Alfred de Musset - "Child of a Century, v1"

Newton H. Chittenden - "Official report of the exploration of the Queen Charlotte Islands"

J.B. Bury - "The Idea of Progress"

P. Kropotkin - "Mutual Aid"

New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: On the Origin of Species

C >> Charles Darwin >> On the Origin of Species




We may, I think, safely conclude that sediment must be accumulated in
extremely thick, solid, or extensive masses, in order to withstand the
incessant action of the waves, when first upraised and during
subsequent oscillations of level. Such thick and extensive
accumulations of sediment may be formed in two ways; either, in
profound depths of the sea, in which case, judging from the researches
of E. Forbes, we may conclude that the bottom will be inhabited by
extremely few animals, and the mass when upraised will give a most
imperfect record of the forms of life which then existed; or, sediment
may be accumulated to any thickness and extent over a shallow bottom,
if it continue slowly to subside. In this latter case, as long as the
rate of subsidence and supply of sediment nearly balance each other,
the sea will remain shallow and favourable for life, and thus a
fossiliferous formation thick enough, when upraised, to resist any
amount of degradation, may be formed.

I am convinced that all our ancient formations, which are rich in
fossils, have thus been formed during subsidence. Since publishing my
views on this subject in 1845, I have watched the progress of Geology,
and have been surprised to note how author after author, in treating
of this or that great formation, has come to the conclusion that it
was accumulated during subsidence. I may add, that the only ancient
tertiary formation on the west coast of South America, which has been
bulky enough to resist such degradation as it has as yet suffered, but
which will hardly last to a distant geological age, was certainly
deposited during a downward oscillation of level, and thus gained
considerable thickness.

All geological facts tell us plainly that each area has undergone
numerous slow oscillations of level, and apparently these oscillations
have affected wide spaces. Consequently formations rich in fossils and
sufficiently thick and extensive to resist subsequent degradation, may
have been formed over wide spaces during periods of subsidence, but
only where the supply of sediment was sufficient to keep the sea
shallow and to embed and preserve the remains before they had time to
decay. On the other hand, as long as the bed of the sea remained
stationary, THICK deposits could not have been accumulated in the
shallow parts, which are the most favourable to life. Still less could
this have happened during the alternate periods of elevation; or, to
speak more accurately, the beds which were then accumulated will have
been destroyed by being upraised and brought within the limits of the
coast-action.

Thus the geological record will almost necessarily be rendered
intermittent. I feel much confidence in the truth of these views, for
they are in strict accordance with the general principles inculcated
by Sir C. Lyell; and E. Forbes independently arrived at a similar
conclusion.

One remark is here worth a passing notice. During periods of elevation
the area of the land and of the adjoining shoal parts of the sea will
be increased, and new stations will often be formed;--all
circumstances most favourable, as previously explained, for the
formation of new varieties and species; but during such periods there
will generally be a blank in the geological record. On the other hand,
during subsidence, the inhabited area and number of inhabitants will
decrease (excepting the productions on the shores of a continent when
first broken up into an archipelago), and consequently during
subsidence, though there will be much extinction, fewer new varieties
or species will be formed; and it is during these very periods of
subsidence, that our great deposits rich in fossils have been
accumulated. Nature may almost be said to have guarded against the
frequent discovery of her transitional or linking forms.

From the foregoing considerations it cannot be doubted that the
geological record, viewed as a whole, is extremely imperfect; but if
we confine our attention to any one formation, it becomes more
difficult to understand, why we do not therein find closely graduated
varieties between the allied species which lived at its commencement
and at its close. Some cases are on record of the same species
presenting distinct varieties in the upper and lower parts of the same
formation, but, as they are rare, they may be here passed over.
Although each formation has indisputably required a vast number of
years for its deposition, I can see several reasons why each should
not include a graduated series of links between the species which then
lived; but I can by no means pretend to assign due proportional weight
to the following considerations.

Although each formation may mark a very long lapse of years, each
perhaps is short compared with the period requisite to change one
species into another. I am aware that two palaeontologists, whose
opinions are worthy of much deference, namely Bronn and Woodward, have
concluded that the average duration of each formation is twice or
thrice as long as the average duration of specific forms. But
insuperable difficulties, as it seems to me, prevent us coming to any
just conclusion on this head. When we see a species first appearing in
the middle of any formation, it would be rash in the extreme to infer
that it had not elsewhere previously existed. So again when we find a
species disappearing before the uppermost layers have been deposited,
it would be equally rash to suppose that it then became wholly
extinct. We forget how small the area of Europe is compared with the
rest of the world; nor have the several stages of the same formation
throughout Europe been correlated with perfect accuracy.

