forms appeared later, and flying animals only after land
animals; but it is, at the same time, testified by all the
evidence we possess, that the great majority, if not the whole,
of the primordial species of each division have long since died
out and have been replaced by a vast succession of new forms.
Hundreds of thousands of animal species, as distinct as those
which now compose our water, land, and air-populations, have
come into existence and died out again, throughout the aeons of
geological time which separate us from the lower Palaeozoic
epoch, when, as I have pointed out, our present evidence of the
existence of such distinct populations commences. If the species
of animals have all been separately created, then it follows
that hundreds of thousands of acts of creative energy have
occurred, at intervals, throughout the whole time recorded by
the fossiliferous rocks; and, during the greater part of that
time, the "creation" of the members of the water, land, and
air-populations must have gone on contemporaneously.

If we represent the water, land, and air-populations by a,
b, and c respectively, and take vertical succession
on the page to indicate order in time, then the following
schemes will roughly shadow forth the contrast I have been
endeavouring to explain:

Genesis (as interpreted by Nature (as interpreted by
Mr. Gladstone). natural science).
b b b c1 a3 b2
c c c c a2 b1
a a a b a1 b
a a a