1856.] CONTINENTAL EXTENSION. 433 



most unwilling to believe in the continental extensions of late 

 authors, I gladly write them, as, without I am convinced of 

 my error, I shall have to give them condensed in my essay, 

 when I discuss single and multiple creation ; I shall therefore 

 be particularly glad to have your general opinion on them. 

 I may quite likely have persuaded myself in my wrath that 

 there is more in them than there is. If there was much more 

 reason to admit a continental extension in any one or two 

 instances (as in Madeira) than in other cases, I should feel no 

 difficulty whatever. But if on account of European plants, 

 and littoral sea shells, it is thought necessary to join Madeira 

 to the mainland, Hooker is quite right to join New Holland 

 to New Zealand, and Auckland Island (and Raoul Island to 

 N. E.), and these to S. America and the Falklands, and these 

 to Tristan d'Acunha, and these to Kerguelen Land ; thus 

 making, either strictly at the same time, or at different 

 periods, but all within the life of recent beings, an almost 

 circumpolar belt of land. So again Galapagos and Juan Fer- 

 nandez must be joined to America ; and if we trust to littoral 

 sea shells, the Galapagos must have been joined to the Pa- 

 cific Islands (2400 miles distant) as well as to America, and 

 as Woodward seems to think all the islands in the Pacific 

 into a magnificent continent ; also the islands in the Southern 

 Indian Ocean into another continent, with Madagascar and 

 Africa, and perhaps India. In the North Atlantic, Europe 

 will stretch half-way across the ocean to the Azores, and 

 further north right across. In short, we must suppose proba- 

 bly, half the present ocean was land within the period of 

 living organisms. The Globe within this period must have 

 had a quite different aspect. Now the only way to test this, 

 that I can see, is to consider whether the continents have un- 

 dergone within this same period such wonderful permuta- 

 tions. In all North and South and Central America, we have 

 both recent and miocene (or eocene) shells, quite distinct on 

 the opposite sides, and hence I cannot doubt that fundament- 

 ally America has held its place since at least, the miocene 

 period. In Africa almost all the living shells are distinct on 

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