In this manner alone, it was believed, could the
representative groups of successive periods, and the risings and
fallings in the scale of organisations, be in every case explained.
Again, attending to a recent article by Prof. Forbes, he points out
certain inaccuracies and how they may be proved to be so; and continues:
We have no reason for believing that the number of species on the
earth at any former period was much less than at present; at all
events the aquatic portion, with which the geologists have most
acquaintance, was probably often as great or greater. Now we know
that there have been many complete changes of species, new sets of
organisms have many times been introduced in place of old ones
which have become extinct, so that the total amount which have
existed on the earth from the earliest geological period must have
borne about the same proportion to those now living as the whole
human race who have lived and died upon the earth to the
population at the present time.... Records of vast geological
periods are entirely buried beneath the ocean .
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