oftenest given rise, first
to local varieties and ultimately to new species; and this again would
greatly lessen the chance of our being able to trace the stages of
transition in any one geological formation.

It should not be forgotten, that at the present day, with perfect
specimens for examination, two forms can seldom be connected by
intermediate varieties and thus proved to be the same species, until
many specimens have been collected from many places; and in the case
of fossil species this could rarely be effected by palaeontologists. We
shall, perhaps, best perceive the improbability of our being enabled to
connect species by numerous, fine, intermediate, fossil links, by asking
ourselves whether, for instance, geologists at some future period will
be able to prove, that our different breeds of cattle, sheep, horses,
and dogs have descended from a single stock or from several aboriginal
stocks; or, again, whether certain sea-shells inhabiting the shores
of North America, which are ranked by some conchologists as distinct
species from their European representatives, and by other conchologists
as only varieties, are really varieties or are, as it is called,
specifically distinct. This could be effected only by the future
geologist discovering in a fossil state numerous intermediate
gradations; and such success seems to me improbable in the highest
degree.

Geological research, though it has added numerous species to existing
and extinct genera, and has made the intervals between some few groups
less wide than they otherwise would have been, yet has done scarcely
anything in breaking down the distinction between species, by connecting
them together by numerous, fine, intermediate varieties; and this not
having been effected, is probably the gravest and most obvious of all
the many objections which may be urged against my views. Hence it will
be worth while to sum up the foregoing remarks, under an imaginary
illustration. The Malay Archipelago is of about the size of Europe from
the North Cape to the Mediterranean, and from Britain to Russia; and
therefore equals all the geological formations which have been examined
with any accuracy, excepting those of the United States of America. I
fully agree with Mr. Godwin-Austen, that the present condition of the
Malay Archipelago, with its numerous large islands separated by wide and
shallow seas, probably represents the former state of Europe, when most
of our formations