266 Canadian Record of Science. 



the waters to spread themselves over all the inland spaces 

 between the great folded mountain ranges. 



In referring to the ocean basins, we should bear in mind 

 that there are three of these in the northern hemisphere — 

 the Arctic, the Pacific, and the Atlantic. De Ranee has 

 ably summed up the known facts as to Arctic geology in a 

 series of articles in "Nature," and from which it appears 

 that this area presents from without inwards a succession 

 of older and newer formations from the Eozoic to the Ter- 

 tiary, and that its extent must have been greater in former 

 periods than at present, while it must have enjoyed a com- 

 paratively warm climate from the Cambrian to the Pleisto- 

 cene period. The relations of its deposits and fossils are 

 closer with those of the Atlantic than with those of the 

 Pacific, as might be anticipated from its wider opening 

 into the former. Blandfbrd has recently remarked on 

 the correspondence of the marginal deposits around 

 the Pacific and Indian oceans, 1 and Dr. Dawson informs 

 me that this is equally marked in comparison with 

 the west coast of America, 2 but these marginal areas have 

 not yet gained much on the ocean. In the North At- 

 lantic, on the other hand, there is a wide belt of compara- 

 tively modern rocks on both sides, more especially toward 

 the south and on the American side ; but while there 

 appears to be a perfect correspondence on both sides of the 



1 A singular example is the recurrence in New Zealand of Trias- 

 sic rocks and fossils of types corresponding to those of British Co- 

 lumbia. A curious modern analogy appears in the works of art of 

 the Maoris with those of the Haida Indians of the Queen Charlotte 

 Islands, and both are eminently Pacific in contradistinction to 

 Atlantic. 



2 Journal of Geological Society, May 1886. Blandford's statements 

 respecting the mechanical deposits of the close of the Palaeozoic in 

 the Indian ocean, whether these are glacial or not, would seem to 

 show a correspondence with the Permian conglomerates and earth- 

 movements of the Atlantic area ; but since that time, the Atlantic 

 has enjoyed comparative repose. The Pacific seems to have 

 reproduced the conditions of the Carboniferous in the Cretaceous 

 age, and seems to have been less affected by the great changes of 

 the Pleistocene. 



