144 PEOCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [Feb. 5, 



From the north-easterly expansion of the sandstones and shales, 

 as well as their increased coarseness in the direction of the North 

 Atlantic, Sir C. Lyell has inferred the existence of a continent 

 (occupying the position of this ocean), from the waste of which these 

 strata have been derived. Mr. Godwin-Austen has also indicated 

 its position*. The probability of such a continent is reduced to 

 certainty by the similarity and frequent identity of the Carbonife- 

 rous flora of Europe and America, the land having formed a bridge 

 for the migration of the plants from one country to another. We 

 may suppose this land to have included Greenland, Iceland, and 

 Scandinavia. Recollecting, then, the south-westerly attenuation of 

 the American strata, and the south-easterly attenuation of the 

 North-British, can it be doubted that the same continent was the 

 parent of the coal-bearing strata of both countries ? This being ad- 

 mitted, we may also infer that the shores of this Atlantis were 

 washed on the west side by a current running south-west, which 

 drifted the sediment in that direction ; and on the other by a cur- 

 rent running south-east, which carried the sediment over the sub- 

 merged portions of Scotland, England, and Ireland f. It may be 

 assumed as a general principle, that all the oceanic currents north 

 of the equator running west come from the north, and those running 

 east come from the south. Hence we may infer that, during the 

 Carboniferous Period, there was open sea in the arctic regions of the 

 Western Hemisphere, generating an arctic current — a proposition 

 borne out by the occurrence of plants and sheUs of this period J as 

 high as lat. 78° ; and on the other hand we may infer land to have 

 existed to the north of Europe, or at least of Britain, whose shores 

 were swept by a current similar in its direction to the Gulf-stream. 

 Throughout this long geological period did these currents carry the 

 sands and clays southward ; and as the distance from the sources of 

 these materials increased, so did the amount deposited diminish; 

 which to my mind is a satisfactory explanation of the thinning out of 

 the strata in certain directions. 



I would here beg to remind the Society of a former communica- 

 tion, in which it was attempted to be shown that the sedimentary 

 strata of the Lower Mesozoic Formations undergo a similar diminu- 

 tion of volume, when traced from the north-west towards the south- 

 east of England. Now it is remarkable that the line of maximuin 

 development of the Carboniferous and the Mesozoic Rocks very nearly 

 correspond in each case, stretching from Lancashire in the direction 

 of London. So rapid does the attenuation of the Trias and the Lias 

 appear to be, that I inferred that these formations would be found 

 to terminate somewhere about the position of the Chalk escarp- 



* In his elaborate memoir " On the possible Extension of the Coal-measures, 

 &c.," Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xii. 



t I do not propose to touch on the subject of the derivation of the Carbo- 

 niferous strata of Belgium and Germany ; but there can be little doubt of the 

 northerly origin of the sedimentary strata, drifted by currents from land lying 

 to the eastward of the Scandinavian Promontory. 



I Brought to this country by Sir E. Belcher. 



