THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE CONTINENTS QI 



thickness from age to age. Any attempts to 

 account otherwise for these thick and greatly ex- 

 tended beds, regularly interstratified with other 

 deposits, have so far been failures, and have arisen 

 either from a want of comprehension of the nature 

 and magnitude of the appearances to be explained, 

 or from the error of mistaking the true bedded 

 limestones for veins of calcareous spar. 



J 



'/ II. 





Fig. i()A.— Attitude of Limestone at Cdte St. Pierre (see Map, p. 



{a) Gneiss band in the Limestone, {b) Limestone with Eozoon. 

 (c) Diorite and Gneiss. 



Again, in the original molten world, it seems 

 likely that most of the carbon present— at least, 

 at the surface — was in the atmosphere in the 

 gaseous form of carbon dioxide. This might be 

 dissolved by the rain and other waters ; but we 

 know in the modern world no agency which can 

 decompose this compound and reduce it to ordinary 



