Island Life; Or, The Phenomena and Causes of Insular Faunas and Floras. Alfred Russel Wallace
not remember the recent and long-continued warm climates of the Arctic regions, and see that a connection of Northern Europe by Iceland with Greenland and Labrador over a sea far less than a thousand fathoms deep would furnish the "littoral continuity" required. Again, in the same pamphlet Mr. Reade says:—"It can be mathematically demonstrated that the whole, or nearly the whole, of the sea-bottom has been at one time or other dry land. If it were not so, and the oscillations, of the level of the land with respect to the sea were confined within limits near the present continents, the results would have been a gradual diminution instead of development of the calcareous rocks. To state the case in common language, the calcareous portion of the rocks would have been washed out during the mutations, the destruction and redeposit of the continental rocks, and eventually deposited in the depths of the immutable sea far from land. Immense beds of limestone would now exist at the bottom of the ocean, while the land would be composed of sandstones and argillaceous shales. The evidence of chemistry thus confirms the inductions drawn from the distribution of animal life upon the globe."
So far from this being a "mathematical demonstration," it appears to me to be a complete misinterpretation of the facts. Animals did not create the lime which they secrete from the sea-water, and therefore we have every reason to believe that the inorganic sources which originally supplied it still keep up that supply, though perhaps in diminished quantity. Again, the great lime-secreters—corals—work in water of moderate depth, that is, near land, while there is no proof whatever that there is any considerable accumulation of limestone at the bottom of the deep ocean. On the contrary, the fact ascertained by the Challenger, that beyond a certain depth the "calcareous" ooze ceases, and is replaced by red and grey clays, although the calcareous organisms still abound in the surface waters of the ocean, shows that the lime is dissolved again by the excess of carbonic acid usually found at great depths, and its accumulation thus prevented. As to the increase of limestones in recent as compared with older formations, it may be readily explained by two considerations: in the first place, the growth and development of the land in longer and more complex shore lines and the increase of sedimentary over volcanic formations may have offered more stations favourable to the growth of coral; while the solubility of limestone in rain-water renders the destruction of such rocks more rapid than that of sandstones and shales, and would thus, by supplying more calcareous matter in solution for secretion by limestone-forming organisms, lead to their comparative abundance in later as compared with earlier formations.
However weak we may consider the above-quoted arguments against the permanence of oceans, the fact that these arguments are so confidently and authoritatively put forward, renders it advisable to show how many and what weighty considerations can be adduced to justify the opposite belief, which is now rapidly gaining ground among students of earth-history.
Shore Deposits and Stratified Rocks.—If we go round the shores of any of our continents we shall almost always find a considerable belt of shallow water, meaning thereby water from 100 to 150 fathoms deep. The distance from the coast line at which such depths are reached is seldom less than twenty miles, and is very frequently more than a hundred, while in some cases such shallow seas extend several hundred miles from existing continents. The great depth of a thousand fathoms is often reached at thirty miles from shore, but more frequently at about sixty or a hundred miles. Round the entire African coast for example, this depth is reached at distances varying from forty to a hundred and fifty miles (except in the Red Sea and the Straits of Mozambique), the average being about eighty miles.
