432 Scientific Intelligence. 



To appreciate the amount of evidence of various kiuds urged in the 

 memoir as well as the labor expended in the researches, recourse must be 

 had to the original paper. The so-called beaches, at the various eleva- 

 tions, which with the drifted stones and scratches are regarded as the 

 iqpecial proofs of the great submergences in the ocean, are described with 

 care, and laid down on the charts. 



The most important link in this evidence of submergence is still undis- 

 covered. We know of many submergences in past time, for we have 

 marine fossils in the strata; and when we come to the very latest of these 

 continental submergences, w^e naturally enquire for those unmistakable 

 sea-records, the marine shells. The coasts of various countries, to a great 

 height, bear this decisive mark of elevations during the recent post-tertiary 

 epoch, — Scandinavia, and other parts of Europe, Peru, Chili, Patagonia, 

 Australia, etc. etc. And on this continent, fossiliferous beds assure us of an 

 elevation of 500 feet or so along the St. Lawieuce and Lake Champlain 

 during the terrace period, and of still greater changes in the Arctic. We 

 feel a degree of delight in such positive demonstration ; there is actual 

 exhilaration in the sight of such an accumulation of shells as occurs at 

 . Beauport (Canada). And at the same time we look upon an argument as 

 to continental submergence with distrust when the sea-relics fail, especially 

 if this ftiihzre is for the whole continent, an area of millions of square miles. 

 It is fair to doubt, and disbelieve, until the sea-record in fossils somewhere 

 comes to light ; and it is reasonable to regard it as much against its ever 

 appearing that the indefatigable researches of Prof. Hitchcock have not 

 found it. As to the supposed absence of life in the seas during the post- 

 tertiary, can it be believed, when 25 to 40 per cent of the species of the 

 preceding tertiary period are animals now living in our waters? 



It is true, that if the supposed submergence liad taken place, sea-shells 

 arc not to be looked for everywhere. In a river like the St. Lawrence, the 

 water at Montreal is essentially on a level with the ocean, the elevation 

 being but 2 1 feet, and not exceeding what is made by tlie flow of the water. 

 ISTow notwithstanding this one level for the whole, the salt w\ater — salt 

 enough to grow marine shells — sets back in this great stream but a small 

 part of this distance; and consequently while there are deposits with ma- 

 rine shells along the gulf, there are alluvial deposits without marine shells 

 over the banks for 300 miles below Montreal. Now, when the sea stood 

 500 feet above its present water line, in the St Lawrence, the pure salt 

 water set back to Montreal and even as far as Ogdenshurg, and also up 

 Lake Champlain, where in either region it had its marine shells in profu- 

 sion. But beyond this to the westward, the stream would, from some 

 point, owing to the descending floods of fresh -water, be fresh, although on 

 a level with the sea; and thus its shore flats — afterwards to become ter- 

 races — would have had no salt-water shells. Thus there might be true 

 lake terraces and marine terraces made on the borders of the san^e waters, 

 and all at the same leveh In the Connecticut and Hudson rivers, again, 

 fiea-shells hardly enter the mouth. The lesson we learn is this : that m 

 no case could we expect to find marine fossils in river terraces except 

 where those rivers opened into wide estuaries; — and also, wherever wide 

 estuaries existed, or where there was a shallow muddy sea-bottoui off an 

 existing coast, deposits of shells like those of the St. Lawrence and Lake 



