138 SPARKS FROM A GEOLOGIST'S HAMMER. 



are not Ireland and the smaller contiguous islands on the 

 European side the vestiges of the remote extremity of the 

 Archaean land of America? And were not Great Britain 

 and. America once united in bonds of granite? And is 

 not the telegraphic cable which reunites them an instru- 

 ment for the fulfillment of a destiny? 



Who can declare whither the substance of the Archaean 

 continent has gone? Where are the cubic miles of stuff 

 which have been taken from the higher altitudes of the 

 Laurentide range, and from that Atlantic prolongation 

 which is now reduced to a submerged stump? I think we 

 may safely say the sandstones of Potsdam, in New York, 

 are formed from Archaean material. The cliffs at Little 

 Falls and Albany are formed of materials contributed by 

 the older land. I think we may say that the vast beds of 

 Silurian, Devonian and Carboniferous strata account for 

 some of the material missing from the Archaean continent. 

 There are the Alleghany mountains, or better, the entire 

 Appalachian chain, built out of coarse materials brought 

 from the northeast. We know they came from the north- 

 east because the materials grow coarser in that direction. 

 The lighter fragments the sands and clays are trans- 

 ported farthest from the shore. It was the sea which per- 

 formed this work of transportation. It was the sea which 

 conspired with the storms of heaven in tearing down the 

 old land to convey it into the territory of the United 

 States. There, in a long stream, stretching from New 

 England to Alabama, the " dust of a continent to be " was 

 laid down in the bottom of the ocean. 



Now, in this search for continental relics, turn south- 

 ward. There are the West India islands, composed also 

 of ancient rocks, perhaps mostly, certainly not altogether, 



