ATLANTIS TERMIEE. 229 



occupied by a continental mass, bounded on the south, by a chain 

 of mountains, and which was all submerged long before the col- 

 lapse of those volcanic lands of which the Azores seem to be the 

 last vestiges. In place of the South Atlantic Ocean there was, like- 

 wise, for manj^ thousands of centuries a great continent now very 

 deeply engulfed beneath the sea. It is probable that these move- 

 ments of depression occurred at several periods, the contours of 

 the Mediterranean, which then separated the two continents, being 

 frequently modified in the course of the ages. From the middle of 

 the Cretaceous the Mediterranean advanced as far as the Canaries, 

 and its southern shore was then very near the site to-day occupied 

 by these islands. On this matter we have a precise datum recently 

 found by M. Pitard, and very exactly fixed by MM. Cottreau and 

 Lemoine. The region of the Cape Verde Islands, at the same era, 

 still belonged to the African-Brazilian Continent. 



While the Mediterranean in this Atlantic region was being en- 

 larged by the gradual collapsing of its shores, it was being sub- 

 divided, perhaps, and in any case its bottom was becoming undu- 

 lated by the formation underneath it of new folds and wrinkles. 

 In this broad and deep furrow, where the sediments from the north 

 and south continents were accumulating to enormous thicknesses, 

 the movement was in fact developing which during the Tertiary 

 period gave rise in Europe to the Alpine chain. 



How far did this Tertiary chain, this Alpine chain, extend in 

 the Atlantic region? And, also, what was the extent of its fault- 

 ings in this now oceanic region? Did some fragments of the chain 

 rise high enough to lift themselves for some centuries above the 

 waters before returning, suddenlj^ or slowly, into the starless night? 

 Did the folds of the Alps or of the Atlas Mountains spread abroad 

 as far as the Caribbean Sea? And must we admit, between our 

 Alps and the Cordillera of the West Indies, which is itself only a 

 sinuous outpost of the grand cordillera of the Andes, a tectonic 

 bond, as we are admitting, since Suess has shown it to us, a strati- 

 graphic bond? These questions are still unanswered. M. Louis 

 Gentil has followed, in the western Atlas Mountains, the folds of 

 the Tertiary chain to the shore of the ocean, and he has seen these 

 folds, gradually diminishing, " drowning themselves," ^ as the miners 

 say, descend into the waves; their direction, on this coast of Agadir 

 and of Cape Ghir, is such that, if prolonged in mind, they would 

 lead us to the Canaries. But to be able to affirm that the Canaries 

 are highlj^^ elevated fragments of the engulfed Atlas one must have 

 observed the folds in their Cretaceous sediment, and I do not 

 believe that this observation has been made. The Atlas Eange, 



1 " S'ennoyant." 



