Ch. XIL] 



UNEQUAL DISTRIBUTION OF LAND AND SEA. 



257 







account for their 



being 



almost entirely destitute of the 



remains of terrestrial plants. 



Present unequal distribution of land and sea. — Without 

 dwelling longer on the proofs with which geology supplies us 

 of former changes in physical geography, it is not too much 



to say that every spot which is now dry land has been sea at 

 some former period, and every part of the space now covered 

 by the deepest ocean has been land. The present distribution 

 of land and water encourages us to believe that almost every 

 conceivable transformation in the external form of the earth's 

 crust may have been gone through. In one epoch the land 

 may have been chiefly equatorial, in another for the most 

 part polar and circumpolar. At one period most of it may 

 have been north of the line, in another south of it ; or at 

 one time all in the west, at another the whole of it in the 



east. 



may 



that there is now just twice as much land in the eastern as 

 there is in the western hemisphere ; and even assuming the 

 existence of an antarctic continent, more than twice as much 

 land north of the equator as south of it. But what is most 

 singular, as showing the capricious distribution of the land 

 in the present state of the earth's crust, we find it possible 

 so to divide the globe into two equal parts, that one hemi- 

 sphere shall contain as much land as water, while the other is 

 so oceanic that the sea is to the land very nearly as 8 to 1."* 

 This is shown by projecting the hemispheres on the plane of 

 the horizon of a point in lat. 52° N. and in long. 6° W. of 

 Greenwich. The point alluded to is situated in St. George's 

 Channel, about midway between Pembroke and Wexford, and 

 the eye of the observer is supposed to be so placed above it as 

 to see from thence one half of the globe. In such a position 

 he would behold at one view the greatest possible quantity of 

 land, or, if transferred to the opposite or antipodal point, 



the greatest possible quantity of water. 



%i previous editions I used, in illustration of the same sub- 



Mr. James 



on the horizon of London, for he regarded that metropolis 



* The exact proportion of land to sea, 



1*106 in the Land Hemisphere, and 1 



as calculated by Mr. Saunders, is 1 to to 7*988 in the Water Hemisphere, 



VOL. I. 



S 



