ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. IxVli 



stretching out into the Atlantic as far as the region of tlie Gulf- 

 weed, and uniting Spain and Ireland ; 3rdly, the destruction of the 

 whole of that vast continent of upraised miocene deposits, with the 

 exception of those comparatively small fragments which remain as 

 evidence that such marine deposits were formed at that period ; 4-thly, 

 the state of Great Britain and Ireland when they consisted of a group 

 of small islands, the summits of our present mountains, surrounded 

 by a glacial sea ; 5thly, the elevation of the bed of that glacial sea, 

 when the smaller islands rising above the surface of the water formed 

 a continuous land of Great Britain and Ireland, connected with the 

 continent, a plain existing where there is now the German Ocean ; 

 and 6thly, the disappearance of that Germanic plain, and the forma- 

 tion of the German Ocean, the English Channel, and the Irish Sea. 



The agency by which these great changes were effected, is a sub- 

 ject on which the author does not enter. There is one passage which, 

 without explanation, would be quite at variance with a fundamental 

 part of his theory, for at p. 400 he states, " The floras of the islands 

 of the Atlantic region, between the Gulf-weed bank and the old 

 world, are fragments of the Great Mediterranean flora, anciently 

 diffused over a land constituted out of the upheaved and never again 

 submerged bed of the (shallow) Miocene sea." The author, since 

 the publication of his essay, has stated to me in conversation that 

 the words '* never again submerged " were intended to apply only to 

 those miocene deposits which are now above the sea-level, which have 

 always remained above the sea-level since the time of their first ele- 

 vation, as they are nowhere capped by marine deposits of a later 

 epoch. 



The disappearance of the supposed land between Ireland and 

 Spain, which he tells us was composed of the upheaved bed of the 

 Miocene sea, as well as that of the whole of his supposed vast con- 

 tinent of the same deposits, could only have been effected by subsi- 

 dence. Professor Forbes is, I know, disposed to ascribe a great deal 

 to the action of denudation, and the wearing away of land by the 

 action of the sea, both where the waves beat upon shores, and where 

 currents far below the surface have destructive powers. Without 

 denying the known powerful action of the former force, nor the pos- 

 sible power of the latter, but of which we do not as yet know much 

 for certain, it is contrary to all probability, — it may almost be said to 

 be physically impossible,^ — that such an agency could produce the 

 effects. For how stands the case ? Without referring to the sup- 

 posed land between the region of the Gulf-weed and the old world, 

 let us take that portion only which the author believes to have united 

 Ireland with the north of Spain, and specially with the province of 

 Asturias. The distance is about 560 miles. Now all along the north 

 coast of Spain from Bayonne to Cape Ortegal, there is very deep 

 water near the shore. There is a depth of 80 fathoms within six 

 miles of the land, and it is stated in the French Admiralty Chart, 

 published in 1832, that within twenty-five miles of the land of the 

 Asturias, there were soundings of 220 fathoms without finding the 

 bottom ; and the same depth was found at a distance of 280 miles. 



VOL. Ill, / 



