8 J. D. Dana—Results of the Earth’s Contraction. 
Paleozoic time were small; for the region was then, the larger 
part of the time, a mediterranean salt-water basin or sea, nur- 
turing crinoids, corals and mollusks, and making limestones. If 
not westward, then it passed eastwurd : and if driven eastward, a 
geanticlinal elevation of a sea-border region parallel with the area 
of subsidence must have been in progress from lateral pressure. 
The height of this geanticlinal, or swell of the overlying crust 
(anticlinorium), would have depended on the distance to which 
escape eastward was possible, that is, on the eastward extent of 
the subterranean region of mobile rock. Its elevation was 
* Last volume of this Journal. 
