| → underlying 1859 1860 1861 1866 |
| older and underlying 1869 1872 |
|
| → bed; 1859 1860 1869 1872 |
| and older bed; 1861 1866 |
|
| → with 1859 1860 1861 1866 1869 |
| by intermediate varieties with 1872 |
|
| → points of structure. 1859 1860 1861 |
| respects. 1866 1869 1872 |
|
| → be compelled to 1859 1860 1861 1866 1869 |
| OMIT 1872 |
|
| ↑ 1 blocks not present in 1859 1860; present in 1861 1866 1869 1872 |
| Look again at the later tertiary deposits, which include many shells believed by the majority of naturalists to be identical with existing species; but some excellent naturalists, as Agassiz and Pictet, maintain that all these tertiary species are specifically distinct, though the distinction is admitted to be very slight; so that here, unless we believe that these eminent naturalists have been misled by their imaginations
and that these late tertiary species really present no difference whatever from their living representatives, or unless we believe that the great majority of naturalists are wrong and that the
tertiary species are all truly distinct from the recent, we have evidence of a very general
slight modification
of form of
the kind required.
|
|
| → namely, 1859 1860 |
| of time, namely, 1861 1866 1869 1872 |
|
|
no golden rule by which to distinguish species and varieties; they grant some little variability to each species, but when they meet with a somewhat greater amount of difference between any two forms, they rank both as species, unless they are enabled to connect them together by
intermediate
from the reasons just
we can seldom hope to effect in any one geological section. Supposing B and C to be two species, and a third, A, to be found in an
→underlying
→bed;
even if A were strictly intermediate between B and C, it would simply be ranked as a third and distinct species, unless at the same time it could be
closely connected
→with
either one or both
Nor should it be forgotten, as before explained, that A might be the actual progenitor of B and C, and yet
not
necessarily be strictly intermediate between them in all
→points of structure. So that we might obtain the parent-species and its several modified descendants from the lower and upper beds of
formation, and unless we obtained numerous transitional gradations, we should not recognise their
and should consequently
→be compelled to
rank them
as distinct species. |
|
| It is notorious on what excessively slight differences many palæontologists have founded their species; and they do this the more readily if the specimens come from different sub-stages of the same formation. Some experienced conchologists are now sinking many of the very fine species of
and others into the rank of varieties; and on this view we do find the kind of evidence of change which on
theory we ought to find. ↑
we look to rather wider
→namely,
to distinct but consecutive stages of the same great formation, we find that the embedded fossils, though
universally ranked as specifically different,
|
