So far from palaeontology lending no support to the doctrine of evolutionas one sees constantly assertedthat doctrine, if it had no other support, would have been irresistibly forced upon us by the palaeontological discoveries of the last twenty years.

The Anniversary Meeting of the Geological Society seems to be an occasion well suited for an undertaking of this kindfor an inquiry, in fact, into the nature and value of the present results of palaeontological investigation; and the more so, as all those who have paid close attention to the late multitudinous discussions in which palaeontology is implicated, must have felt the urgent necessity of some such scrutiny.

Nearly 40,000 species of animals and plants have been added to the Systema Naturae by palaeontological research.

But, pending the construction of a surer foundation than palaeontology now possesses, it may be instructive, assuming for the nonce the general correctness of the ordinary hypothesis of geological contemporaneity, to consider whether the deductions which are ordinarily drawn from the whole body of palaeontological facts are justifiable.

Some years ago one of your Secretaries pointed out another kind of positive palaeontological evidence tending towards the same conclusion afforded by the existence of what he termed "persistent types" of vegetable and of animal life.