" In another place he
maintains that "varieties of some species may differ more than other
species do from each other without shaking our confidence in the reality
of species." He further adduces certain facts in geology as being, in
his opinion, "fatal to the theory of progressive development," and he
explains the fact that there are so often distinct species in countries
of similar climate and vegetation by "special creations" in each
country; and these conclusions were arrived at after a careful study of
Lamarck's work, a full abstract of which is given in the earlier
editions of the _Principles of Geology_.[2]
Professor Agassiz, one of the greatest naturalists of the last
generation, went even further, and maintained not only that each species
was specially created, but that it was created in the proportions and in
the localities in which we now find it to exist. The following extract
from his very instructive book on Lake Superior explains this view:
"There are in animals peculiar adaptations which are characteristic of
their species, and which cannot be supposed to have arisen from
subordinate influences.
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