On The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin Chapter 11 Page 4

rate than those of the sea, of which a striking instance has been observed in Switzerland.

There is some reason to believe that organisms high in the scale, change more quickly than those that are low: though there are exceptions to this rule. The amount of organic change, as Pictet has remarked, is not the same in each successive so-called formation. Yet if we compare any but the most closely related formations, all the species will be found to have undergone some change. When a species has once disappeared from the face of the earth, we have no reason to believe that the same identical form ever reappears. The strongest apparent exception to this latter rule is that of the so-called “colonies” of M. Barrande, which intrude for a period in the midst of an older formation, and then allow the pre-existing fauna