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POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
We are all familiar with that favourite speculation among 
geologists as to the existence of the former continent of Atlantis. 
Geologists, zoologists, and botanists have frequently discussed 
the question; and each time, as fresh discoveries and information 
have been brought to bear, with more and more weight. The 
discovery that throughout the whole Eocene period a vast river 
flowed from the westward, from an area which would now sup- 
port but comparatively small streams, together with the multi- 
tude and variety of the flora and fauna brought down by it, and 
the former total severance of the North Sea from the Bay of 
Biscay, reduce from theory to fact, and in the most positive 
manner, the assumption that a great extension of land then 
existed to the west of Cornwall. The extraordinary mingling 
of American, Asiatic, Australian, and African genera in all 
European floras of Tertiary periods shows no less conclusively 
that some communication existed between these several lands 
in former times. In the main, however, I believe the great 
area of the Atlantic to have been ocean ever since Cretaceous 
times. We have, in all the Eocene deposits, evidence only of 
littoral and shallow seas ; the Eocene oceanic deposits are un- 
known, and if ever brought to the surface have again sunk. It 
is more than probable that most of what was then ocean is, in 
the main, ocean now; and that vast deposits, similar in extent to 
the Chalk and older rocks, have been, and are now, uninter- 
ruptedly forming. While, however, the wider extent, and per- 
haps the greater depths, have remained ocean, it is certain that 
at least the areas contiguous to both America and Europe have 
been land at no distant date. The contour map of the “ Chal- 
lenger ” and other soundings reveal the presence of a great ridge 
less than 1,000 fathoms deep, running in a zig-zag direction 
north and south, coming to the surface at the Azores, St. Paul’s 
Rocks, at Ascension, and at Tristan d’Acunha ; and soundings 
taken by the United States sloop “ Gettysburg ” tend to show 
that the island of Madeira is also connected with this ridge. An 
elevation of less than 1 ,000 fathoms would unite England and 
Ireland, and extend the land far to the west, 10 degrees beyond 
Cornwall, producing a surface sufficient to account for all the 
results we see. An elevation of 2,000 fathoms would give 
us a continent whose outline can be traced, with elevations 
12,000 feet high, and a ridge with a mean height of 6,000 
feet, stretching across the equator. If we suppose the depths 
of the Atlantic on each side of the ridge to have been dry 
land and former valleys, and there is no inherent impossibility 
in this supposition, the ridge itself would have an elevation 
of 1 5,000 feet, whilst the Ascension, St. Paul, and other peaks 
would tower to a height of 30,000 feet. We should thus have 
a chain of mountains above the snow level stretching from an 
