DIASTROPHISM AND THE FORMATIVE PROCESSES 143 



deep sea-waters about the islands carried the benthol hfe and 

 conditions to higher levels than they usually occupy now, while 

 crustal oscillations of moderate range met this by adequate depres- 

 sion. This seems to explain at once, and without violence, the 

 decided oceanic phenomena of Barbados and the divided oceanic 

 and insular phenomena of Jamaica and the loftier islands. 



But, however this may be, the total import of the distribution, 

 positive and negative, of the deep-sea deposits furnishes a cogent 

 argument against the view that any large part of the abysmal 

 bottoms of the ocean basin has, at any time since the beginning of 

 systematic stratigraphic history, been so elevated as to become a 

 part of the present continents. 



The argument has an indirect bearing on the reciprocal view that 

 former continents have been submerged so deeply as to become 

 parts of the present abysmal bottoms. The depression of any 

 great continent to abysmal depths must necessarily have drawn into 

 the cavity it left a great volume of the oceanic waters, and, if there 

 was no reciprocal elevation of the ocean bottom elsewhere — ^and the 

 preceding argument bears against that — -there must have been a 

 lowering of the sea-level about all the continents, with a profound 

 effect on the shelf-sea work. Such profound effects have not been, 

 I think, inferred from the stratigraphical or paleontological record 

 itself. It is very doubtful if they can be successfully superimposed 

 by special pleading. No great movement in any part of the com- 

 plex oceanic basin can properly be assumed without specifically 

 assigning its consequences in the changes of sea-level implied by it 

 nor without supporting this by stratigraphical facts. Otherwise 

 it is a speculation entertained in negligence of its physical conse- 

 quences. 



The direct adjudication of the hypothetically lost continents 

 lies in a simple appeal to the configuration of the part of the sea 

 bottom involved. It cannot reasonably be supposed that a conti- 

 nent could be submerged so as to completely obliterate its con- 

 figuration. Its outlines should be still discernible and constitute 

 its credentials. Without these it would seem hazardous to enter- 

 tain the conception, even if there were not strong presumptions 

 against it springing from other considerations. 



