34 REPORT— 1886. 



and .secular movomonts may go on unintorruptodly until conHidorablo 

 changes are produced ; but it is quite as likely tiiat they may bo retarded 

 or reversed. 



It is possible, on the other hand, that after the long period of quiescence 

 which has elapsed there may bo a now settlement of the ocean-bed, ac- 

 companied with foldings of the ornst, especially on the western side of the 

 Atlantic, and possibly with renewed volcanic activity on its eastern mar- 

 gin. In either case a long time relatively to our limited hnman chrono- 

 logy may intervene before the occurrence of any marked change. On the 

 whole the experience of the past would lead us to expect movements and 

 eruptive discharges in the Pacific rather than in the Atlantic area. It is 

 therefore not unlikely that the Atlantic may remain undisturbed, un- 

 less secondarily and indirectly, until after the Pacific area shall have attained 

 to a greater degree of quiescence than at present. But this subject is one 

 too much involved in uncertainty to warrant us in following it farther. 



In the meantime the Atlantic is to us a practically permanent ocean, 

 varying only in its tides, its currents, and its winds, which science has 

 already reduced to definite laws, so that we can use if we cannot regulate 

 them. It is ours to take advantage of this precious time of quietude, and 

 to extend the blessings of science and of our Christian civilisation from 

 shore to shore until there shall be no more sea, not in the sei;se of that 

 final drying-up of old ocean to which some physicists look forward, but 

 in the higher sense of its ceasing to be the emblem of unrest and disturb- 

 ance, and the cause of isolation. 



I must now close this address with a short statement of the general 

 objects which I have had in view in directing your attention to the geo- 

 logical development of the Atlantic. We cannot, I think, consider the 

 topics to which I have referred without perceiving that the history of 

 ocean and continent is an example of progressive design, quite as much 

 as that of living beings. Nor can we fail to see that, while in some im- 

 portant directions we have penetrated the great secret of Nature, in refer- 

 ence to the general plan and structure of the earth and its waters, and 

 the changes through which they have passed, we have still very much to 

 learn, and perhaps quite as much to unlearn, and that the future* holds 

 out to us and to our successors higher, grander, and clearer conceptions 

 than those to which we have yet attained. The vastness and the might 

 of ocean and the manner in which it cherishes the feeblest and most fragile 

 beings, alike speak to us of Him who holds it in the hollow of His hand, 

 and gave to it of old its boundaries and its laws ; but its teaching ascends 

 to a higher tone when we consider its origin and history, and the manner 

 in which it has been made to build up continents and mountain-chains, 

 and at the same time to nourish and sustain the teeming life of sea and 

 land. 





