THROUGH THE GEOLOGIST'S EYES 



south from it on each side of the continent, inclosing 

 a vast interior sea between them. To end with, we 

 have the finished continent of eight million or more 

 square miles, of an average height of two thousand 

 feet above the sea, built up or developed from and 

 around these granite centres very much as the body 

 is built up and around the bones, and of such pro- 

 digious weight that some of our later geologists seek 

 to account for the continental submarine shelf that 

 surrounds the continent on the theory that the land 

 has slowly crept out into the sea under the pressure 

 of its own weight. And all this, — to say nothing 

 of the vast amount of rock, in some places a mile 

 or two in thickness, that has been eroded from the 

 land surfaces of the globe in later geological time, and 

 now lies buried in the seas and lakes, — we are told, 

 is the contribution of those detached portions of 

 Archsean rock that first rose above the primordial 

 seas. It is a greater miracle than that of the loaves 

 and the fishes. We have vastly more to end with 

 than we had to begin with. The more the rocks have 

 been destroyed, the more they have increased; the 

 more the waters have devoured them, the more they 

 have multiplied and waxed strong. 



Either the geologists have greatly underestimated 

 the amount of Archsean rock above the waters at the 

 start, or else there are factors in the problem that 

 have not been taken into the account. Lyell seems 

 to have appreciated the difficulties of the problem, 



99 



