THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS II 
express the life-processes of the earth itself, as was suggested by 
Huxley in 1869 and strongly advocated by Sollas in 1883. 
The contrast in outline and structure between the Atlantic and 
Pacific Oceans had long been noted when Suess formulated and used 
the differences as the basis of his classification. 
The Pacific is bounded everywhere by steep slopes, rising abruptly 
from profound ocean depths to lofty lands crowned with mountain 
ranges, parallel to its shores and surrounding its whole area. On 
the American side the Coast Range is continued by the Andes. On 
the Asiatic side chains of mountainous peninsulas and islands, sepa- 
rated from the continent by shallow inland seas, extend in festoons 
from Kamchatka and Japan to the East Indies, eastern Australia 
and New Zealand. This mountain ring, as Charles Lapworth 
said, ‘is ablaze with volcanoes and creeping with earthquakes,’ 
testifying that it has been recently formed and is still unfinished. 
The Atlantic Ocean, on the other hand, is not bordered with con- 
tinuous ranges, but breaks across them all: the Scottish and Welsh 
ranges, the Armorican range, the continuation of the Pyrenees and 
Atlas ; and, on the American side, the uplands of Labrador, New- 
foundland and the eastern States, and the hill ranges of Guiana and 
Brazil. ‘The Atlantic is in disconformity with the grain of the land, 
while the Pacific conforms with it. The Pacific has the rock-folds 
of its ranges breaking like ocean waves towards it as though the 
land were being driven by pressure to advance upon it, while the 
Atlantic recalls the effects of fracture under tension. 
The middle and southern edges of the Atlantic, however, agree to 
some extent with the Pacific type. The Caribbean Sea, with the 
Antilles and the rest of its border girdle, recalls the similar structure 
of the Mediterranean, as it stretches eastwards, with breaks, to the 
East Indian Archipelago ; while the Andes are continued to Antarctica 
in a sweeping curve of islands. The rest of the Indian Ocean is of 
Atlantic type, as seen in the shores of eastern Africa and western 
Australia. 
Another feature of the Atlantic is the parallelism of much of its 
eastern and western coasts, the meaning of which has often attracted 
the speculations of geologists and geographers. With a little stretch 
of the imagination, and some ingenuity and elasticity of adjustment, 
plans or maps of the opposite sides may be fitted fairly closely, 
particularly if we plot and assemble the real edges of the continents, 
the steep slopes which divide the ‘ shelves’ on which they stand 
from the ocean depths. This has suggested the possibility that the 
two sides may once have been united, and have since broken and 
drifted apart till they are now separated by the ocean. 