Now the numerous specimens of sea-bottoms collected during the voyage of the Challenger show that true shore-deposits—that is, materials denuded from the land and carried down as sediment by rivers—are almost always confined within a distance of 50 or 100 miles of the coast, the finest mud only being sometimes carried 150 or rarely 200 miles. As the sediment varies in coarseness and density it is evident that it will sink to the bottom at unequal distances, the bulk of it sinking comparatively near shore, while only the very finest and almost impalpable mud will be carried out to the furthest limits. Beyond these limits the only deposits (with few exceptions) are organic, consisting of the shells of minute calcareous or siliceous organisms with some decomposed pumice and volcanic dust which floats out to mid-ocean. It follows, therefore, that by far the larger part of all stratified deposits, especially those which consist of sand or pebbles or any visible fragments of rock, must have been formed within 50 or 100 miles of then existing continents, or if at a greater distance, in shallow inland seas receiving deposits from more sides than one, or in certain exceptional areas where deep ocean currents carry the débris of land to greater distances.18
If we now examine the stratified rocks found in the very centre of all our great continents, we find them to consist of sandstones, limestones, conglomerates, or shales, which must, as we have seen, have been deposited within a comparatively short distance of a sea-shore. Sir Archibald Geikie says:—"Among the thickest masses of sedimentary rock—those of the ancient Palæozoic systems—no features recur more continually than the alternations of different sediments, and the recurrence of surfaces covered with well-preserved ripple-marks, trails and burrows of annelides, polygonal and irregular desiccation marks, like the cracks at the bottom of a sun-dried muddy pool. These phenomena unequivocally point to shallow and even littoral waters. They occur from bottom to top of formations, which reach a thickness of several thousand feet. They can be interpreted only in one way, viz., that the formations in question began to be laid down in shallow water; that during their formation the area of deposit gradually subsided for thousands of feet; yet that the rate of accumulation of sediment kept pace on the whole with this depression; and hence that the original shallow-water character of the deposits remained, even after the original sea-bottom had been buried under a vast mass of sedimentary matter." He goes on to say, that this general statement applies to the more recent as well as to the more ancient formations, and concludes—"In short, the more attentively the stratified rocks of the earth are studied, the more striking becomes the absence of any formations among them, which can legitimately be considered those of a deep sea. They have all been deposited in comparatively shallow water."19
The arrangement and succession of the stratified rocks also indicate the mode and place of their formation. We find them stretching across the country in one general direction, in belts of no great width though often of immense length, just as we should expect in shore deposits; and they often thin out and change from coarse to fine in a definite manner, indicating the position of the adjacent land from the débris of which they were originally formed. Again quoting Sir Archibald Geikie:—"The materials carried down to the sea would arrange themselves then as they do still, the coarser portions nearest the shore, the finer silt and mud furthest from it. From the earliest geological times the great area of deposit has been, as it still is, the marginal belt of sea-floor skirting the land. It is there that nature has always strewn the dust of continents to be."
The Movements of Continents.—As we find these stratified rocks of different periods spread over almost the whole surface of existing continents where not occupied by igneous or metamorphic rocks, it follows that at one period or another each part of the continent has been under the sea, but at the same time not far from the shore. Geologists now recognise two kinds of movements by which the deposits so formed have been elevated into dry land—in the one case the strata remain almost level and undisturbed, in the other they are contorted and crumpled, often to an enormous extent. The former often prevails in plains and plateaus, while the latter is almost always found in the great mountain ranges. We are thus led to picture the land of the globe as a flexible area in a state of slow but incessant change; the changes consisting of low undulations which creep over the surface so as to elevate and depress limited portions in succession without perceptibly affecting their nearly horizontal position; and also of intense lateral compression, supposed to be produced by partial subsidence along certain lines of weakness in the earth's crust, the effect of which is to crumple the strata and force up certain areas in great contorted masses, which, when carved out by subaërial denudation into peaks and valleys, constitute our great mountain systems.20 In this way every part of a continent may again and again have sunk beneath the sea, and yet as a whole may never have ceased to exist as a continent or a vast continental archipelago. And, as subsidence will always
In his
"The materials in suspension appear to be almost entirely deposited within 200 miles of the land." (
Professor Dana was, I believe, the first to point out that the regions which, after long undergoing subsidence and accumulating vast piles of sedimentary deposit have been elevated into mountain ranges, thereby become stiff and unyielding, and that the next depression and subsequent upheaval will be situated on one or the other sides of it; and he has shown that, in North America, this is the case with all the mountains of the successive geological formations. Thus, depressions, and elevations of extreme slowness but often of vast amount, have occurred successively in restricted adjacent areas; and the effect has been to bring each portion in succession beneath the ocean but always bordered on one or both sides by the remainder of the continent, from the denudation of which the deposits are formed which, on the subsequent upheaval, become mountain ranges. (