With such a convenient device as the “overthrust” at his disposal, it is hard to see how any possible concrete sequence of fossiliferous strata could contradict the preconceptions of an evolutionary geologist. The hypotheses and assumptions involved, however, are so tortuous and incredible, that nothing short of fanatical devotion to the theory of transformism can render them acceptable. “Examples,” says Price, “of strata in the ‘wrong’ order were first reported from the Alps nearly half a century ago. Since that time, whole armfuls of learned treatises in German, in French, and in English have been written to explain the wonderful conditions there found. The diagrams that have been drawn to account for the strange order of the strata are worthy to rank with the similar ones by the Ptolemaic astronomers picturing the cycles and epicycles required to explain the peculiar behavior of the heavenly bodies in accordance with the geocentric theory of the universe then prevailing.... In Scandinavia, a district some 1,120 miles long by 80 miles wide is alleged to have been pushed horizontally eastward ‘at least 86 miles.’ (Schuchert.) In Northern China, one of these upside down areas is reported by the Carnegie Research Expedition to be 500 miles long.” (“The New Geology,” 1923, pp. 633, 634.) Nor are the epicyclic subterfuges of the evolutionary geologist confined to “deceptive conformities” and “overthrusts.” His inventive genius has hit upon other methods of explaining away inconvenient facts. When, for example, “younger” fossils are found interbedded with “older” fossils, and the discrepancy in time is not too great, he rids himself of the difficulty of their premature appearance by calling them a “pioneer colony.” Similarly, when a group of “characteristic” fossils occur in one age, skip another “age,” and recur in a third, he recognizes the possibility of “recurrent faunas,” some of these faunas having as many as five successive “recurrences.” Clearly, the assumption of gradual approximation and the dogma that the lower preceded the higher forms of life are things to be saved at all costs, and it is a foregone conclusion that no facts will be suffered to conflict with these irrevisable articles of evolutionary faith. “What is the use,” exclaims Price, “of pretending that we are investigating a problem of natural science, if we already know beforehand that the lower and more generalized forms of animals and plants came into existence first, and the higher and the more specialized came only long afterwards, and that specimens of all these successive types have been pigeonholed in the rocks in order to help us illustrate this wonderful truth?” (_Op. cit._, pp. 667, 668.)