With marine animals of all kinds, we may safely infer a large amount
of migration during climatal and other changes; and when we see a
species first appearing in any formation, the probability is that it
only then first immigrated into that area. It is well known, for
instance, that several species appeared somewhat earlier in the
palaeozoic beds of North America than in those of Europe; time having
apparently been required for their migration from the American to the
European seas. In examining the latest deposits of various quarters of
the world, it has everywhere been noted, that some few still existing
species are common in the deposit, but have become extinct in the
immediately surrounding sea; or, conversely, that some are now
abundant in the neighbouring sea, but are rare or absent in this
particular deposit. It is an excellent lesson to reflect on the
ascertained amount of migration of the inhabitants of Europe during
the Glacial period, which forms only a part of one whole geological
period; and likewise to reflect on the great changes of level, on the
inordinately great change of climate, on the prodigious lapse of time,
all included within this same glacial period. Yet it may be doubted
whether in any quarter of the world, sedimentary deposits, INCLUDING
FOSSIL REMAINS, have gone on accumulating within the same area during
the whole of this period. It is not, for instance, probable that
sediment was deposited during the whole of the glacial period near the
mouth of the Mississippi, within that limit of depth at which marine
animals can flourish; for we know what vast geographical changes
occurred in other parts of America during this space of time. When
such beds as were deposited in shallow water near the mouth of the
Mississippi during some part of the glacial period shall have been
upraised, organic remains will probably first appear and disappear at
different levels, owing to the migration of species and to
geographical changes. And in the distant future, a geologist examining
these beds, might be tempted to conclude that the average duration of
life of the embedded fossils had been less than that of the glacial
period, instead of having been really far greater, that is extending
from before the glacial epoch to the present day.

In order to get a perfect gradation between two forms in the upper and
lower parts of the same formation, the deposit must have gone on
accumulating for a very long period, in order to have given sufficient
time for the slow process of variation; hence the deposit will
generally have to be a very thick one; and the species undergoing
modification will have had to live on the same area throughout this
whole time. But we have seen that a thick fossiliferous formation can
only be accumulated during a period of subsidence; and to keep the
depth approximately the same, which is necessary in order to enable
the same species to live on the same space, the supply of sediment
must nearly have counterbalanced the amount of subsidence. But this
same movement of subsidence will often tend to sink the area whence
the sediment is derived, and thus diminish the supply whilst the
downward movement continues. In fact, this nearly exact balancing
between the supply of sediment and the amount of subsidence is
probably a rare contingency; for it has been observed by more than one
palaeontologist, that very thick deposits are usually barren of
organic remains, except near their upper or lower limits.

It would seem that each separate formation, like the whole pile of
formations in any country, has generally been intermittent in its
accumulation. When we see, as is so often the case, a formation
composed of beds of different mineralogical composition, we may
reasonably suspect that the process of deposition has been much
interrupted, as a change in the currents of the sea and a supply of
sediment of a different nature will generally have been due to
geographical changes requiring much time. Nor will the closest
inspection of a formation give any idea of the time which its
deposition has consumed. Many instances could be given of beds only a
few feet in thickness, representing formations, elsewhere thousands of
feet in thickness, and which must have required an enormous period for
their accumulation; yet no one ignorant of this fact would have
suspected the vast lapse of time represented by the thinner formation.
Many cases could be given of the lower beds of a formation having been
upraised, denuded, submerged, and then re-covered by the upper beds of
the same formation,--facts, showing what wide, yet easily overlooked,
intervals have occurred in its accumulation. In other cases we have
the plainest evidence in great fossilised trees, still standing
upright as they grew, of many long intervals of time and changes of
level during the process of deposition, which would never even have
been suspected, had not the trees chanced to have been preserved:
thus, Messrs. Lyell and Dawson found carboniferous beds 1400 feet
thick in Nova Scotia, with ancient root-bearing strata, one above the
other, at no less than sixty-eight different levels. Hence, when the
same species occur at the bottom, middle, and top of a formation, the
probability is that they have not lived on the same spot during the
whole period of deposition, but have disappeared and reappeared,
perhaps many times, during the same geological period. So that if such
species were to undergo a considerable amount of modification during
any one geological period, a section would not probably include all
the fine intermediate gradations which must on my theory have existed
between them, but abrupt, though perhaps very slight, changes of form.

