rks with reference to these now submerged
lands.

The Lost Lemuria.

It is generally recognised by science that what is now dry land, on
the surface of our globe, was once the ocean floor, and that what is
now the ocean floor was once dry land. Geologists have in some cases
been able to specify the exact portions of the earth's surface where
these subsidences and upheavals have taken place, and although the
lost continent of Atlantis has so far received scant recognition from
the world of science, the general concensus of opinion has for long
pointed to the existence, at some prehistoric time, of a vast southern
continent to which the name of Lemuria has been assigned.

[Sidenote: Evidence supplied by Geology and by the relative
distribution of living and extinct Animals and Plants.]

"The history of the earth's development shows us that the distribution
of land and water on its surface is ever and continually changing. In
consequence of geological changes of the earth's crust, _elevations_
and _depressions_ of the ground take place everywhere, sometimes more
strongly marked in one place, sometimes in another. Even if they
happen so slowly that in the course of centuries the seashore rises or
sinks only a few inches, or even only a few lines, still they
nevertheless effect great results in the course of long periods of
time. And long--immeasurably long--periods of time have not been
wanting in the earth's history. During the course of many millions of
years, ever since organic life existed on the earth, land and water
have perpetually struggled for supremacy. Continents and islands have
sunk into the sea, and new ones have arisen out of its bosom. Lakes
and seas have been slowly raised and dried up, and new water basins
have arisen by the sinking of the ground. Peninsulas have become
islands by the narrow neck of land which connected them with the
mainland sinking into the water. The islands of an archipelago have
become the peaks of a continuous chain of mountains by the whole floor
of their sea being considerably raised.

"Thus the Mediterranean at one time was an inland sea, when in the
place of the Straits of Gibraltar, an isthmus connected Africa with
Spain. England even during the more recent history of the earth, when
man already existed, has repeatedly been connected with the European
continent and been repeatedly separated from it. Nay, even Europe and
North America have been directly connected. T