Abstract
NATURE, VOL 1, February 17, 1870 Measurement of Geological Time THE first of two articles by A. Russel Wallace on this subject appears. "Modern geological research has rendered it almost certain that the same causes which produced the various formations with their embedded fossils have continued to act down to the present day."This, Wallace points out, should make it possible to estimate the time represented by the whole series of formations, but the changes observed are too minute and too imperfect for such an estimate to be of value. The gaps in the record might be filled from observation of the changes of animal and plant life presented by each formation. "To measure geological time, therefore, all we require is a trustworthy unit for the change of species: but this is exactly what we have not yet been able to get; for the whole length of the historical period has not produced the slightest perceptible change in any living thing in a state of nature."
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Seventy Years Ago. Nature 145, 274 (1940). https://doi.org/10.1038/145274a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/145274a0