ort of which no facts can be adduced. All the
animals and plants of which we know anything have remained unchanged
since the beginning of man's observation of them. The theory endeavors
to account for a change which never happened. It is a mere empty dream,
unworthy of a serious consideration by any mind imbued with the first
principle of inductive science--namely, that all science is the orderly
knowledge of facts; and whose first rule is, _first ascertain your
facts_.

But it is urged, that though such a change has not occurred during the
brief period of human history, it may have been practicable in the
lengthened periods revealed by geology, and while the forces of nature
were more vigorous during the youth of our planet. This, in fact, is the
grand resource of the modern evolutionists--the almost infinite periods
and possibilities of geology.

We refuse, however, to follow Mr. Powell into those unexplored realms of
the infinite past and discuss the possibilities of ages, of which "by
the conditions we can not know anything whatever." We will go as far as
the geological strata furnish us with any facts, any evidences of life,
any traces of plants or animals of which corresponding species still
exist, and will unhesitatingly affirm, on the authority of the most
eminent geologists, that such geological representatives of existing
species furnish no evidence whatever of evolution into higher forms. On
the contrary, we shall show that many species have existed without the
slightest change for many thousands, aye, and millions of years,
sufficiently long to establish the fact of the permanence of species
during the geologic ages known to man.

Geologists are generally agreed that the first Florida Coral Reef is at
least 30,000 years old; but Agassiz asserts, uncontradicted, that the
insect which built it has not altered in the least in that period, and
he says regarding it: "These facts furnish evidence, as direct as we can
obtain in any branch of physical inquiry, that some at least of the
species of animals now existing have been in existence 30,000 years, and
have not undergone the slightest change in that period." But we can go
still further back, and demonstrate the permanence of vegetable
structure. Hugh Miller says: "The oak, the birch, the hazel, the Scotch
fir, all lived, I repeat, in what is now Britain, ere the last great
depression of the land. The gigantic northern elephant and rhinoceros,
extinct for unt