Concluding Remarks.—In the present chapter I have endeavoured to show that, combining the measured rate of denudation with the estimated thickness and probable extent of the known series of sedimentary rocks, we may arrive at a rude estimate of the time occupied in the formation of those rocks. From another point of departure—that of the probable date of the Miocene period, as determined by the epoch of high excentricity supposed to have aided in the production of the Alpine glaciation during that period, and taking the estimate of geologists as to the proportionate amount of change in the animal world since that epoch—we obtain another estimate of the duration of geological time, which, though founded on far less secure data, agrees pretty nearly with the former estimate. The time thus arrived at is immensely less than the usual estimates of geologists, and is so far within the limits of the duration of the earth as calculated by Sir William Thomson, as to allow for the development of the lower organisms an amount of time anterior to the Cambrian period several times greater than has elapsed between that period and the present day. I have further shown that, in the continued mutations of climate produced by high excentricity and opposite phases of precession, even though these did not lead to glacial epochs, we have a motive power well calculated to produce far more rapid organic changes than have hitherto been thought possible; while in the enormous amount of specific variation (as demonstrated in an earlier chapter), we have ample material for that power to act upon, so as to keep the organic world in a state of rapid change and development proportioned to the comparatively rapid changes in the earth's surface.
We have now finished the series of preliminary studies of the biological conditions and physical changes which have affected the modification and dispersal of organisms, and have thus brought about their actual distribution on
the surface of the earth. These studies will, it is believed, place us in a condition to solve most of the problems presented by the distribution of animals and plants, whenever the necessary facts, both as to their distribution and their affinities, are sufficiently well known; and we now proceed to apply the principles we have established to the interpretation of the phenomena presented by some of the more important and best known of the islands of our globe, limiting ourselves to these for reasons which have been already sufficiently explained in our preface.
PART II
INSULAR FAUNAS AND FLORAS
CHAPTER XI
THE CLASSIFICATION OF ISLANDS
Importance of Islands in the Study of the Distribution of Organisms—Classification of Islands with Reference to Distribution—Continental Islands—Oceanic Islands.