AND NEIGHBOURHOOD. 201 



various facts which point to the state of things 

 here put hypothetically. Thus the fresh water 

 strata of the Wealden group of rocks, from their 

 extensive range and great thickness imply that a 

 river, as large as the Mississippi, had its estuary 

 in England ; and such a river could not exist, 

 unless a tract of land one thousand, or two thou- 

 sand miles in breadth, in connection with the 

 British isles, had occupied the eastern part of the 

 Atlantic. (See Lyell's Elements, Vol. i. p. 431.) 

 Again : the same able geologist found evidence 



in the carboniferous rocks of North America, 



that the coarser materials composino- them came 

 from lands lying to the eastward, and now covered 

 by the Atlantic. (Travels in North America, Vol. 

 i. p. 86.) Finally, Professor Edward Forbes, in a 

 most interesting memoir recently published, has 

 shown, from the relationship between the Fauna 

 and Flora of the British Isles and of North 

 America, that either the one has derived a certain 

 portion of its animals and plants from the other, 

 or that both have derived them from land now sunk 

 in the intervening ocean." (Memoirs of the Geo- 

 logical Survey of Great Britain, Vol. i. p. 336-402.) 



In other publications my endeavours have been 

 to show the great value, to all classes of society, 



Dd 



