| → is 1866 1869 |
| beneath the Cambrian system is 1872 |
|
| → If the 1866 |
| If these 1859 1860 1861 |
| It does not seem probable that the 1869 1872 |
|
| → if their fossils had been wholly obliterated 1866 |
| obliterated 1859 1860 1861 |
| that their fossils have been wholly obliterated 1869 1872 |
|
| → we ought to have found 1866 |
| we ought to find 1859 1860 1861 |
| for if this had been the case we should have found 1869 1872 |
|
| → ought to have existed almost always 1866 |
| ought to be very generally 1859 1860 1861 |
| would always have existed 1869 1872 |
|
| → always suffered the extremity of 1860 1861 1866 |
| suffered the extremity of 1859 |
| invariably suffered extreme 1869 |
| suffered extreme 1872 |
|
| ↑ 1 blocks not present in 1859 1860 1861 1866 1869; present in 1872 |
| This same view has since been maintained by Agassiz and others.
|
|
| → truly oceanic island (with the exception of New Zealand, if this can be called a truly oceanic 1866 1869 1872 |
| oceanic 1859 1860 1861 |
|
|
vast piles of strata rich in fossils
→is
very great.
→If the
most ancient beds
been
worn away by denudation, or
→if their fossils had been wholly obliterated
by metamorphic action,
→we ought to have found
only small remnants of the formations next succeeding them in age, and these
→ought to have existed almost always
in a
condition. But the descriptions which we
possess of the Silurian deposits over immense territories in Russia and in North America, do not support the view, that the older a formation is, the more
has
→always suffered the extremity of
denudation and metamorphism. |
|
| The case at present must remain inexplicable; and may be truly urged as a valid argument against the views here entertained. To show that it may hereafter receive some explanation, I will give the following hypothesis. From the nature of the organic
which do not appear to have inhabited profound depths, in the several formations of Europe and of the United States; and from the amount of sediment, miles in thickness, of which the formations are composed, we may infer that from first to last large islands or tracts of land, whence the sediment was derived, occurred in the neighbourhood of the
continents of Europe and North America. ↑
But we do not know what was the state of things in the intervals between the
formations; whether Europe and the United States during these intervals existed as dry land, or as a submarine surface near land, on which sediment was not deposited, or
as the bed of an open and unfathomable sea. |
|
| Looking to the existing oceans, which are thrice as extensive as the land, we see them studded with many islands; but
one
→truly oceanic island (with the exception of New Zealand, if this can be called a truly oceanic
is as yet known to afford even a remnant of any palæozoic or secondary
|
