Yet again that land would sink, and over it fresh layers were formed by the ocean-waters, with fresh remains of sea-animals buried in with the layers of sand or lime; and once more the sea-bottom would rise, perhaps then to continue as dry land, until the day when man should discover and handle these hidden remains.
Now note a remarkable fact as to these fossils, scattered far and wide through the layers of stratified rock.
In the uppermost and latest built rocks the animals found are the same, in great measure, as those which now exist upon the earth.
Leaving the uppermost rocks, and examining those which lie a little way below, we find a difference. Some are still the same, and others, if not quite the same, are very much like what we have now; but here and there a creature of a different form appears.
Go deeper still, and the kinds of animals change further. Fewer and fewer resemble those which now range the earth; more and more belong to other species.
Descend through layer after layer till we come to rocks built in earliest ages and not one fossil shall we find precisely the same as one animal living now.
So not only are the rocks built in successive order, stratum after stratum belonging to age after age in the past, but fossil-remains also are found in successive order, kind after kind belonging to past age after age.
Although in the first instance the succession of fossils was understood by means of the succession of rock-layers, yet in the second place the arrangement of rock-layers is made more clear by the means of these very fossils.
A geologist, looking at the rocks in America, can say which there were first-formed, which second-formed, which third-formed. Also, looking at the rocks in England, he can say which there were first-formed, second-formed, third-formed. He would, however, find it very difficult, if not impossible, to say which among any of the American rocks was formed at about the same time as any particular one among the English rocks, were it not for the help afforded him by these fossils.