Page 248 - The Miracle of Protein

246 THE MIRACLE OF PROTEIN

existence could be found only amongst fossil remains... (Charles
Darwin, The Origin of Species, New York: D. Appleton and
Company, p. 161)
However, Darwin, having written these lines, was also
well aware of the fact that no fossils of these intermediate
forms had yet been found. He regarded this as a major difficul-

ty for his theory. That is why, in one chapter of his book titled
“Difficulties on Theory,” he wrote:
Firstly, why, if species have descended from other species by in-
sensibly fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable
transitional forms? Why is not all nature in confusion instead
of the species being, as we see them, well defined?…. But, as by
this theory innumerable transitional forms must have existed,
why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the
crust of the earth?… (Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species,
New York: D. Appleton and Company, p.154, 155)

Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum
full of such intermediate links? (Charles Darwin, The Origin of
Species, New York: D. Appleton and Company, p. 246)

Frog
Period: Eocene
Age: 40 million years
Location: China