THE SUNKEN ISLAND OF ATLANTIS. 19 
I shall, in the first instance, examine Europe and America in the Ter- 
tiary period with regard to their boundaries ; in other words, attempt 
to answer the question, " How did Europe and America look, at the 
time when lignite was being formed?" 
Who can doubt that the two continents in question had formerly 
very different boundaries than they have at present? The former ve- 
getation of Europe indicates a mild climate. Where Camphor-trees and 
Palms flourished, and rhinoceroses and elephants inhabited impenetra- 
ble forests, there cannot have been snowy mountains or extensive 
plains. Even the present configuration of this continent, with its deep 
indentations, proves that in fonner periods there were other partitions 
and groupings of these parts. Geological investigations bear out these 
speculations, and enable us to construct a map of Europe and that 
part of North America situated under the same parallels of latitude. 
Nothing is required but to know the geognostic condition of the territory. 
It is evident that as far as the sediments of the lignite-beds extended 
there must have been water, because they can only form as the sedi- 
ments of greater or lesser basins of water. Then, as now, rivers, 
rivulets, and all running streams, carried along with them the loose 
parts of the solid land, in the form of mud, sand, and rubbish, to a 
leeper basin filled with water, and deposited them there. The extent 
and thickness of these deposits, spread as they are over whole countries 
and reaching several thousands of feet in depth, show that these 
operations were continued for a long series of ages and conducted upon 
a gigantic scale. Whole mountains must have been decomposed and 
carried away before the valleys could be filled up and the plains over 
which the Tertiaiy ocean extended could be covered over : but on the 
continent there must also have been numerous reservoirs of fresh 
welter, whilst the water of the ocean was more or less charged with 
saline particles. It requires no demonstration to prove that the sea- 
water became brackish at a greater or lesser distance from the mouth . 
of the rivers. Instances were not wanting where, by the destruction 
of the dams or a change in the level of the land, inland lakes discharged 
their contents into the ocean, or the sea broke inland, effecting in 
this manner a change both in the sediments of the sen as well as in 
those of the fresh water. 
During these continued and destructive changes, which did not allow 
the boundaries of the continent to assume a permanent shape, there 
c 2 
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