"Some geologists make it a point to =give a new name= to all forms found in the Palaeozoic rocks, i.e. a name different from those of modern species. I was taken to task by a noted palaeontologist for finding a pupa (a kind of land snail) in Devonian beds; but I could not find any point in which it differed from the modern genus [? species]. Yet if I could have had more perfect specimens I might have found differences." Such disclosures speak volumes for those able to understand; and lead one to receive with a smile the familiar assertion that all the species of the Palaeozoic and other "older" rocks are extinct. And we can now form a truer estimate of the high scientific accuracy of Lyell's ingenious division of the Tertiary beds, according to the percentage of living or extinct Mollusks which they contain. But from the inherent weakness of the argument about extinct species as thus revealed, it follows that chronological distinctions based on any proportionate number of extinct species =have absolutely no scientific value=; and hence that the life succession theory finds no support from these chronological distinctions, just as we have already seen that it is without a vestige of support from the stratigraphical argument. The life succession theory has not a single fact to confirm it in the realm of nature. It is not the result of scientific research, but purely the product of the imagination. FOOTNOTES: [33] See p. 39 of this volume. [34] "Intro. Text-Book," p. 189. [35] "Manual," p. 1007. Prof. Dana has italicized the word "=suddenly=." [36] Howorth, "The Glacial Nightmare and the Flood," preface, xx, xxi. [37] "Mammals, Living and Extinct," pp. 428-9. [38] "Hist. of Geol.," pp. 375-6. [39] pp. 400, 403, 405. CHAPTER VIII SKIPPING We have now to deal with another absurdity involved in the life succession theory, the discussion of which grows naturally out of the subject of extinct species.