It is well established that there are wide ranges of variation among animals and plants, both in a wild state and under domestication. Great changes in flowers and vegetables are brought about through cultivation, while breeders produce different kinds of pigeons, fowls, and stock. We know, therefore, that living beings may change through modification of the circumstances and conditions that affect their lives. But general observations extending over a few decades are not sufficient. We must, if possible, bring the history of past ages to bear upon the matter, and determine whether or not there had been, with the lapse of time, any considerable alteration in living forms. Evolutionary Series.--Fortunately, there are preserved in the rocks the petrified remains of animals, showing their history for many thousands of years, and we may use them to test the question. It is plain that rocks of a lower level were deposited before those that cover them, and we may safely assume that the fossils have been preserved in their proper chronological order. Now, we have in Slavonia some fresh-water lakes that have been drying up from the tertiary period. Throughout the ages, these waters were inhabited by snails, and naturally the more ancient ones were the parents of the later broods. As the animals died their shells sank to the bottom and were covered by mud and débris, and held there like currants in a pudding. In the course of ages, by successive accumulations, these layers thickened and were changed into rock, and by this means shells have been preserved in their proper order of birth and life, the most ancient at the bottom and the newest at the top. We can sink a shaft or dig a trench, and collect the shells and arrange them in proper order. Although the shells in the upper strata are descended from those near the bottom, they are very different in appearance. No one would hesitate to name them different species; in fact, when collections were first made, naturalists classified these shells into six or eight different species. If, however, a collection embracing shells from all levels is arranged in a long row in proper order, a different light is thrown on the matter; while those at the ends are unlike, yet if we begin at one end and pass to the other we observe that the shells all grade into one another by such slight changes that there is no line showing where one kind leaves off and another begins. Thus their history for thousands of years bears testimony to the fact that the species have not remained constant, but have changed into other species. Fig. 103 will give an idea of the varieties and gradations. It represents shells of a genus, Paludina, which is still abundant in most of the fresh waters of our globe. [Illustration: Fig. 103.--Transmutations of Paludina. (After Neumayer.)]