It is all-important to remember that naturalists have no golden rule
by which to distinguish species and varieties; they grant some little
variability to each species, but when they meet with a somewhat
greater amount of difference between any two forms, they rank both as
species, unless they are enabled to connect them together by close
intermediate gradations. And this from the reasons just assigned we
can seldom hope to effect in any one geological section. Supposing B
and C to be two species, and a third, A, to be found in an underlying
bed; even if A were strictly intermediate between B and C, it would
simply be ranked as a third and distinct species, unless at the same
time it could be most closely connected with either one or both forms
by intermediate varieties. Nor should it be forgotten, as before
explained, that A might be the actual progenitor of B and C, and yet
might not at all necessarily be strictly intermediate between them in
all points of structure. So that we might obtain the parent-species
and its several modified descendants from the lower and upper beds of
a formation, and unless we obtained numerous transitional gradations,
we should not recognise their relationship, and should consequently be
compelled to rank them all as distinct species.

It is notorious on what excessively slight differences many
palaeontologists have founded their species; and they do this the more
readily if the specimens come from different sub-stages of the same
formation. Some experienced conchologists are now sinking many of the
very fine species of D'Orbigny and others into the rank of varieties;
and on this view we do find the kind of evidence of change which on my
theory we ought to find. Moreover, if we look to rather wider
intervals, namely, to distinct but consecutive stages of the same
great formation, we find that the embedded fossils, though almost
universally ranked as specifically different, yet are far more closely
allied to each other than are the species found in more widely
separated formations; but to this subject I shall have to return in
the following chapter.

One other consideration is worth notice: with animals and plants that
can propagate rapidly and are not highly locomotive, there is reason
to suspect, as we have formerly seen, that their varieties are
generally at first local; and that such local varieties do not spread
widely and supplant their parent-forms until they have been modified
and perfected in some considerable degree. According to this view, the
chance of discovering in a formation in any one country all the early
stages of transition between any two forms, is small, for the
successive changes are supposed to have been local or confined to some
one spot. Most marine animals have a wide range; and we have seen that
with plants it is those which have the widest range, that oftenest
present varieties; so that with shells and other marine animals, it is
probably those which have had the widest range, far exceeding the
limits of the known geological formations of Europe, which have
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 were
accumulating. The Malay Archipelago is one of the richest regions of
the whole world in organic beings; yet if all the species were to be
collected which have ever lived there, how imperfectly would they
represent the natural history of the world!

But we have every reason to believe that the terrestrial productions
of the archipelago would be preserved in an excessively imperfect
manner in the formations which we suppose to be there accumulating. I
suspect that not many of the strictly littoral animals, or of those
which lived on naked submarine rocks, would be embedded; and those
embedded in gravel or sand, would not endure to a distant epoch.
Wherever sediment did not accumulate on the bed of the sea, or where
it did not accumulate at a sufficient rate to protect organic bodies
from decay, no remains could be preserved.

In our archipelago, I believe that fossiliferous formations could be
formed of sufficient thickness to last to an age, as distant in
futurity as the secondary formations lie in the past, only during
periods of subsidence. These periods of subsidence would be separated
from each other by enormous intervals, during which the area would be
either stationary or rising; whilst rising, each fossiliferous
formation would be destroyed, almost as soon as accumulated, by the
incessant coast-action, as we now see on the shores of South America.
During the periods of subsidence there would probably be much
extinction of life; during the periods of elevation, there would be
much variation, but the geological record would then be least perfect.

It may be doubted whether the duration of any one great period of
subsidence over the whole or part of the archipelago, together with a
contemporaneous accumulation of sediment, would EXCEED the average
duration of the same specific forms; and these contingencies are
indispensable for the preservation of all the transitional gradations
between any two or more species. If such gradations were not fully
preserved, transitional varieties would merely appear as so many
distinct species. It is, also, probable that each great period of
subsidence would be interrupted by oscillations of level, and that
slight climatal changes would intervene during such lengthy periods;
and in these cases the inhabitants of the archipelago would have to
migrate, and no closely consecutive record of their modifications
could be preserved in any one formation.

Very many of the marine inhabitants of the archipelago now range
thousands of miles beyond its confines; and analogy leads me to
believe that it would be chiefly these far-ranging species which would
oftenest produce new varieties; and the varieties would at first
generally be local or confined to one place, but if possessed of any
decided advantage, or when further modified and improved, they would
slowly spread and supplant their parent-forms. When such varieties
returned to their ancient homes, as they would differ from their
former state, in a nearly uniform, though perhaps extremely slight
degree, they would, according to the principles followed by many
palaeontologists, be ranked as new and distinct species.

