> 







*n 



tfc 



I 



Hi. 



geo- 

 map 



te of 



iver- 



it in 



I 



up- 



save 



irith 

 been 

 rela- 

 :ered 



since 



id in 



ease 



• 



■rage 



lobe, 



tiavy 

 of a« 



Q eiit. 



cissi- 



ifl 



4 



dd 



e 



#' 



been 



P 



lace 



tioii' 



• 



1 



Cs. XIL] 



ANTIQUITY OF EXISTING CONTINENTS. 



253 



mer 



to lift up the land from below the water, but in some cases 

 to occasion an additional rise of tracts which had already 

 emerged. Thus the Alps have acquired 4,000, and even in 



mor 



since the commencement of the Eocene period; and the 

 Pyrenees have attained their present height, which in Mont 

 Perdu exceeds 11,000 feet, since the deposition of the num- 

 nuilitic or Eocene division of the Tertiary series. Some of 

 the Tertiary strata at the base of the chain are on! y a few 

 hundred feet above the sea, and retain a horizontal position, 

 without partaking in general in the disturbances to which 

 the older series has been subjected ; so that the great barrier 

 between France and Spain was almost entirely upheaved in 

 the interval between the deposition of certain groups of Ter- 



tiary strata. 



some 



same 



degree, 



and shoals have probably been converted into deep abysses, 



Mediterranean 



limestone 



strata called nummulitic belong to the Eocene group ; as these 



most 



disturbed parts of the Alps, Apennines, Carpathians, Pyrenees, 

 and other mountain-chains, and form many of the elevated 



1111 



ubiquity of the Eocene ocean in regions which are now dry 

 land, not, indeed, by the simultaneous, but by the successive, 

 occupancy of the whole ground by its waters.* 



Antiquity of existing continents.— It is perfectly consistent 

 with the preceding observations to affirm that our present 

 continents are extremely ancient. They have all of them, it 

 is true, undergone many minor modifications in their form 

 even in post-tertiary times, some parts of them having been 

 submerged and others so much raised, as to have been united 

 with what are now islands lying at some distance from them. 

 But the principal masses of land have continued so long 



* See Sir K.Murchison's Paper on the and my Anniversary Address for 1850, 

 Alps, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. v. ; ibid. vol. vi. 



