Though mostly critical and analytic, it is not wholly so. But so far as it is constructive there is one virtue which can rightly be claimed for it. It is at least an honest effort to study the foundation facts of geology from the inductive may be standpoint, and whether or not I have succeeded in this, it is, so far as I know, the only work published in the English or any other language which does not treat the science of geology more or less as a cosmogony. That such a statement is possible is, I think, my chief justification in giving it to the public. It would seem as if the twentieth century could afford at least one book built up from the present, instead of being postulated from the past. GEORGE McCREADY PRICE. 257 South Hill Street, Los Angeles, California, June, 1906. CONTENTS PART I I THE ABSTRACT IDEA 11 II HISTORY OF THE IDEA 14 III FACT NUMBER ONE 20 IV FACT NUMBER TWO 24 V TURNED UPSIDE DOWN 27 V FACT NUMBER FOUR 31 VII EXTINCT SPECIES 34 VIII SKIPPING 42 PART II IX GRAVEYARDS 53 X CHANGE OF CLIMATE 64 XI DEGENERATION 70 XII FOSSIL MEN 74 XIII INDUCTIVE METHODS 81 APPENDIX 89 INTRODUCTION A brief outline of the argument which I have used in the following pages will be in order here. Darwinism, as a part, the chief part, of the general Evolution Theory, rests logically and historically on the succession of life idea as taught by geology. If there has actually been this succession of life on the globe, then some form of genetic connection between these successive types is the intuitive conclusion of every thinking mind. But if there is no positive evidence that certain types are essentially older than others, =if this succession of life is not an actual scientific fact=, then Darwinism or any other form of evolution has no more scientific value than the vagaries of the old Greeks--in short, from the standpoint of true inductive science it is a most gigantic hoax, historically scarce second to the Ptolemaic astronomy. In Part One I have examined critically this succession of life theory. It is improper to speak of my argument as destructive, for there never was any real constructive argument to be thus destroyed. It is essentially =an exposure=, and I am willing to =give a thousand dollars= to any one who will, in the face of the facts here presented, show me how to prove that one kind of fossil is older than another.