With this view, let us now turn our attention to the north-west coast of Europe, in consulting the general as well as the most particular maps. Upon the one extremity of Britain, we find Cornwall separating it as it were from the main land; and, from this promontory, the Scilly Isles pointing out what had been destroyed in that direction, which is here to be considered as the line of greatest resistance. But what a quantity of the soft materials, or less resisting parts on either side, has been destroyed! Upon the other extremity of Britain, we find the country of Scotland, forming itself into promontories and islands, and those islands and rocks pointing out to us what had been the former extent of our continent and land around. But, in following this connection of things, we cannot refuse to acknowledge that Ireland had formerly been in one mass of land with Britain, in like manner as the Orkneys had been with Scotland[16]. [Footnote 16: I have the most satisfactory evidence of this fact, in finding the schistus of Galloway and of England in the opposite coast of Ireland, corresponding to its direction in stretching from the coasts of Britain.] It will be still less possible to refuse the junction of England with the continent of France; the testimony of that peculiar body of chalk and flint, which borders each of those opposite coasts, forms an argument which is irrefragable. Now, in order to complete our continent, we have only to connect the Shetland islands with the coast of Norway. But this is a notion which, however probable it may appear, is not proposed as a fact immediately supported by natural appearances; it is only to be considered as an enlarged view in which we may contemplate the operations of this earth upon a more extended scale; one which may be conceived as a step in our cosmogeny, and one which, while it illustrates the theory of the earth already given, is by no means required in order to confirm a theory founded upon appearances which leave no manner of doubt. CHAP. IX. _The Theory Illustrated, with a View of the Summits of the Alps._ There are two different directions in which we may observe the destruction of our land to proceed; in the one of these, the basis of our continent is diminished by the incroachment of the sea; in the other, again, it is the height of the land above the level of the sea that is lowered. We have been considering the incroachment of the sea upon the continent; let us now examine how far there may also appear sufficient documents, by which we may be led to conclude a long progress in time past, for the destruction of the solid mass of earth above the sea, without diminishing its basis.