THE ATLANTIC OCEAN. 217 



into those wonderful changes, paroxysmal or gradual, which 

 the outer surface of the earth has undergone in the course of 

 ages, from central actions hitherto reached by conjecture 

 alone. Knowledge need never be despaired of from any 

 source, however seemingly remote, where the connection of 

 the physical sciences is becoming so intimate in all its parts. 

 A single instance may be given as peculiarly belonging to 

 this Ocean of which we are treating. In a remarkable 

 memoir by Professor E. Forbes on the ' Connection between 

 the existing Floras and Faunas of the British Isles, and the 

 geological changes which have affected this area,' we find 

 denoted, amongst other curious local relations of certain 

 British species to those of the nearest opposite continents, 

 the singular case of identity of several species in the South- 

 western Irish Flora, with species found not nearer than the 

 mountains forming the northern coast of Spain. On various 

 grounds Professor Forbes concludes and he was not a rash 

 speculator in science that the British Isles acquired this 

 connection of their Flora and Fauna with that of neigh- 

 bouring lands, by immigration of species before the area they 

 now occupy was severed from the greater continent. The 

 specialty of the Irish case as to distance does not deter him 

 from following out this conclusion. Boldly, but not without 

 much show of reason, he draws a line of ancient continent 

 across the Bay of Biscay and yet farther westwards into the 

 actual Atlantic. Geology tells us of numerous changes and 

 alterations of land and sea, similar in kind and still vaster in 

 extent. Those changes which we may suppose to have 

 visited Britain, though far removed from man's knowledge, 

 are comparatively recent in the history of the earth 

 presumably of later date than what has been called the 

 Meiocene epoch. It might seem as if a sort of specious 

 reality were thus given to the ancient fable of the Atlantis : 



