86 PALEOZOIC TIME. [CHAP. VI. 



counties of England, but there is really no evidence for 

 this, and I think it is more likely to have had an outline 

 such as that shown on the map, broken into a series of 

 bays and estuaries, like that in which the Scotch measures 

 seem to have been formed. 



As there was evidently land to the north-west both of 

 Scotland and Ireland, and as this was probably united to 

 the Scoto- Scandinavian land, it is evident that the greater 

 part of the North Atlantic must have been land at this 

 time. When, moreover, we remember that no rocks of 

 Carboniferous Limestone age have yet been found in any 

 part of Iceland or Greenland, nor in any part of northern 

 Canada, nor in the Arctic regions south of G-rinnell Land 

 (where it does occur), the facts seem to be greatly in favour 

 of Professor Hull's view that at this period a large conti- 

 nent occupied the whole area of the North Atlantic, and 

 extended from Finland on the east to the Rocky Mountains 

 on the west. We cannot attempt to define its southern 

 border across what is now the Atlantic Ocean ; this, of course, 

 must ever remain a matter of pure speculation, but it is 

 puerile to make this a ground of objection to Professor 

 Hull's hypothesis. 1 Those who have adopted the theory of 

 the permanence of continents and of oceans throughout all 

 geological time are naturally biassed against the existence 

 of an Atlantic continent at any period, but those who think 

 that continents may last long without being absolutely 

 permanent see no reason why large parts of the Atlantic 

 region should not have been land more than once in the 

 course of geological time. 



Professor Green has published a representation of 

 Lower Carboniferous geography which differs in some im- 

 portant particulars from Professor Hull's, and from the 

 restoration I have attempted in Plate IV. There are two 



1 Physical History of the British Isles," 1880, p. 37, and " Trans. 

 Roy. Dub. Sue.," ser. ii. vol. iii. p. 305. 



