There can be no reasonable doubt as to the truth of these facts. They have been established and confirmed by the positive testimony of a whole host of Geologists, whose researches have extended to all parts of the globe. And we have besides a kind of negative evidence on the subject which is scarcely less convincing than the positive. Nothing is more easy than to refute a universal proposition if it is false. If it is not a fact that each group of strata, as we proceed downward, exhibits a collection of Fossils peculiar to itself, the assertion may be at once disproved by pointing out two or three different groups with the same Fossils. There are thousands of practical Geologists at work all over the world, eager for fame; and any one of them would make his name illustrious if he could overturn a theory so generally received. Now, when a statement of facts can be easily disproved if untrue; and when, at the same time, there is a large number of men whose interest it would be to disprove the statement if possible; and when it is nevertheless _not_ disproved; this circumstance, we contend, is a convincing argument that the alleged facts _are_ true. And such precisely is the case before us. We therefore think it would be unreasonable not to accept the facts. Let us next examine what is their significance. Each group of strata, be it remembered, represents to us the animal life that flourished on the Earth during the period in which that particular group was in progress of formation. It is, as it were, a cabinet in which are preserved for our instruction certain relics or memorials of that age in the world’s history. Of course it is not a perfect collection; but only a collection of those remains that chanced to escape destruction, and by some natural embalming process to be saved from dissolution. When we learn, then, that there is a marked uniformity in the assemblage of Fossils that are spread over a large horizontal area, in any group of strata, we conclude that, when that group was in course of formation, there was a certain uniformity in the animal life that extended over the corresponding area of the globe; just as, at the present day, the same species of animals are found to flourish over a great part of Europe, or America. And if this uniformity of Fossil Remains does not extend horizontally to an indefinite distance, this is precisely what we should have expected from the analogy of the existing creation: for, when we examine the present distribution of animal life over the earth, we find a marked diversity to exist between countries that are removed from one another; as, for instance, between Europe and Australia.