chap, vi.] GEOGRAPHICAL AND GEOLOGICAL CHANGES. 
95 
totally distinct series of facts. In almost every period of geology, 
and in all the continents which have been well examined, there 
are found lacustrine, estuarine, or shore deposits, containing the 
remains of land animals or plants, thus demonstrating the con- 
tinuous existence of extensive land areas on or adjoining the 
sites of our present continents. Beginning with the Miocene, 
or Middle Tertiary period, we have such deposits with remains 
of land-animals, or plants, in Devonshire and Scotland, in 
France, Switzerland, Germany, Croatia, Vienna, Greece, North 
India, Central India, Burmah, North America, both east and 
west of the Rocky Mountains, Greenland, and other parts of 
the Arctic regions. In the older Eocene period similar forma- 
tions are widely spread in the south of England, in France, and 
to an enormous extent on the central plateau of North America ; 
while in the eastern states, from Maryland to Alabama, there 
are extensive marine deposits of the same age, which, from the 
abundance of fossil remains of a large cetacean (Zeuglodon), 
must have been formed in shallow gulfs or estuaries where 
these huge animals were stranded. Going back to the Creta- 
ceous formation we have the same indications of persisting lands 
in the rich plant-beds of Aix-la-Chapelle, and a few other locali- 
ties on the continent, as well as in coniferous fruits from the 
Gault of Folkestone ; while in North America cretaceous plant- 
beds occur in New Jersey, Alabama, Kansas, the sources of the 
Missouri, the Rocky Mountains from New Mexico to the Arctic 
Ocean, Alaska (British Columbia), California, and in Greenland 
and Spitzbergen ; while birds and land reptiles are found in 
the Cretaceous deposits of Colorado and other western districts. 
Fresh-water deposits of this age are also found on the coast 
of Brazil. In the lower part of this formation we have the 
fresh-water Wealden deposits of England, extending into France, 
Hanover, and Westphalia. In the older Oolite or Jurassic 
formation we have abundant proofs of continental conditions in 
the fresh-water and “dirt ’’-beds of the Purbecks, in the south 
of England, with plants, insects and mammals; the Bavarian 
lithographic stone, with fossil birds and insects ; the earlier 
“forest marble” of Wiltshire, with ripple-marks, wood, and 
broken shells, indicative of an extensive beach; the Stones- 
