two regions, that the species though distinct are
more or less related, according to the greater or less _possibility_ of
the transportal in past and present times of species from one to the
other region; although we can hardly admit that all the species in such
cases have been transported from the first to the second region, and
since have become extinct in the first: we see this law in the presence
of the fox on the Falkland Islands; in the European character of some of
the plants of Tierra del Fuego; in the Indo-Asiatic character of the
plants of the Pacific; and in the circumstance of those genera which
range widest having many species with wide ranges; and those genera with
restricted ranges having species with restricted ranges. Finally, we
find in each of the main divisions of the land, and probably of the sea,
that the existing organisms are related to those lately extinct.

Looking further backwards we see that the past geographical distribution
of organic beings was different from the present; and indeed,
considering that geology shows that all our land was once under water,
and that where water now extends land is forming, the reverse could
hardly have been possible.

Now these several facts, though evidently all more or less connected
together, must by the creationist (though the geologist may explain some
of the anomalies) be considered as so many ultimate facts. He can only
say, that it so pleased the Creator that the organic beings of the
plains, deserts, mountains, tropical and temperature forests, of S.
America, should all have some affinity together; that the inhabitants of
the Galapagos Archipelago should be related to those of Chile; and that
some of the species on the similarly constituted islands of this
archipelago, though most closely related, should be distinct; that all
its inhabitants should be totally unlike those of the similarly volcanic
and arid Cape de Verde and Canary Islands; that the plants on the summit
of Teneriffe should be eminently peculiar; that the diversified island
of New Zealand should have not many plants, and not one, or only one,
mammifer; that the mammifers of S. America, Australia and Europe should
be clearly related to their ancient and exterminated prototypes; and so
on with other facts. But it is absolutely opposed to every analogy,
drawn from the laws imposed by the Creator on inorganic matter, that
facts, when connected, should be considered as ultimate and not the