masses of continental magnitude must have occupied the region now covered by the North Atlantic before America began to be, and onward at least through the palaeozoic ages of American history.  The proof of this fact is that the great strata of rocks are thicker the nearer we approach their source in the east:  the maximum thickness of the palaeozoic rocks of the Appalachian formation is 25,000 to 35,000 feet in Pennsylvania and Virginia, while their minimum thickness in Illinois and Missouri is from 3000 to 4000 feet; the rougher and grosser-textured rocks predominate in the east, while the farther west we go the finer the deposits were of which the rocks are composed; the finer materials were carried farther west by the water.” ("New Amer.  Cyclop.,” art.  Coal.)

Destructionof Pompeii

The history of the growth of the European Continent, as recounted by Professor Geikie, gives an instructive illustration of the relations of geology to geography.  The earliest European land, he says, appears to have existed in the north and north-west, comprising Scandinavia, Finland, and the northwest of the British area, and to have extended thence through boreal and arctic latitudes into North America.  Of the height and mass of this primeval land some idea may be formed by considering the enormous bulk of the material derived from its disintegration.  In the Silurian formations of the British Islands alone there is a mass of rock, worn from the land, which would form a mountain-chain extending from Marseilles to the North Cape (1800 miles), with a mean breadth of over thirty-three miles, and an average height of 16,000 feet.

As the great continent which stood where the Atlantic Ocean now is wore away, the continents of America and Europe were formed; and there seems to have been from remote times a continuous rising, still going on, of the new lands, and a sinking of the old ones.  Within five thousand years, or since the age of the “polished stone,” the shores of Sweden, Denmark, and Norway have risen from 200 to 600 feet.

Professor Winchell says ("The Preadamites,” p. 437): 

“We are in the midst of great, changes, and are scarcely conscious of it.  We have seen worlds in flames, and have felt a cornet strike the earth.  We have seen the whole coast of South America lifted up bodily ten or fifteen feet and let down again in an hour.  We have seen the Andes sink 220 feet in seventy years. . .  Vast transpositions have taken place in the coast-line of China.  The ancient capital, located, in all probability, in an accessible position near the centre of the empire, has now become nearly surrounded by water, and its site is on the peninsula of Corea. . . .  There was a time when the rocky barriers of the Thracian Bosphorus gave way and the Black Sea subsided.  It had covered a vast area in the north and east.  Now this area became drained, and was known as the ancient Lectonia:  it is now the prairie region of Russia, and the granary of Europe.”