It seems to me that we have
abundant evidence of great oscillations in the level of the land or sea;
but not of such vast changes in the position and extension of our
continents, as to have united them within the recent period to each other
and to the several intervening oceanic islands. I freely admit the former
existence of many islands, now buried beneath the sea, which may have
served as halting places for plants and for many animals during their
migration. In the coral-producing oceans such sunken islands are now
marked by rings of coral or atolls standing over them. Whenever it is
fully admitted, as it will some day be, that each species has proceeded
from a single birthplace, and when in the course of time we know something
definite about the means of distribution, we shall be enabled to speculate
with security on the former extension of the land. But I do not believe
that it will ever be proved that within the recent period most of our
continents which now stand quite separate, have been continuously, or
almost continuously united with each other, and with the many existing
oceanic islands. Several facts in distribution--such as the great
difference in the marine faunas on the opposite sides of almost every
continent--the close relation of the tertiary inhabitants of several lands
and even seas to their present inhabitants--the degree of affinity between
the mammals inhabiting islands with those of the nearest continent, being
in part determined (as we shall hereafter see) by the depth of the
intervening ocean--these and other such facts are opposed to the admission
of such prodigious geographical revolutions within the recent period, as
are necessary on the view advanced by Forbes and admitted by his followers.
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