The History Of Extinct
Animals Teaches Us That Their Distribution In Time And In Space
Are Strikingly Similar.
The rule is, that just as the productions
of adjacent areas usually resemble each other closely, so do the
productions of successive periods in the same area; and as the
productions of remote areas generally differ widely, so do the
productions of the same area at remote epochs.
We are therefore
led irresistibly to the conclusion, that change of species, still
more of generic and of family form, is a matter of time. But time
may have led to a change of species in one country, while in
another the forms have been more permanent, or the change may
have gone on at an equal rate but in a different manner in both.
In either case, the amount of individuality in the productions of
a district will be to some extent a measure of the time that a
district has been isolated from those that surround it. Judged by
this standard, Celebes must be one of the oldest parts of the
Archipelago. It probably dates from a period not only anterior to
that when Borneo, Java, and Sumatra were separated from the
continent, but from that still more remote epoch when the land
that now constitutes these islands had not risen above the ocean.
Such an antiquity is necessary, to account for the number of
animal forms it possesses, which show no relation to those of
India or Australia, but rather with those of Africa; and we are
led to speculate on the possibility of there having once existed
a continent in the Indian Ocean which might serve as a bridge to
connect these distant countries.
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