But the destruction of Jerusalem is not quite unique, and somewhat later we meet with indirect evidence for at least one similar disaster upon which the records are silent.
It may, however, well be that both peach and almond are derived from some pre-existing and now extinct form whose descendants have spread over the whole geographic area mentioned; but this is a mere speculation, though indirect evidence in its support might be obtained from the nectarine, of which no mention is made in ancient literature, and which, as we have seen, originates from the peach and reproduces itself by seed, thus offering the characteristics of a species in the act of developing itself.
The marble and graphite, as well as some other indirect evidence of life less susceptible of brief statement, have been thought by many geologists sufficient to warrant the inference that life existed before the close of the era when the Archean rocks were formed.
Invisible to the microscope, but rendered visible by reagents, are glycogen, Mucor, Ascomycetes, yeast, &c. In addition to these cell-contents we have good indirect evidence of the existence of large series of other bodies, such as proteids, carbohydrates, organic acids, alkaloids, enzymes, &c. These must not be confounded with the numerous substances obtained by chemical analysis of masses of the fungus, as there is often no proof of the manner of occurrence of such bodies, though we may conclude with a good show of probability that some of them also exist preformed in the living cell.
Some of these statements are so much in consonance with the indirect evidence afforded by the satires that they may be a series of conjectures based upon them.