230 THE STOEY OP THE EARTH AND MAN. 



local ifistances, we know nothing of them, till the 

 great subsidence and re-elevation of the Cretaceous 

 again allows them to ascend to the continental 

 plateaus, and again introduces us to this branch of 

 the world-making process. 



The attention recently drawn to these facts by the 

 researches of Dr. Carpenter and others, and especially 

 the similarity in mineral character and organic re- 

 mains of some of the deposits now forming in the 

 Atlantic and those of the chalk, have caused it to be 

 afiBrmed that in the bed of the Atlantic these con- 

 ditions of life and deposit have continued from the 

 Cretaceous up to the present time, or as it has been 

 expressed, that " we are still living in the Cretaceous 

 epOch.^^ Now, this is true or false just as we apply 

 the statement. We have seen that the distinction be- 

 tween abyssal areas, continental oceanic plateaus, and 

 land surfaces has extended through the whole lapse 

 of geological time. In this broad sense we may be 

 said to be still living in the Laurentian epoch. In 

 other words, the whole plan of the earth's develop- 

 ment is one and the same, and each class of general 

 condition once introduced is permanent somewhere. 

 But in another important sense we are not living in 

 the Cretaceous epoch; otherwise the present site of 

 London would be a thousand fathoms deep in the 

 ocean ; the Ichthyosaurs and Ammonites would be dis- 

 porting themselves in the water, and the huge Dino- 

 saurs and strange Pterodactyls living on the land. The 

 Italian peasant is still in many important points living 



