Darwin's view is that, during the vast ages of time now under consideration, it is probable that the distribution of sea and land over the earth's surface has not been uniformly the same, even as regards oceans and continents. Now, if this were the case, "it might well happen that strata which had subsided some miles nearer to the centre of the earth, and which had been pressed on by an enormous weight of superincumbent water, might have undergone far more metamorphic action than strata which have always remained nearer to the surface. The immense areas in some parts of the world, for instance in South America, of naked metamorphic rocks, which must have been heated under great pressure, have always seemed to me to require some special explanation; and we may perhaps believe that we see, in these large areas, the many formations long anterior to the Cambrian epoch in a completely metamorphosed and denuded condition[55]." The probability of this view he sustains by certain general considerations, as well as particular facts touching the geology of oceanic islands, &c. [55] _Origin of Species_, p. 289. On the whole, then, it seems to me but reasonable to conclude, with regard to all four objections in question, as Darwin concludes with regard to them:-- For my part, following out Lyell's metaphor, I look at the geological record as a history of the world imperfectly kept, written in a changing dialect; of this history we possess the last volume alone, relating only to two or three countries. Of this volume, only here and there a short chapter has been preserved; and of each page only here and there a few lines. Each word of the slowly-changing language, more or less different in the successive chapters, may represent the forms of life, which are entombed in our consecutive formations, and which falsely appear to us to have been abruptly introduced. On this view, the difficulties above discussed are greatly diminished, or even disappear[56]. [56] _Ibid._ As far as I can see, the only reasonable exception that can be taken to this general view of the whole matter, is one which has been taken from the side of astronomical physics. Put briefly, it is alleged by one of the highest authorities in this branch of science, that there cannot have been any such enormous reaches of unrecorded time as would be implied by the supposition of there having been a lost history of organic evolution before the Cambrian period. The grounds of this allegation I am not qualified to examine; but in a general way I agree with Prof. Huxley in feeling that, from the very nature of the case, they are necessarily precarious,--and this in so high a degree that any conclusions raised on such premises are not entitled to be deemed formidable[57]. [57] See _Lay Sermons_, Lecture on Geological Reform. * * * * *