26 FORMATION OF THE EARTH 



at certain points in the Alpine x region. Two long parallel 

 islands corresponded to the Rocky Mountains of California, 

 and to the west coast of Mexico ; a vast continent extended to 

 the north, linking up the whole of the west of North America, 

 the islands bordering the Arctic region, Greenland, Scandinavia, 

 the British Isles, the west of France, Spain, Morocco, and 

 Algeria ; all this formed the Canadian-Scandinavian plateau 

 separated by an arm of sea — the Fusulina Sea 2 — from the 

 Siberian plateau. Italy constituted the nucleus of a large 

 island. 



The inland sea was thus pushed far southwards where it was 

 bordered by the Afro-Brazilian plateau uniting Central 

 America and the Equatorial Republics, the whole of Central 

 Africa, Arabia, India, and the western part of Indo-China, 

 including the Malay peninsula. To the north-east of this 

 continent was attached a T-shaped peninsula, of which the 

 western arm, passing through north Italy and closing the 

 inland sea on the west, was linked with Spain ; the other arm 

 of the T corresponded to the Caucasus, and included the Black 

 Sea and the entire central part of the Caspian Sea, terminating 

 to the south of and slightly beyond it towards the east of the 

 Sea of Aral. The other peninsula, situated in the south-east, 

 united Indo-China to Australia, which had almost entirely 

 emerged, and to the east of which a large island contained the 

 north of Borneo and the whole Malay Archipelago. Finally, 

 to the south of the Afro-Brazilian plateau there was another 

 continent, separated from it by a second inland sea and uniting 

 Patagonia to the African Cape region and to Madagascar, 

 beyond which it extended considerably. The T-shaped 

 peninsula was separated from the Scandinavian region of the 

 Canadian-Scandinavian plateau by an arm of the sea, with 

 parallel shores running from east to west and terminating in 

 three divergent branches like the toes of a bird's foot. It was 

 in these gulfs and along the coasts of this arm of the sea that 

 the vegetable debris was accumulated which formed the coal 

 beds of Scotland, the great coalfields of the south of England, 

 Belgium, northern France, Bohemia, Upper Silesia, and 

 Moravia (where the strata attain a thickness of 154 metres), 



1 Westphalian. 



2 The Fusulinas are Protozoa in the shape of minute spindles, characteristic 

 of carboniferous seas and belonging to the class of Foraminifera. 



