All these puzzling features unite to render the subject of historical geology anything but the simple matter the fathers of the science esteemed it. No one would now attempt to trace the exact sequence of formation of all the mountains of the globe, as Elie de Beaumont did a half-century ago. Even within the limits of a single continent, the geologist must proceed with much caution in attempting to chronicle the order in which its various parts rose from the matrix of the sea. The key to this story is found in the identification of the strata that are the surface feature in each territory. If Devonian rocks are at the surface in any given region, for example, it would appear that this region became a land surface in the Devonian age, or just afterwards. But a moment's consideration shows that there is an element of uncertainty about this, due to the steady denudation that all land surfaces undergo. The Devonian rocks may lie at the surface simply because the thousands of feet of carboniferous strata that once lay above them have been worn away. All that the cautious geologist dare assert, therefore, is that the region in question did not become permanent land surface earlier than the Devonian age. But to know even this is much--sufficient, indeed, to establish the chronological order of elevation, if not its exact period, for all parts of any continent that have been geologically explored--understanding always that there must be no scrupling about a latitude of a few millions or perhaps tens of millions of years here and there. Regarding our own continent, for example, we learn through the researches of a multitude of workers that in the early day it was a mere archipelago. Its chief island--the backbone of the future continent--was a great V-shaped area surrounding what is now Hudson Bay, an area built tip, perhaps, through denudation of a yet more ancient polar continent, whose existence is only conjectured. To the southeast an island that is now the Adirondack Mountains, and another that is now the Jersey Highlands rose above the waste of waters, and far to the south stretched probably a line of islands now represented by the Blue Ridge Mountains. Far off to the westward another line of islands foreshadowed our present Pacific border. A few minor islands in the interior completed the archipelago.