272 Mr. S. V. Wood on the Form and Distribution of the 



portant and marked of which may be considered as parts of oik; 

 large band, winch extends from the Western Isles, with a vary- 

 ing breadth of from 10 to 20 degrees of latitude, through the 

 Mediterranean, Black, and Caspian Seas, and is continued through 

 Southern Asia, under the form of intense earthquake action, down 

 to the head of the Bay of Bengal, and thence in its most active form 

 through the Indian Archipelago to the centre of the South Pacific*, 

 The general conformity in direction of the great tertiary moun- 

 tain systems of Europe and Asia with that of this great volcanic 

 band forms a striking coincidence. The reports of geologists 

 upon most of the mountain systems of Europe and Asia show, 

 with considerable precision, the part which these systems have 

 played in the formation of the present Europeo-Asiatic continent. 

 I have in the introductory section alluded to the way in which 

 the elevatory forces have been exerted in foci, forming volcanic 

 bands and afterwards mountain chains, contorting violently the 

 strata within a limited area only, but desiccating over great areas 

 the pre-existing sea-bottom ; thus it seems to have been with 

 the bed of the cretaceous ocean, at least in Europe and Asia. 

 Over the whole of Southern Europe and South-Western Asia 

 the sections published show, with the exception of the Carpa- 

 thians (where Sir R. Murchison has described the nummulitic 

 deposits as resting unconformably upon the secondary beds), 

 that the older tertiary and secondary formations, although thrown 

 into the greatest disorder in the mountain chains, in some by 

 older, but in most by middle and newer tertiary volcanic action, 

 have a general conformability to each other. This, coupled with 

 the well-known hiatus which exists between the fauna of the cre- 

 taceous and that of the older tertiary periods, justifies, I think, 

 the conclusion that over the whole of this area the bed of the cre- 

 taceous sea must have been desiccated by the effect of elevatory 

 forces having their foci separated by a wide interval, and the whole 

 sea-bed (in order to have preserved its horizontality up to the time 

 when it was again submerged to form the basin of the tertiary sea) 

 have been formed into a continent unmarked by any consider- 

 able irregularity of surface. If the view advanced in the introduc- 

 tory section, as to the cause of the contiguity of the sea to volcanic 

 foci, be well founded, this undisturbed condition of the desiccated 

 bed of the cretaceous sea, coexisting with a gap in the geological 

 succession of very great duration, is what we should a priori 

 expect to find, by reason that, the volcanic bands of the period 

 being remote from the area in question, an undisturbed perma- 

 nence of level was permitted ; and this level being that of dry 

 land, we should find no formations until the area was again sub- 

 jected to the direct action of the volcanic bands, and with that 

 * See Mallet, ' Reports of British Association,' 1852 to 1858. 