If then, there be some degree of truth in these remarks, we have no
right to expect to find in our geological formations, an infinite
number of those fine transitional forms, which on my theory assuredly
have connected all the past and present species of the same group into
one long and branching chain of life. We ought only to look for a few
links, some more closely, some more distantly related to each other;
and these links, let them be ever so close, if found in different
stages of the same formation, would, by most palaeontologists, be
ranked as distinct species. But I do not pretend that I should ever
have suspected how poor a record of the mutations of life, the best
preserved geological section presented, had not the difficulty of our
not discovering innumerable transitional links between the species
which appeared at the commencement and close of each formation,
pressed so hardly on my theory.

ON THE SUDDEN APPEARANCE OF WHOLE GROUPS OF ALLIED SPECIES.

The abrupt manner in which whole groups of species suddenly appear in
certain formations, has been urged by several palaeontologists, for
instance, by Agassiz, Pictet, and by none more forcibly than by
Professor Sedgwick, as a fatal objection to the belief in the
transmutation of species. If numerous species, belonging to the same
genera or families, have really started into life all at once, the
fact would be fatal to the theory of descent with slow modification
through natural selection. For the development of a group of forms,
all of which have descended from some one progenitor, must have been
an extremely slow process; and the progenitors must have lived long
ages before their modified descendants. But we continually over-rate
the perfection of the geological record, and falsely infer, because
certain genera or families have not been found beneath a certain
stage, that they did not exist before that stage. We continually
forget how large the world is, compared with the area over which our
geological formations have been carefully examined; we forget that
groups of species may elsewhere have long existed and have slowly
multiplied before they invaded the ancient archipelagoes of Europe and
of the United States. We do not make due allowance for the enormous
intervals of time, which have probably elapsed between our consecutive
formations,--longer perhaps in some cases than the time required for
the accumulation of each formation. These intervals will have given
time for the multiplication of species from some one or some few
parent-forms; and in the succeeding formation such species will appear
as if suddenly created.

I may here recall a remark formerly made, namely that it might require
a long succession of ages to adapt an organism to some new and
peculiar line of life, for instance to fly through the air; but that
when this had been effected, and a few species had thus acquired a
great advantage over other organisms, a comparatively short time would
be necessary to produce many divergent forms, which would be able to
spread rapidly and widely throughout the world.

I will now give a few examples to illustrate these remarks; and to
show how liable we are to error in supposing that whole groups of
species have suddenly been produced. I may recall the well-known fact
that in geological treatises, published not many years ago, the great
class of mammals was always spoken of as having abruptly come in at
the commencement of the tertiary series. And now one of the richest
known accumulations of fossil mammals belongs to the middle of the
secondary series; and one true mammal has been discovered in the new
red sandstone at nearly the commencement of this great series. Cuvier
used to urge that no monkey occurred in any tertiary stratum; but now
extinct species have been discovered in India, South America, and in
Europe even as far back as the eocene stage. The most striking case,
however, is that of the Whale family; as these animals have huge
bones, are marine, and range over the world, the fact of not a single
bone of a whale having been discovered in any secondary formation,
seemed fully to justify the belief that this great and distinct order
had been suddenly produced in the interval between the latest
secondary and earliest tertiary formation. But now we may read in the
Supplement to Lyell's 'Manual,' published in 1858, clear evidence of
the existence of whales in the upper greensand, some time before the
close of the secondary period.

I may give another instance, which from having passed under my own
eyes has much struck me. In a memoir on Fossil Sessile Cirripedes, I
have stated that, from the number of existing and extinct tertiary
species; from the extraordinary abundance of the individuals of many
species all over the world, from the Arctic regions to the equator,
inhabiting various zones of depths from the upper tidal limits to 50
fathoms; from the perfect manner in which specimens are preserved in
the oldest tertiary beds; from the ease with which even a fragment of
a valve can be recognised; from all these circumstances, I inferred
that had sessile cirripedes existed during the secondary periods, they
would certainly have been preserved and discovered; and as not one
species had been discovered in beds of this age, I concluded that this
great group had been suddenly developed at the commencement of the
tertiary series. This was a sore trouble to me, adding as I thought
one more instance of the abrupt appearance of a great group of
species. But my work had hardly been published, when a skilful
palaeontologist, M. Bosquet, sent me a drawing of a perfect specimen
of an unmistakeable sessile cirripede, which he had himself extracted
from the chalk of Belgium. And, as if to make the case as striking as
possible, this sessile cirripede was a Chthamalus, a very common,
large, and ubiquitous genus, of which not one specimen has as yet been
found even in any tertiary stratum. Hence we now positively know that
sessile cirripedes existed during the secondary period; and these
cirripedes might have been the progenitors of our many tertiary and
existing species.