Land-tracts during the Secondary and Tertiary Periods. 279 



to have been. Now, the shores of these two seas or gulfs are 

 the hottest of those of any seas on the globe, although the half 

 of the former and the whole of the latter are extra-tropical. Let 

 us conceive the numruulitic gulf thus extending from its mouth 

 open to the tropical ocean at some point, how far east we have 

 not yet materials to decide, but beyond the region of the Aral 

 Sea, to its head in England and Belgium, and we may realize 

 the effect which would result from that configuration. Not only 

 would the tropical waters have free access and be closed by 

 land from the contact of cold currents from the north, but the 

 shores of this sea would be heated by the accumulation of land 

 surrounding the greater part of it*, while at places on its shore 

 the rivers which formed the deposits of the English and French 

 and other eocene formations had their deltas, the more open 

 portions of the sea furnishing the nummulitic deposits. 



The view taken, that this formation of continent in the oppo- 

 site direction to that theretofore prevailing commenced in the 

 closing epoch of the secondary period contemporaneously with 

 the first outbursts of the east and west bands which have go- 

 verned the alignement during the post-cretaceous period (that is 

 to say, with the band of the P}a'enees), seems supported by the 

 greater approximation between the faunas of the eastern and 

 western extremities of the Europeo-Asiatic continent which the 

 newer cretaceous beds afford over those of the older and of the 

 Jurassic deposits. The late Edward Forbes first remarked this 

 in the comparison of the fossils from the cretaceous deposits of 

 Verdachellam and Trinconopoly f, since which M. d'Archiac J 

 has found in the fossils of the uppermost cretaceous beds of 

 Bains de Rennes, in the Pyrenees, a few species closely resem- 

 bling forms described by Mr. Forbes from these Indian beds ; 

 and M. Abich also gives several upper-cretaceous forms from the 

 Caucasus identical with, or closely resembling, species described 

 from the cretaceous beds of England and France. 



The remarks of Mr. Forbes on the fossils from Southern India 

 are so germane to the views discussed in this section, and indeed 

 lend so much support to them, that I am tempted by the weight 

 always attached to the opinions of that deceased naturalist, to 

 subjoin the following extract : — " Considered in regard to the 



* The northern shore I have attempted to describe ; the southern shore 

 would be the peninsula of Southern India, where nummulitic or other 

 marine eocene deposits do not occur, and probably Central Africa (which 

 I have, in Section 2, referred to as land probably formed at the commence- 

 ment of the secondary period), and that region, now sea, referred to in 

 Section 4, containing the islands of Mauritius, &c, in which birds of the 

 secondary continent have been preserved. 



t Proc. Geol. Soc. vol. iv. p. 326. 



X Bull. vol. xi. p. 202; see also his remarks, p. 204. 



