See page in:
1859
1860
1861
1866
1869
1872

Compare with:
1859
1860
1861
1866
1869

natural and domestic varieties 1872
varieties 1859 1860 1861 1866 1869

Time , as inferred from the rate of Deposition and extent of Denudation . 1872
Time .— 1859 1860 1861
Time, as inferred from the rate of Deposition and extent of Denudation . 1866
Time, as inferred from the rate of Deposition and extent of Denudation . 1869

had undergone a vast amount of change; and the principle of competition between organism and organism, between child and parent, will render this a very rare event; for in all cases the new and improved forms of life
will
....
tend to supplant the old and unimproved forms.
By the theory of natural selection all living species have been connected with the parent-species of each genus, by differences not greater than we see between the natural and domestic varieties of the same species at the present day; and these parent-species, now generally extinct, have in their turn been similarly connected with more ancient
species;
forms;
and so on backwards, always converging to the common ancestor of each great class. So that the number of intermediate and transitional links, between all living and extinct species, must have been inconceivably great. But assuredly, if this theory be true, such have lived upon
this
the
earth.
On
On
the
the
lapse
Lapse
of
of
Time , as inferred from the rate of Deposition and extent of Denudation .
Independently of our not finding fossil remains of such infinitely numerous connecting links, it may be
objected,
objected
that time
will not
cannot
have sufficed for so great an amount of organic change, all changes having been effected
very
....
slowly
slowly.
through
....
natural
....
selection.
....
It is hardly possible for me
even
....
to recall to the
reader,
reader
who
may
is
not
be
....
a practical geologist, the facts leading the mind feebly to comprehend the lapse of time. He who can read Sir Charles Lyell's grand work on the Principles of Geology, which the future historian will recognise as having produced a revolution in natural science,
yet
and yet
does not admit how
incomprehensibly
incomprehensively
....
vast have been the past periods of time, may at once close this volume. Not that it suffices to study the Principles of Geology, or to read special treatises by different observers on separate formations, and to mark how each author attempts to give an inadequate idea of the duration of each
formation
formation,
or even
each
of each
stratum. We can best gain some idea of past time by knowing the agencies at work, and learning how
much of
deeply
the surface of the land has been denuded, and how much sediment has been deposited. As Lyell has well remarked, the extent and thickness of our sedimentary formations are the result and the measure of the denudation which the earth's crust has elsewhere undergone. Therefore a man should examine for himself the great piles of superimposed strata, and watch the rivulets bringing down mud, and the waves wearing away the sea-cliffs, in order to comprehend something about the duration of past time, the monuments of which we see all around us.