"W. Scott-Elliot - Atlantis" - читать интересную книгу автора (Elliot W Scott)

archaic flood-legends.
Deep-Sea Soundings
In the first place, then, the testimony of the deep-sea soundings may be
summarized in a few words. Thanks chiefly to the expeditions of the British and
American gun boats, "Challenger" and "Dolphin" (though Germany also was
associated in this scientific exploration) the bed of the whole Atlantic Ocean
is now mapped out, with the result that an immense bank or ridge of great
elevation is shown to exist in mid-Atlantic. This ridge stretches in a
southwesterly direction from about fifty degrees north towards the coast of
South America, then in a south-easterly direction towards the coast of Africa,
changing its direction again about Ascension Island, and running due south to
Tristan d'Acunha. The ridge rises almost sheer about 9,000 feet from the ocean
depths around it, while the Azores, St. Paul, Ascension, and Tristan d'Acunha
are the peaks of this land which still remain above water. A line of 3,500
fathoms, or say 21,000 feet, is required to sound the deepest parts of the
Atlantic, but the higher parts of the ridge are only a hundred to a few hundred
fathoms beneath the sea.
The soundings too showed that the ridge is covered with volcanic dйbris of which
traces are to be found right across the ocean to the American coasts. Indeed the
fact that the ocean bed, particularly about the Azores, has been the scene of
volcanic disturbance on a gigantic scale, and that too within a quite measurable
period of geologic time, is conclusively proved by the investigations made
during the above-named expeditions.
Mr. Starkie Gardner is of opinion that in the Eocene times the British Islands
formed part of a larger island or continent stretching into the Atlantic, and
"that a great tract of land formerly existed where the sea now is, and that
Cornwall, the Scilly and Channel Islands, Ireland and Brittany are the remains
of its highest summits."[1]
Distribution of Fauna and Flora
The proved existence on continents separated by great oceans of similar or
identical species of fauna and flora is the standing puzzle to biologists and
botanists alike. But if a link between these continents once existed allowing
for the natural migration of such animals and plants, the puzzle is solved. Now
the fossil remains of the camel are found in India, Africa, South America and
Kansas: but it is one of the generally accepted hypotheses of naturalists that
every species of animal and plant originated in but one part of the globe, from
which centre it gradually overran the other portions. How then can the facts of
such fossil remains be accounted for without the existence of land communication
in some remote age? Recent discoveries in the fossil beds of Nebraska seem also
to prove that the horse
[1. Pop. Sc. Review, July, 1878.]
originated in the Western Hemisphere, for that is the only part of the world
where fossil remains have been discovered, showing the various intermediate
forms which have been identified as the precursors of the true horse. It would
therefore be difficult to account for the presence of the horse in Europe except
on the hypothesis of continuous land communication between the two continents,
seeing that it is certain that the horse existed in a wild state in Europe and
Asia before his domestication by man, which may be traced back almost to the
stone age. Cattle and sheep as we now know them have an equally remote ancestry.
Darwin finds domesticated cattle in Europe in the earliest part of the stone