I fully agree with Mr. Godwin-Austen, that
the present condition of the Malay Archipelago, with its numerous
large islands separated by wide and shallow seas, probably represents
the former state of Europe, when most of our formations were
accumulating. The Malay Archipelago is one of the richest regions of
the whole world in organic beings; yet if all the species were to be
collected which have ever lived there, how imperfectly would they
represent the natural history of the world!
But we have every reason to believe that the terrestrial productions
of the archipelago would be preserved in an excessively imperfect
manner in the formations which we suppose to be there accumulating. I
suspect that not many of the strictly littoral animals, or of those
which lived on naked submarine rocks, would be embedded; and those
embedded in gravel or sand, would not endure to a distant epoch.
Wherever sediment did not accumulate on the bed of the sea, or where
it did not accumulate at a sufficient rate to protect organic bodies
from decay, no remains could be preserved.
In our archipelago, I believe that fossiliferous formations could be
formed of sufficient thickness to last to an age, as distant in
futurity as the secondary formations lie in the past, only during
periods of subsidence. These periods of subsidence would be separated
from each other by enormous intervals, during which the area would be
either stationary or rising; whilst rising, each fossiliferous
formation would be destroyed, almost as soon as accumulated, by the
incessant coast-action, as we now see on the shores of South America.
Pages:
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364