrix.
Hence the chance of discovering species with transitional grades of structure in a fossil condition will always be less, from their having existed in lesser numbers, than in the case of species with fully developed structures. I will now give two or three instances of diversified and of changed habits in the individuals of the same species.
That there is thus a progress of some kind, the most superficial glance at the geological history is sufficient to convince us. Indeed the doctrine of the gradation of animal forms has received a remarkable support from the discoveries of this science, as several types formerly wanting to a completion of the series have been found in a fossil state.
All Palaeontologists, European and American, such as MM. De Verneuil, D. Sharpe, Professor Hall, E. Billings, and others, who have entered upon this comparison, admit that there is a marked general correspondence in the succession of fossil forms, and even species, as we trace the organic remains downward from the highest to the lowest beds; but it is impossible to parallel each minor subdivision.
I have lately heard that Captain Sulivan, R.N., has found numerous fossil bones, embedded in regular strata, on the banks of the R. Gallegos, in latitude 51 degrees 4'. Some of the bones are large; others are small, and appear to have belonged to an armadillo.
From these novel facts Smith drew the commonsense inference that the earth had had successive populations of creatures, each of which in its turn had become extinct. He partially verified this inference by comparing the fossil shells with existing species of similar orders, and found that such as occur in older strata of the rocks had no counterparts among living species.
"About the President asking me if I would cooperate with him to the extent of serving as the Pacific Coast member of the Shipping Board? I guess that isn't some honor, eh? How the devil he ever dug up an old fossil like me is a mystery. I wired him, advising that he appoint a younger man, but he replied that he knew I was the livest shipping man in the country and an American through and through.
Many a water-shed may intervene between the starting-point of each erratic or pebble and its final resting- place, and the only means of discovering the country from which it took its departure will consist in a careful comparison of its mineral or fossil contents with those of the parent rocks. Glaciation of Scandinavia and Russia. Glaciation of Scotland. Mammoth in Scotch Till.
Ah, if I had only known then that he was only a common mortal, and that his mission had nothing more overpowering about it than the collecting of seeds and uncommon yams and extraordinary cabbages and peculiar bullfrogs for that poor, useless, innocent, mildewed old fossil the Smithsonian Institute, I would have felt so much relieved.
And when he took it, to his father, he told him it was only a fossil shell an Ammonite. And he went back and laughed at his nurse, and teased her till she was quite angry. Then he was very lucky that she did not box his ears, for that was what he deserved.
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