rd of evolution from the mollusk to the fish is lost! There is not a
single transitional form. These fishes have organs as complex and
perfect as the fishes of to-day. Suddenly, in the "carbonic age"
amphibia and reptiles appear, and then come, in the "Triassic" the huge
reptiles known as dinosaurs. Insects and scorpions have been found in
the "Silurian." [tr. note: sic on punctuation] They stand among the
highest of even _living_ articulates, and they are the "oldest" known
airbreathing animals. "We seek in vain for the progenitors of these
highly organized articulates or for some conceivable method by which
their wings and special breathing apparatus could have evolved. We do
not know that these first insects and scorpions have made any material
progress through all the ages." (Fairhurst.)

Professor Huxley in delivering the anniversary address to the Geological
Society for 1870, quotes the following from an address before the same
society in 1862: "If we confine ourselves to positively ascertained
facts, the total amount of change in the forms of animal and vegetable
life since the existence of such forms is recorded, is small. When
compared with the lapse of time since the first appearance of these
forms, the amount of change is wonderfully small. Moreover, in each great
group of the animal and vegetable kingdoms, there are certain forms which
I termed Persistent Types, which have remained, with but very little
apparent change, from their first appearance to the present time. In
answer to the question, 'What then does an impartial survey of the
positively ascertained truths of paleontology testify in relation to the
common doctrines of progressive modification, which suppose that
modification to have taken place by necessary progress from more to less
embryonic forms, from more to less generalized types within the limits of
the period represented by the fossiliferous rocks?' I reply, It negatives
these doctrines; for it either shows us no evidence of such
modifications, or demonstrates such modification as has occurred to have
been very slight. The significance of persistent types and of the small
amount of change which has taken place even in those forms which can be
shown to have been modified, becomes greater and greater in my eyes, the
longer I occupy myself with the Biology of the past."

From the fact that the trilobites, so highly organized, appeared in the
"primordial," or "oldest" strata, it would seem that