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On the Translation of Myths Between the Old And: Palæozoic

The former, in that chapter of island life devoted to the permanence of continents, dwells forcibly upon Dr. Darwin's inference from the paucity of oceanic islands affording fragments of either Palæozoic or Secondary formations that perhaps during the Palæozoic and Secondary periods neither continents nor continental islands existed where our oceans now extend; for, had they existed, Palæozoic and Secondary formations would in all probability have been accumulated from sediment derived from their wear and tear; and these would have been at least partially upheaved by the oscillations of level which must have intervened during these enormously long periods. If, then, we may infer anything from these facts, we may infer that, where our oceans now extend, oceans have extended from the remotest period of which we * Principles of Geology, chap. xii.

OLD AND NEW WORLD MYTHS. have any record; and, on the other hand, that where continents now exist, large tracts of land have existed, subjected no doubt to great oscillations of level, since the Cambrian period."