126 THEORY OF THE FORMATION Ch. V. 



buried under strata many thousand feet in thickness ; 

 we have also every reason for believing that there are 

 now large areas gradually sinking, in the same manner 

 as others are rising. And when we consider how many 

 parts of the surface of the globe have been elevated 

 within recent geological periods, we must admit that 

 there have been subsidences on a corresponding scale, 

 for otherwise the whole globe would have swollen. It 

 is very remarkable that Sir C. Lyell, 1 even in the first 

 edition of his Principles of Greology, inferred that the 

 amount of subsidence in the Pacific must have exceeded 

 that of elevation, from the area of land being very 

 small relatively to the agents there tending to form it, 

 namely, the growth of coral and volcanic action. But, 

 although subsidence may explain a phenomenon other- 

 wise inexplicable, it may be asked, are there any direct 

 proofs of a subsiding movement in these areas? This, 

 however, can hardly be expected, for it must ever be 

 most difficult, excepting in countries long civilized, to 

 detect a movement the tendency of which is to conceal 

 the part affected. In barbarous and semi-civilized 

 nations how long might not a slow movement, even of 

 elevation such as that now affecting Scandinavia, have 

 escaped attention ! 



Mr. Williams 2 insists strongly that the traditions of 

 the natives, which he has taken much pains in collect- 

 ing, do not indicate the appearance of any new islands : 

 but on the theory of a gradual subsidence, all that would 



1 Principles of Geology, sixth edition, vol. iii. p. 386. 



2 Williams's Narrative of Missionary Enterprise, p. 31. 



