﻿Modern Attainments in Geology. 287 



In the first place, one sees that where the Indo- 

 European boundary curves meet the ocean, i.e. (with the 

 exception of the Persian Gulf) at the mouth of the 

 Brahmaputra and from there on all along the east coast of 

 Asia and the whole west coast of North and South 

 America, with the single exception of the coast of 

 Guatemala and Honduras, that is, from the Brahmaputra 

 to Cape Horn, all along this coast the direction of the 

 folds is towards the ocean. The Pacific Ocean particularly 

 is almost entirely encircled by folds which run parallel to 

 its coast line. From Cape Horn eastwards to the 

 Brahmaputra, that is, in the Atlantic area and in the area 

 of the western half of the Indian Ocean, the opposite 

 is observed. Either we have table-lands which break off 

 at the sea, like the Drakenberg Mountains in South-east 

 Africa or the Ghats of India, or on the other hand moun- 

 tain ranges break off at the coast, as was, for instance, the 

 case in the Armorican horst, and only very exceptionally, 

 as in the case of the Antilles and Gibraltar do curves run 

 out into the sea. 



The first type of ocean edge in which the shore is 

 parallel to the folds is called the Pacific type ; the second 

 type in which there is no such conformity between shore 

 and folding is called the Atlantic type. 



We can go still further. 



The distribution of stratified deposits permits of our 

 saying, with a high degree of probability, that the Pacific 

 Ocean, taken as a whole, is older than the other oceans, 

 and that at one time a branch of it stretched directly 

 across Indo-Africa to the locality where to-day exist 

 the highest mountains — the Alps. Younger than the 

 Pacific Ocean is the Indian Ocean as a whole, and the 

 middle of the Atlantic Ocean, still considered only in 

 a most general way, must be looked upon as the youngest 

 of these three ocean areas. You see, ladies and gentlemen, 

 to what great conceptions the unifying of the individual 



