GEOLOGICAL FEATURES OF OUR GLOBE. 
479 
surrounding lands and the labour of the coral insects. If, 
however, the theory broached of mountain ranges gradually 
subsiding be correct, and that by volcanic agency, lands 
are at the same time elevated or depressed in planes, 
then wherever there is a subsidence at the western end, 
there will be a corresponding elevation at the eastern with 
whatever accumulations may have been formed upon it ; 
the weight of superimposed accumulations is as nothing 
compared with the upheaving power below. This seems to 
be proved by the central plains of Australia, which at no 
distant period were inland seas, they have arisen as the 
western ranges sank, and, doubtless, will still continue to do 
so, this is also borne out by the upheaving of coral reefs. 
In 1855 several portions of Hew Zealand were elevated, 
but others correspondingly sunk, this was the case in Queen 
Charlotte's sound, and in the Wairau valley, these planes of 
elevation and depression, however, were of small extent. 
But the grand Hew Zealand mountain range appears to be 
sinking, this, therefore, would lead to the conclusion that the 
South Pacific is rising. 
It may likewise be said that all elevations of land are 
unnatural, according to the constitution of our globe ; that the 
disproportion of pressure and resistance arises from foreign 
causes acting on the atmospheric ocean, and destroying 
its just resistance to that internal pressure, that it is agree- 
able with the law of nature to try and restore what is more 
consonant with its true system, thus it is to be observed, 
although during one period internal powers may cause the 
elevation of lands by the aid of the earth's diurnal motion, 
and the disarrangement of atmospheric pressure, still, when 
those elevations have attained their maximum, then the 
natural law would tend to a gradual return to original con- 
ditions. 
Perhaps the most interesting feature of these mountain 
lines is their being made the means of preserving the animal 
and vegetable life of that epoch to which they belong, and 
wherever those lines have been broken up into islands they 
have retained their ancient conditions unmixed with later 
