I must ask you to believe that there is no less conclusive proof that a
still more prolonged succession of similar changes occurred, before the
chalk was deposited. Nor have we any reason to think that the first term
in the series of these changes is known. The oldest sea-beds preserved
to us are sands, and mud, and pebbles, the wear and tear of rocks which
were formed in still older oceans.
But, great as is the magnitude of these physical changes of the world,
they have been accompanied by a no less striking series of modifications
in its living inhabitants.
All the great classes of animals, beasts of the field, fowls of the air,
creeping things, and things which dwell in the waters, flourished upon
the globe long ages before the chalk was deposited. Very few, however,
if any, of these ancient forms of animal life were identical with those
which now live. Certainly not one of the higher animals was of the same
species as any of those now in existence. The beasts of the field, in
the days before the chalk, were not our beasts of the field, nor the
fowls of the air such as those which the eye of men has seen flying,
unless his antiquity dates infinitely further back than we at present
surmise. If we could be carried back into those times, we should be as
one suddenly set down in Australia before it was colonized.
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