ON THE ELEVATED SUBMARINE ALLUVIA. 311 



In quitting this subject, I must point out to geo- 

 logists, the propriety of examining all the countries 

 which are analogous to Italy ; since the same cir- 

 cumstances respecting the alluvia may possibly exist 

 in many other places. It is scarcely necessary to 

 name those where such phenomena may be sought 

 for ; though, as being the most easy of access, and 

 as presenting the most satisfactory examples of vol- 

 canic elevation, I may point out Sicily, and Auvergne, 

 together with the Azores and the other volcanic 

 islands of the African coast, as well as St Helena, 

 Ascension, and perhaps, Owhyhee. It ought also to 

 be entered among the perpetual subjects of retrospect 

 in every geologist's recollection, that as all the supra- 

 marine land has apparently been elevated, by some 

 causes, from the bottom of the sea, there may be 

 submarine alluvia beneath terrestrial ones in many 

 countries which show no traces of a volcanic nature, 

 or of a volcanic origin. It is quite possible that this 

 may have been the true source of many of the ap- 

 pearances connected with alluvia, and with fossil re- 

 mains of different origins, that have been the causes 

 of so much trouble to observers. I shall have occasion 

 hereafter (in the twenty-first Chapter) to show that 

 the elevations of the land have probably taken place 

 at very distant periods, and that the causes operated 

 through a long series of ages. Hence there may be 

 a chain of intervals in time, connecting the most 

 remote catastrophes of this nature with that of Italy, 

 and uniting even this one, with the elevation of the 

 Coral islands, described in the seventeenth Chapter, 

 and with the still later formation of volcanic islands. 

 Among some of these, we might therefore expect to 

 find appearances analogous to those which form the 

 subject of this discussion ; as we can scarcely con- 



