Darwin did not characterize the fossil record as continuous, or even that it should be. His book, of which you clearly know nothing, makes that clear as a bell.
http://ucsu.colorado.edu/~theobal/PE.html.
"When we see a species first appearing in the middle of any formation, it would be rash in the extreme to infer that it had not elsewhere previously existed. So again, when we find a species disappearing before the last layers have been deposited, it would be equally rash to suppose that it then became extinct. We forget how small the area of Europe is compared with the rest of the world ... when we see a species first appearing in any formation, the probability is that it only then first immigrated into that area." (p. 423)You're really stinking up the joint on this thread."... varieties are generally at first local; and that such local varieties do not spread widely and supplant their parent-form until they have been modified and perfected in some considerable degree. According to this view, the chance of discovering in a formation in any one country all the early stages of transition between any two forms is small, for the successive changes are supposed to have been local or confined to some one spot." (pp. 427-428)
"... it might require a long succession of ages to adapt an organism to some new and peculiar line of life, for instance, to fly through the air; and consequently that the transitional forms would often long remain confined to some one region; but that, when this adaptation had once been effected, and a few species had thus acquired a great advantage over other organisms, a comparatively short time would be necessary to produce many divergent forms, which would spread rapidly and widely throughout the world." (p. 433)