Ch. XIV.] THE SEA DRAINED BY GLACIAL ICE. 273 



land was more continuous once than now ; that islands 

 now separated were then joined together, and to adjacent 

 continents ; and that what are now banks and shoals 

 beneath the sea were then peopled lowlands. 



I have said that the sea during the glacial period, if, 

 as I believe, it was contemporaneous in the two hemi- 

 spheres, must have stood at least 1,000 feet lower than 

 it now does. It may have been much lower than this, 

 but I prefer to err on the safe side. When geologists 

 have mapped out the limits of ancient glacier and con- 

 tinental ice all over the world, it will be possible to 

 calculate the minimum amount of water that was ab- 

 stracted from the sea ; and if by that time hydrographers 

 have shown on their charts the shoals and submerged 

 banks that would be laid dry, fabled Atlantis will rise 

 befbre our eyes between Europe and America, and in 

 the Pacific the Malay Archipelago will give place to the 

 Malay Continent. Here is a noble inquiry, an un- 

 explored region of research, at the entrance of which I 

 can only stand and point the way for abler and stronger 

 minds ; an inquiry that will lead to the knowledge of 

 the lands where dwelt the peoples of the glacial period 

 who lived before the flood. 



Yague and visionary as these speculations must ap- 

 pear to many, to others who are acquainted with the 

 enormous glaciation to which America has been subjected, 

 they will appear based on substantial truths. The im- 

 mense accumulation of ice over both poles, reaching far 

 down over the temperate zones, in some meridians 

 encroaching on the tropics, and in Equatorial America 

 all the land lying at the least above 2,000 feet above 

 the level of the sea also supporting great glaciers, 



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