From:    Wesley R. Elsberry
To:      All                                    94-02-27 23:%:26
Subject: Darwin and P.E.



From page 439, Origin of Species (first edition):

 I can answer these questions and grave objections only on the
supposition that the geological record is far more imperfect than most
geologists believe. It cannot be objected that there has not been time
sufficient for any amount of organic change; for the lapse of time has
been so great as to be utterly inappreciable by the human intellect.
The number of specimens in all our museums is absolutely as nothing
compared with the countless generations of countless species which
certainly have existed. We should not be able to recognise a species
as the parent of any one or more species if we were to examine them
ever so closely, unless we likewise possessed many of the intermediate
links between their past or parent and present states; and these many
links we could hardly ever expect to discover, owing to the
imperfection of the geological record. Numerous existing doubtful
forms could be named which are probably varieties; but who will
pretend that in future ages so many fossil links will be discovered,
that naturalists will be able to decide, on the common view, whether
or not these doubtful forms are varieties? As long as most of the
links between any two species are unknown, if any one link or
intermediate variety be discovered, it will simply be classed as
another and distinct species. Only a small portion of the world has
been geologically explored. Only organic beings of certain classes can
be preserved in a fossil condition, at least in any great number.
Widely ranging species vary most, and varieties are often at first
local, - both causes rendering the discovery of intermediate links
less likely. Local varieties will not spread into other and distant
regions until they are considerably modified and improved; and when
they do spread, if discovered in a geological formation, they will
appear as if suddenly created there, and will be simply classed as new
species.  [...]

[End quote]

This has an uncanny resemblance to a loose description of the concept
of punctuated equilibrium, with the caveat that P.E. explicitly puts
forward the concept of varying rates of change, and Darwin does not.