356 ILLOGICAL GEOLOGY. 



generalizations ili.it appear to be well established. With 

 this somewhat elaborate illustration, to which we now pas?, 

 our criticisms may fitly conclude. 



Let us suppose th.it in a region now covered by wide 

 rteean, there begins one of those great and gradual up 

 heavals by which new continents are formed. To be pre 

 cise, let us say that in the South Pacific, midway between 

 New Zealand find Patagonia, the sea-bottom lias been 

 little by little thrust np towards the surface, and is about 

 to emerge. What will be the successive phenomena, 

 geological and biological, which are likely to occur before this 

 emerging sea-bottom has become another Europe or Asia ? 



In the first place, such portions of the incipient land as 

 are raised to the level of the waves, will be rapidly denud 

 ed by them: their soft substance will be torn tip by the 

 breakers, carried away by the local currents, and deposited 

 in neighbouring deeper water. Successive small upheavals 

 will bring new and larger areas within reach of the waves ; 

 fresh portions will each time be removed from the surfaces 

 previously denuded ; and further, some of the newly-form 

 ed strata, being elevated nearly to the level of the water, 

 will be washed away and re-deposited. In course of time, 

 the harder formations of the upraised sea-bottom will be 

 uncovered. These being less easily destroyed, will remain 

 permanently above the surface ; and at their margins will 

 arise the usual breaking down of rocks into beach-sand and 

 pebbles. While in the slow process of this elevation, going 

 on at the rate of perhaps two or three feet in a century, 

 most of the sedimentary deposits produced will be again 

 and again destroyed and reformed ; there will, in those ad 

 jacent areas of subsidence which accompany areas of eleva 

 tion, be more or less continuous successions of sedimentary 

 deposits. 



And now what will be the character of these now strata? 

 They will necessarily contain scarcely any traces of life 



