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.

This view cuts the Gordian knot of the dispersal of the same species to the most distant points, and removes many a difficulty; but to the best of my judgment we are not authorized in admitting such enormous geographical changes within the period of existing species.

It seems to me that we have abundant evidence of great oscillations in the level of the land or sea; but not of such vast changes in the position and extension of our continents, as to have united them within the recent period to each other and to the several intervening oceanic islands.