166 SPARKS FROM A GEOLOGIST'S HAMMER. 



tion the brown stock survives in the natives of Madagascar. 

 The conjecture is admissible that their ancestors mi- 

 grated from the Malayan peninsula over a land connection 

 then existing. The evidences convince us that the move- 

 ment was in this direction, and do not permit us to assume 

 that the Malagasies are survivals of the primitive Malayan 

 stock. 



Mankind have lived in the midst of the grand phe- 

 nomena of terrestrial revolutions. There was a time 

 when the Orient was united to the Occident by an isth- 

 mus which then held the place of Behring's Strait. This 

 may have been at the time when the bottom of the Yel- 

 low Sea was dry land. Then the Siberian Mammoth 

 wandered into North America. Then probably the ances- 

 tors of the Aztecs made the discovery of the continent, 

 and in the lapse of ages wandered down the whole length 

 of the coast to Cape Horn. The vicissitudes of ages 

 brought extinction to the mammoth, but the American 

 Indian perpetuates his memory in tradition. 



Since man first appeared in Europe the North Sea has 

 been dry land, and Great Britain has been joined to the 

 continent twice or more. According to Professor James 

 Geikie's interpretation of the facts, man was present be- 

 fore the beginning of continental glaciation, and Great 

 Britain was * then a part of the continent. Then followed 

 a subsidence of 1,200 or 1,300 feet, which isolated Great 

 Britain from the continent as at present. With a reele- 

 vation general glaciation of all the northern and middle 

 portions of Europe came on. Then another subsidence 

 occurred, which in turn was followed by an elevation which 

 joined Great Britain to France and Holland. The bot- 

 tom of the North Sea became dry land, and Scandinavia 



