284 Canadian Record of Science. 



great weight of new sediment is being deposited along the 

 borders of the Atlantic, especially on its western side, and 

 this is not improbably connected with the earthquake 

 shocks and slight movements of depression which have 

 occurred in North America. It is possible that these slow 

 and secular movements may go on uninterruptedly, or 

 with occasional paroxysmal disturbances, until considerable 

 changes are produced. 



It is possible, on the other hand, that after the long 

 period of quiescence which has elapsed, there may be anew 

 settlement of the ocean-bed, accompanied with foldings of 

 the crust, especially on the western side of the Atlantic, 

 and possibly with renewed volcanic activity on its eastern 

 margin. In either case, a long time relatively to our iim- 

 ited human chronology may intervene before the occurrence 

 of any marked change. On the whole, the experience of 

 the past would lead us to expect movements and eruptive 

 discharges in the Pacific rather than in the Atlantic area. 

 It is therefore not unlikely that the Atlantic may remain 

 undisturbed, unless secondarily and indirectly, until after 

 the Pacific area shall have attained to a greater degree of 

 quiescence than at present. But this subject is one too 

 much involved in uncertainty to warrant us in following it 

 farther. 



In the meantime the Atlantic is to us a practically per- 

 manent ocean, varying only in its tides, its currents, and 

 its winds, which science has already reduced to definite 

 laws, so that we can use if we cannot regulate them. It is 

 ours to take advantage of this precious time of quietude, 

 and to extend the blessings of science and of our Christian 

 civilisation from shore to shore until there shall be no more 

 sea, not in the sense of that final drying-up of old ocean to 

 which some physicists look forward, but in the higher 

 sense of its ceasing to be the emblem of unrest aud disturb- 

 ance, and the cause of isolation. 



I must now close this address with a short statement of 

 some general truths which I have had in view in directing 

 your attention to the geological development of the Atlantic. 

 We cannot, I think, consider the topics to which I have re- 



