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With respect to the first proposition, I may remark that whatever may be the case among the physical geologists, catastrophic palaeontologists are practically extinct. It is now no part of recognized geological doctrine that the species of one formation all died out and were replaced by a brand-new set in the next formation.
Woodward in the upper chalk; so that we now have abundant evidence of the existence of this group of animals during the secondary period. The case most frequently insisted on by palaeontologists of the apparently sudden appearance of a whole group of species, is that of the teleostean fishes, low down, according to Agassiz, in the Chalk period.
Geologists and palaeontologists write about the "beginning of life" and the "first-created forms of living beings," as if they were the most familiar things in the world; and even cautious writers seem to be on quite friendly terms with the "archetype" whereby the Creator was guided "amidst the crash of falling worlds."
When such varieties returned to their ancient homes, as they would differ from their former state, in a nearly uniform, though perhaps extremely slight degree, they would, according to the principles followed by many palaeontologists, be ranked as new and distinct species.
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