4. It is now known that any kind of "young" beds whatsoever, Mesozoic,
Tertiary, or even Pleistocene, may be found in such _perfect
conformability_ on some of the very oldest beds over wide stretches of
country that "the vast interval of time intervening is unrepresented
either by deposition or erosion"; while in some instances these
age-separated formations so closely resemble one another in structure
and in mineralogical make-up that, "were it not for fossil evidence, one
would naturally suppose that a single formation was being dealt with"
(McConnell); and these conditions are "not merely local, but persistent
over wide areas" (A. Geikie), so that the "numerous examples" (Suess) of
these conditions "may well be cause for astonishment" (Suess).
A still more astonishing thing from the standpoint of the current
theories is that these conformable relations of incongruous strata are
often _repeated over and over again in the same vertical section_, the
same kind of bed reappearing alternately with others of an entirely
different "age," that is, appearing "as if _regularly interbedded"_ (A.
Geikie) with them, in a manifestly undisturbed series of strata.
Here again we have a very formidable series of facts whose gravamen is
directed wholly against the artificial distinctions in age between the
different groups of fossils; and their argument is an eloquent plea that
the fossils are neither older nor younger but all of a similar age.
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