A DROWNED CONTINENT 119 



English chalk, which had been supposed to have analogies 

 with the modern Atlantic deposits, appears to have been 

 laid down in a sea of much less depth and extent, and 

 probably more nearly comparable with the modern Medi- 

 terranean. Then, again, it was found that large tracts in 

 some of our present continents, such as Africa and India, 

 had existed as dry land throughout a very considerable 

 portion of geological time. Moreover, it was asserted that 

 no formations exactly comparable to those now in course 

 of deposition in the ocean abysses could be detected in 

 any of our existing continents or islands ; while it was 

 further urged that in none of the so-called oceanic islands 

 (that is, those rising from great depths at long distances 

 from the continental areas) were there either fossiliferous 

 or metamorphic rocks similar to those of the continents 

 and larger continental islands. 



This was the second swing of the pendulum, and for a 

 long period it was confidently asserted that where con- 

 tinents now exist there had never been any excessive 

 depth of ocean ; and, conversely, that in the areas now 

 occupied by the great ocean abysses there had never been 

 land during any of the later geological epochs. It was, 

 indeed, practically affirmed that wherever the sounding-line 

 indicates a thousand fathoms or more of water, there sea 

 had been practically always, and that no part of the 

 present continents had ever been submerged to anything 

 like that depth. 



Almost as soon as the pendulum of opinion had attained 

 the full limits of its swing in this direction (and this swing 

 had been largely due to the influence of geologists and 

 physicists), there began to be signs of its return to a less 

 extreme position. It was, in the first place, proved that 

 a few deposits — and these of comparatively recent date — 



