TIME AND CHANGE 
and, to account for the forty thousand feet of sedi- 
ment deposited in Paleozoic times in the region 
of the Appalachians, he presupposes a neighboring 
continent to the east, probably formed of Lauren- 
tian rocks, where now rolls the Atlantic. But if 
such a continent once existed, would not some ves- 
tige of it still remain? The fact that no trace of it 
has been found, it seems to me, invalidates Lyell’s 
theory. 
Archean time in geologic history answers to pre- 
historic time in human history; all is dark and uncer- 
tain, though we are probably safe in assuming that 
there was more strife and turmoil among the earth- 
building forces than there has ever been since. The 
body of unstratified rock within the limits of North 
America may have been much greater than is sup- 
posed, but it seems to me impossible that it could 
have been anything like as massive as the continent 
now is. If this had been the case there would have 
been no great interior sea, and no wide sea-margins 
in which the sediments of the stratified rocks could 
have been deposited. More than four fifths of the 
continent is of secondary origin and shows that vast 
geologic eras went to the making of it. 
It is equally hard to believe that the primary or 
igneous rocks, where they did appear, were sufl- 
ciently elevated to have furnished through erosion 
the all but incalculable amount of material that 
went to the making of our vast land areas. But 
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