356 ILLOGICAL GEOLOGY. 



generalizations that appear to be well established. With 

 this somewhat elaborate illustration, to which we now pass, 

 our criticisms may fitly conclude. 



Let us suppose that in a region now covered by wide 

 ocean, 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 and Patagonia, the sea-bottom has been 

 little by little thrust up 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 up 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 

 pre\^ously 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 w^hat will be the character of these new^ strata ? 

 They will necessarily contain scarcely any traces of life. 



