CHAP. VI GEOGRAPHICAL AXD GEOLOGICAL CHANGES 



Fresli-waUr and Shore Deposits as Proving the Permanence 

 of Continents. — The view here maintained, that all known 

 marine deposits have been formed near the coasts of con- 

 tinents and islands, and that our actual continents have 

 been in continuous existence under variously modified 

 forms during the whole period of known geological history, 

 is further supported by another and totally distinct series 

 of facts. In almost every period of geology, and in all the 

 continents which have been well examined, there are found 

 lacustrine, estuarine, or shore deposits, containing the 

 remains of land animals or plants, thus demonstrating the 

 continuous existence of extensive land areas on or adjoining 

 the sites of our present continents. Beginning with the 

 Miocene, or Middle Tertiary period, we have such deposits 

 with remains of land-animals, or plants, in Devonshire and 

 Scotland, in France, Switzerland, Germany, Croatia, 

 Vienna, Greece, North India, Central India, Burmah, 

 North America, both east and west of the Rocky 

 Mountains, Greenland, and other parts of the Arctic 

 regions. In the older Eocene period similar formations 

 are widely spread in the south of England, in France, and 

 to an enormous extent on the central plateau of North 

 America ; while in the eastern states, from Maryland to 

 Alabama, there are extensive marine deposits of the same 

 age, which, from the abundance of fossil remains of a large 

 cetacean (Zeuglodon), must have been formed in shallow 

 gulfs or estuaries where these huge animals were stranded. 

 Going back to the Cretaceous formation we have the same 

 indications of persisting lands in the rich plant-beds of 

 Aix-la-Chapelle, and a few other localities on the Continent, 

 as well as in coniferous fruits from the Gault of Folkestone ; 

 while in North America cretaceous plant-beds occur in 



the site of our continent, even at their deepest part. Upon their bottom 

 there gathered a vast mass of calcareous mud, composed in great part of 

 foraminifera, corals, echinoderms, and molluscs. Our English chalk, which 

 ranges across the north of France, Belgium, Denmark, and the north of 

 Germany, represents a portion of the deposits of that sea-floor." The 

 weighty authority of the Director-General of the Geological Survey may 

 perhaps cause some geologists to modify their views as to the deep-sea 

 origin of chalk, who would have treated any arguments advanced by myself 

 as not worthy of consideration. 



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