120 MR. A. W. WATERS ON A CHANGE IN 



Australia, South America, the north of Europe, are rising, 

 a vast area in the Pacific is now sinking. 



There are other causes which would increase the effect 

 we have seen to be possible from denudation by solution ; 

 for the amount must be added which the ocean will dissolve 

 from the matter brought into it as detritus and coast-waste. 

 The solid amount the rivers remove in suspension will be 

 about six times that removed in solution * ; and we shall 

 perhaps not be far wrong if we suppose that coast-waste 

 removes a mass of rock equal to the amount removed in 

 solution by the rivers. This weight of detritus and coast- 

 waste of about half a Vesuvius is rolled about by the ocean 

 and exposed to the solvent action of the surplus amount of 

 carbonic acid, and thus the amount in solution in the 

 ocean is largely increased. 



The transfer of detritus may, with a certain distribution 

 of land and sea, remove the weight very unequally; and if 

 we turn to Asia, we see that, with the heavier rains in the 

 south and the sluggish northern rivers, and the great chain 

 of the Himalayas draining to the south from both slopes, 

 most weight is taken to the south ; but this could not be a 

 very important item. 



Another cause of irregularity that should also be taken 

 into consideration is, that the amount of evaporation being 

 greater in the warmer regions will cause a greater amount 

 to be brought to the tropics than is taken away by currents, 

 and thus more matter in suspension will be transported 

 here than to other zones ; and this, with an unsymmetrical 

 division of land and sea, would exert an appreciable effect. 



Many geologists believe that there has been in quite 

 recent geological periods a much greater rainfall f. 



Making allowance for the amount dissolved by the ocean 



* T. M. Reade, he. cif. 



t See Prestwich, Anniv. Address Geol. Soc. 1872; and Sollas, "On Evo- 

 lution in Geology," Geol. Mag;. Jan. 1877. 



