ANCIENT LANDS AND SEAS. 



313 



and plants ; which deposits must have been formed in 

 lakes or estuaries, and which therefore, speaking generally, 

 imply the existence in their immediate vicinity of land 

 areas comparable to those which still exist. The Miocene 

 deposits of Central and Western Europe, of Greece, of 

 India, and of China, as well as those of various parts of 

 North America, strikingly prove this ; while the Eocene 

 deposits of London and Paris, of Belgium, and of 

 various parts of North and South America, though often 

 marine, yet by their abundant remains of land-animals 

 and plants, equally indicate the vicinity of extensive 

 continents. For our purpose it is not necessary to go 

 further back than this, but there is much evidence to 

 show that throughout the Secondary, and even some 

 portion of the Palaeozoic periods, the land-areas coincided 

 to a considerable extent with, our existing continents. 

 Professor Eamsay has shown ^ that not only the Wealden 

 formation, and considerable portions of the Upper and 

 Lower Oolite, but also much of the Trias, and the larger 

 part of the Permian, Carboniferous, and Old Eed Sand- 

 stone formations, were almost certainly deposited either 

 in lakes, inland seas, or extensive estuaries. This would 

 prove that, throughout the whole of the vast epochs 

 extending back to the time of the Devonian formation, 

 our present continents have been substantially in ex- 

 istence, subject, no doubt, to vast fluctuations by ex- 

 tension or contraction, and by various degrees of union 

 or separation, but never so completely submerged as to 

 be replaced by oceans comparable in depth with our 

 Atlantic or Pacific. 



^ Nature, 1873, p. 333 ; Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, 1871, 

 pp. 189 and 241. 



