Where the sea now extends, land may at a former period have connected islands or possibly even continents together, and thus have allowed terrestrial productions to pass from one to the other.

No geologist disputes that great mutations of level have occurred within the period of existing organisms.

Edward Forbes insisted that all the islands in the Atlantic must have been recently connected with Europe or Africa, and Europe likewise with America.

Other authors have thus hypothetically bridged over every ocean, and united almost every island with some mainland.

If, indeed, the arguments used by Forbes are to be trusted, it must be admitted that scarcely a single island exists which has not recently been united to some continent.