Proceedings. 37 



which the hills, and valleys, and ravines now submerged 

 have been carved out of the rock. On the other hand, the 

 witness of the rocks practically amounts to this — that there 

 are no deposits now forming dry land which could not have 

 been formed in depths of i ,ooo fathoms. Most of these have 

 been accumulated in shallow water close to the ancient land. 

 It is to be remarked also that the ancient land on the 

 margins of which the stratified rocks were laid down in the 

 northern hemisphere is the polar continent which Prof 

 Dawkins has termed Archaia, now represented by the 

 Archaian rocks of Labrador and Canada, Greenland, Scandi- 

 navia, and the western highlands of Scotland, and that this 

 has been land from the close of the Cambrian age to the 

 present time. The impression left on his mind by these 

 facts is that the great depths of the sea have probably been 

 where they are now from the very beginning, and that the 

 central nucleus of the continents has also been in existence 

 also from the beginning. It may also be noted, as Agassiz 

 and others have observed, that the low temperature of the 

 ocean at great depths would lower the temperature of the 

 rock on which they rest, and therefore tend to stereotype 

 the oceanic depths.* 



* At the depths of 4,000 fathoms the temperature is a little above freezing, 

 .at a depth of 24,000 feet the temperature of the roclc is about 422" Fahr. 



