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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin: withstand an enormous amount of future degradation; and such fossiliferous
masses can be accumulated only where much sediment is deposited on the
shallow bed of the sea, whilst it slowly subsides. These contingencies
will concur only rarely, and after enormously long intervals. Whilst the
bed of the sea is stationary or is rising, or when very little sediment is
being deposited, there will be blanks in our geological history. The crust
of the earth is a vast museum; but the natural collections have been made
only at intervals of time immensely remote.
But it may be urged that when several closely-allied species inhabit the
same territory we surely ought to find at the present time many
transitional forms. Let us take a simple case: in travelling from north
On the Origin of Species |
