THE PEE-ADAMITE EARTH. 



which had been above the waters from the earliest geological 

 dates. The southern limits of this basin are not so well ascer- 

 tained, but it is certain that it covered all that part of 

 southern Europe, from the surface of which the chain of the 

 Pyrenees burst upwards at a later epoch, and extended far into 

 the Spanish peninsula. 



329. The third great ^European sea, called the Mediterranean 

 basin, skirted the eastern side of the central plateau from the 

 southern limit of the Vosgian Strait to Montpelier, where it was 

 probably connected with the Pyrenean basin by another strait 

 extending from Montpelier to Perpignan. This ancient sea 

 extended in all probability ito a considerable distance east and 

 north-east, covering Provence and Dauphin6, all that part of 

 Europe from which the chain of the Alps arose at a much later 

 epoch, and all Piedmont, Switzerland, and Italy, with the excep- 

 tion of an island in the department of the Yar in the south of 

 France, which was already dry land in the preceding age, and 

 continued so. 



330. At each succeeding period of the Jurassic age, the shores 

 of these seas retired from point to point within their preceding 

 limits, so that their successive outlines formed a series of con- 

 centric lines, one included within the other, the seas retaining 

 their form, but contracting their dimensions. This series of 

 changes is especially remarkable in the case of the Anglo-Parisian 

 basin, where it is indicated on the map (fig. 153) by the alternate 

 shadings in two different tints around the borders of the basin. 

 The limits during the first Jurassic period are those marked 7, 

 the second 8, the third 9, and so on, the last or innermost 

 being 16. 



It appears, therefore, that each of the disturbances or disloca- 

 tions, which terminated the successive periods, was attended with 

 the effect of contracting the dimensions of these seas, either by 

 the elevation of the surrounding land, or the depression of that 

 which formed the bottom of the sea. The entire breadth of the 

 zone of land, which being covered by the seas of the first Jurassic 

 period was left uncovered by those of the last period of that age, 

 is found to have been about a degree on the western declivity of 

 the Yosges. It is a singular geological fact, that a succession 

 of ten dislocations, each of which was sufficient to destroy the 

 existing fauna and flora, should nevertheless leave unimpaired 

 the general form of the seas, and that none of the more recent 

 and more violent convulsions of the succeeding ages should have 



7 to 14 inclusive, are to be understood as indicating water, and the other 

 parts land. 

 72 



