78 H. H. Howorth—Traces of a Great Post-Glacial Flood. 
- float over the submerged lands; and no difficulty is experienced in 
believing that it should finish its wonderful oscillations by regaining 
the level it had befure the Glacial period commenced. It seems 
a burlesque on science that such theories should be prevalent 
amongst our geologists, and if they were not held by philosophers, 
they would be ridiculed as unphilosophical. Those who advocate 
the former existence of these oscillations of the surface are those 
who urge that we should not call in the aid of any but existing 
agencies; yet where do they now find a shore-less and a shell-less 
sea? Put down a dredge anywhere in the ocean within depths of 
less than 2000 feet, and in the small quantity of clay, mud, sand, or 
gravel scraped up, it will be scarcely possible to take out a teacup- 
ful that shall not teem with marine organisms; yet we are taught 
that an immense area in Hurope and America has been a sea-bottom, 
and every part of it a sea-beach as the land rose again, without any 
existence of marine life having been left behind” (Quart. Journ. of 
Science, vol. vii. pp. 82-83). This admirable passage, as it seems to 
me, is conclusive, but I will supplement it by another by the same 
talented author, the value of whose ingenious work has not been 
sufficiently recognized. In this case he refers to Siberia, which is so 
continuous in regard to its physical aspects with the great plains of 
Russia, that it is hardly credible the latter should have been submerged 
for any length of time beneath the sea without it also having been 
subjected to the same influence. In answer to Professor Bernhard 
von Cotta, who postulated a submarine origin for the surface of 
Siberia, Mr. Belt says, “I believe that the absence of sea-shells is 
fatal to the marine theory: I searched diligently for them and could 
find none; and excepting in the extreme north, around the present 
coast, I believe none have been found by other observers. The 
mollusca exist all over the present ocean; they abound around 
Greenland even within a short distance of the foot of the great 
glaciers. I do not contend that the presence of shells of Cyrena 
fluminalis is a proof that the waters in which the sands were deposited 
were not marine, as they might have been (and I believe were) 
bronght down by streams from the south; but their preservation in 
the sands proves that marine shells did not exist there, or their 
remains would also be found. I have worked most of the coasts of 
the world, and dredged in northern waters, and everywhere found 
marine molluscs to abound, and I believe that the absence of sea- 
shells in any Tertiary or Post-Tertiary strata, excepting in some 
muddy deposits in which they could not well live, is.a proof that 
these strata were not deposited in the great ocean” (Journ Geol. 
Soc. vol. xxx. p. 495). 
(To be continued.) 
