I.—On the Permanence of Continents and Ocean-Basins, with Special Reference to the Formation and Development of the North American Continent

Abstract

Under the influence, perhaps, of the prevailing idea of evolution in all things, the conviction has been growing in the minds of geologists in recent times that the larger features of the earth's surface have grown from the earliest times, and therefore that the places of the continents and ocean-basins have been substantially permanent. Prof. Dana is largely the originator and expounder of this view, and he has applied it with great skill to the American continent. But while I believe the view is substantially true, I cannot but think that it may be, and has been, pushed too far. It is true indeed that the opponents of the view have attributed to its advocates a strictness in the use of the term ‘permanent’ which they have never urged. It is true that by permanence is meant only permanence of place, not of outline, and that substantial permanence is not inconsistent with very large changes by oscillation, especially at the end of the great Eras. But, making every allowance for such latitude of meaning, there has been, undoubtedly, some confusion of thought and looseness of statement on this subject. We give a few examples.