THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE CONTINENTS 9I 



thickness from age to age. Any attempts to 

 account otherwise for these thick and greatly ex- 

 tended beds, regularly interstratified with other 

 deposits, have so far been failures, and have arisen 

 either from a want of comprehension of the nature 

 and magnitude of the appearances to be explained, 

 or from the error of mistaking the true bedded 

 limestones for veins of calcareous spar. 



!i I'l 



m 



Fig. 19A. — Attitude of Limestone at Cdte St. Pierre (see Map, p. 



(a) Gneiss band in the Limestone, {b) Limestone with Eozoon. 

 (c) Diorite and Gneiss. 



Again, in the original molten world, it seems 

 likely that most of the carbon present — at least, 

 at the surface — was in the atmosphere in the 

 gaseous form of carbon dioxide. This might be 

 dissolved by the rain and other waters ; but we 

 know in the modern world no agency which can 

 decompose this compound and reduce it to ordinary 



