THE PERMANENCE OF CONTINENTS. 
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isolated volcanic outbursts. The lines of absolute least resist- 
ance would probably, however, generally coincide with sea- 
margins, and upon coasts, therefore, while we might find a 
tendency to local depression, owing to the littoral sedimentation 
at a few miles from land, there would be inland a far more 
important and preponderating tendency to elevation. 
Thus there would ever be a direct action deepening ocean 
basins where they are deepest, and raising up the shallower 
parts to higher levels, thereby slowly lessening the superficial 
area occupied by seas. On the other hand, the dry land would 
extend in a corresponding degree, and its surface become more 
diversified, for new mountain chains would in succeeding ages 
have a tendency to greater and greater elevation. 
I think all we are able to gather from the records of 
Palaeozoic rocks points to a comparative uniformity in the 
condition of the earth’s surface in remote times, there being 
neither evidence of great depths in the sea, nor of mountainous 
elevations in the land. These conditions, to judge from palae- 
ontological evidence, were increasingly modified during the 
Secondary period, and on to the present day ; so that the theory 
that increasing weight causes increased depth, derives sup- 
port from the G-eological Record. 
