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- [Footnote: organic life. But is the number of organic forms itself a
constant number? Do new vegetable forms spring from the ground after long periods of time, while others become more and more rare, and at last disappear? Geology, by means of her historical monuments of ancient terrestrial life, answers to the latter portion of this question affirmatively. "In the Ancient World," to use the remark of an eminent naturalist, Link (Abhandl. der Akad. der Wiss. zu Berlin aus dem Jahr 1846, S. 322), "we see characters, now apparently remote and widely separated from each other, associated or crowded together in wondrous forms, as if a greater development and separation awaited a later age in the history of our planet."]*
