

' V 



V 



v 



• 









Her 



■ . 



an* 



■I 





itiM 







' 



I 



■ 





E 





It 





bin* 



of 















,..; 



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Ch. VII.] 



PAEALLEL MOUNTAIN-CHAINS. 



127 



rocks may 



in horizontal stratification, may have been 



elevated, like the chain A, fig. 2, during some part of the 



same 



mountains 



high, the tops of which are composed of limestone, in which 

 a large proportion of the fossil shells agree specifically with 

 those now inhabiting the Mediterranean. Here, as in many 

 other countries, the deposits now in progress in the sea, 

 must inclose shells and other fossils specifically identical with 

 those of the rocks constituting the contiguous land. So 

 there are islands in the Pacific, where a mass of dead coral 

 has emerged to a considerable altitude, while other portions 

 of the mass remain beneath the sea, still increasing by the 

 growth of living zoophytes and shells. The chalk of the 

 Pyrenees, therefore, may at a remote period have been raised 

 to an elevation of several thousand feet, while the species 

 found fossil in the same chalk still continued to be repre- 

 sented in the fauna of the neighbouring ocean. In a word, 

 we cannot assume that the origin of a new range of moun- 

 tains caused the Cretaceous period to cease, and served as 

 the prelude to a new order of things in the animate creation. 

 To illustrate the grave objections above advanced, against 

 the theory considered in the present chapter, let us suppose, 

 that in some country three styles of architecture had pre- 

 vailed in succession, each for a period of one thousand years ; 

 first the Greek, then the 

 that a tremendous earth 



Roman 



and 



in the same district during one of the three periods — a con- 

 vulsion of such violence as to have levelled to the ground all 

 the buildings then standing. If an antiquary, desirous of 

 discovering the date of the catastrophe, should first arrive 

 at a city were several Greek temples were lying in ruins and 

 half engulphed in the earth, while many Gothic edifices were 

 standing uninjured, could he determine on these data the 

 era of the shock ? Could he even exclude any one of the three 

 periods, and decide that it must have happened during one 

 of the other two ? Certainly not. He could merely affirm 



some 



Greek style, and before 



Goth 





