1845.] Diluvial and Wave Translation Theories. 239 



not aware, that the Silurian strata extend in Europe further south 

 than the vicinity of Constantinople. 



Are we to infer that these enormously thick aqueous deposits, 

 abounding in the remains of marine creatures of strange and un- 

 known aspect, since the appearance of which whole generations of 

 others equally strange have replaced them and been obliterated in 

 turn from the face of creation, have existed on the granites and trap 

 of India, but have since been swept off by waves of denudation : or 

 must we suppose, that these old fossiliferous rocks never had existence 

 in Southern India and tropical countries, from the peculiar chemical 

 conditions, or temperature of the seas which then covered them? 

 Or, that the surface of these tropical regions was above the water at the 

 time these deposits were going on in the then warm coral. producing seas 

 around the arctic zone ? 



It may be also advanced, that the hypogene or crystalline rocks, 

 which prevail so much in Southern India, are nothing less than the 

 metamorphic fossiliferous strata of these periods. It must, however, 

 be objected against this theory, that no fossil has ever been found in 

 them, even at great distance from granite or apparent Plutonic action. 



It has already been inferred, from the rarity or absence of the 

 boulder formation in Southern India and other tropical and subtropi- 

 cal countries, that these regions enjoyed a warm climate during the frozen 

 period which M. Agassiz assigns to now temperate climes during the 

 boulder epoch. As there is no evidence of the climate of the former 

 regions during the Silurian period, or of the then chemical condition of 

 thier seas, it will be advisable, until better information be elicited, to 

 refer the absence and the rarity of the older fossiliferous groups of 

 Europe to the hypothesis of partial or entire elevation during such 

 periods. Of denudation there is ample proof in subsequent periods, as 

 before stated. We search in vain (the chalky spots near Pondicherry, 

 Verdachellum, and a few other marine patches— isolated, yet significant 

 monuments — excepted,) for remnants of these former fossiliferous cover- 

 ings. I have not been able to trace a pebble from their detritus in any 

 of the conglomerates, breccias, or gravel beds which now exist on its 

 surface. If such beds ever did occupy the surface, their wreck for the 

 most part must now lie in the bed of the ocean. 



