THE 



GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE. 



NEW SERIES. DECADE II. VOL. Vlil. 



No. VI.— JUNE, 1881. 



o:Bia-iiNr.A-Xj .A.iai?iGii:Es. 



J. — Subsidence and Elevation, and on the Permanence of Oceans. 

 By J. Starkie Gardner, F.G.S. 



THE theory of permanent Continents and Oceanic basins, opposed 

 as it is to the general teaching of text-books, seems to have 

 given rise to comparatively little discussion. In the latest edition, 

 for instanne. of TjVrH's Pn'no.inlfis. -w-a rfiarl ! " Tt is nnt. fnn mnnlT 



Notice. — Tlie Chromo-Litliograpliic Plate intended to 

 accompany Mr. J. S. Gardner's paper, not being ready in 

 time to appear in this month's Magazine, will be issued 

 in our next number, for July. — Edit. Geol. Mag. 



gratuitous, and entirely opposed to all the evidences at our command," 

 the supposition that temperate Europe and temperate America, 

 Australia and South America, have ever been connected, except by 

 way of the Arctic or Antarctic Circles, and that — lands now separated 

 by seas of more than 1000 fathoms depth have ever been united. 



Mr. Wallace, it must be admitted, has succeeded in explaining 

 the chief features of existing life distribution, without bridging 

 the Atlantic or the Pacific, except towards the Poles, yet I cannot 

 help thinking that some of the facts might perhaps be more 

 easily explained by admitting the former existence of the connexion 

 between the coast of Chili and Polynesia and Great Britain and 

 Florida, shadowed by the sub-marine banks which stretch between 

 them. Nothing is urged that renders these moi'e direct connexions 

 impossible, and no physical reason is advanced why the floor of 

 the Ocean should not be uj^heaved from any depth. The route by 

 which the floras of South America and Australia are supposed 

 to have mingled is beset by almost insurmountable obstacles, and 

 the apparently sudden arrival of a number of sub-tropical American 

 plants in our Eocenes, necessitates a connexion more to the south 



DECADE II. — VOL. VIII. — NO. VI. 16 



