CHAPTER II 



THE PERMANENCE OF THE GREAT OCEANIC BASINS 



That the great Oceanic Basins, as well as the land areas 

 of the globe, have persisted throughout a large portion, if 

 not the whole, of known geological time, is a proposition 

 which has been accepted by writers of such eminence, and 

 is supported by so many distinct lines of evidence, that it 

 seemed likely to become one of the established teachings 

 of geology. Professor Dana was led to it by a study of 

 the development of the North American Continent ; Dar- 

 win upheld it from his study of Oceanic Islands, and the 

 facts he adduced have since been strengthened by the 

 discovery that the two supposed exceptions to the gener- 

 alisation that no ancient sedimentary rocks occur on such 

 islands — Rodriguez and St. Paul's Rocks — are no excep- 

 tions at all. Two successive heads of the Geological 

 Survey of Great Britain, Sir Andrew Ramsay and Sir 

 Archibald Geikie, have advocated similar views; while 

 Mr. John Murray, of the Challenger, holds that the vast 

 mass of evidence now accumulated as to the nature of the 

 deposits on the floors of the great oceans, indicates that 

 they are distinct in character and origin from any of the 

 widespread formations which make up the series of the 

 sedimentary rocks. Coming to the subject from a totally 

 different point of view, that of the physicist and mathema- 

 tician, the Rev. Osmond Fisher arrives at similar results. 

 In the latest issue of his important work, " Physics of the 

 Earth's Crust," he gives as one of his conclusions — " and 



