30 Missing Chapters of Geological History. 



consists of coral reefs built on a descending sea-bottom ; the 

 newer part was certainly formed near land under circum- 

 stances highly favourable, not only to the rapid and abundant 

 growth of vegetation, but also to its equally rapid accumula- 

 tion in numerous and recurring strata afterwards converted 

 into coal. 



But amongst and between the deposits thus characterized, 

 there are huge lacunae, marking intervals as numerous as they 

 must have been vast. The Palaeozoic rocks were thus, as far 

 as we can judge, much longer in their preparation than the 

 Secondary. Perhaps it would be safe to estimate that they 

 occupied as much time for one division as did all the Secondary 

 rocks together. And then the Secondary rocks, large in extent 

 and thickness compared with the Tertiary in England, are very 

 much surpassed by the latter in many parts of the Continent. 

 It is evident that with us they have been much denuded. It may 

 well be that the interval between any two of the ten physical 

 breaks between the older Silurians and the Permian represents 

 as much time as the whole of the Secondary period, from the 

 New Red Sandstone to the Chalk; while, on the other hand, one 

 sub-division of the Secondary series needed, perhaps, as much 

 time to elaborate as the whole of those great Tertiary accumula- 

 tions that so abound in the South of Europe, where a single bed 

 of limestone is more prominent than all the Silurian rocks of 

 the Continent. 



Such is the result of a consideration of the great subject of 

 the physical breaks of strata ; such, in very broad outline, is 

 the foundation for the doctrine that there are missing chapters 

 throughout the great geological history ; and that of these the 

 •longest, and the most numerous, and perhaps not the least 

 eventful, are those that once recorded the earlier events. What 

 we miss we can, of course, only very imperfectly guess at. We 

 can probably never hope to replace even a small part of what is 

 lost by any observations, however minute and careful, on the 

 geology of other parts of the world. Some chapters, no doubt, 

 we do thus replace ; but we know tha.t they also are imperfect. 

 Gaps and breaks occur everywhere ; and the geological record 

 will be sadly torn and imperfect, even when all has been done 

 that can be done to restore the missing portions. 



