Although Professor Pickering's theory is to a certain degree anticipated in the above words, still he has worked out the idea much more fully, and given it an additional fascination by connecting it with the birth of the moon. He points out, in fact, that there is a remarkable similarity between the lunar volcanoes and those in the immediate neighbourhood of the Pacific Ocean. He goes even further to suggest that Australia is another portion of the primal crust which was detached out of the region now occupied by the Indian Ocean, where it was originally connected with the south of India or the east of Africa.
Certain objections to the theory have been put forward, one of which is that the parallelism noticed between the opposite shores of the Atlantic is almost too perfect to have remained through some sixty millions of years down to our own day, in the face of all those geological movements of upheaval and submergence, which are perpetually at work upon our globe. Professor Pickering, however, replies to this objection by stating that many geologists believe that the main divisions of land and water on the earth are permanent, and that the geological alterations which have taken place since these were formed have been merely of a temporary and superficial nature.
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE END OF THINGS
We have been trying to picture the beginning of things. We will now try to picture the end.
In attempting this, we find that our theories must of necessity be limited to the earth, or at most to the solar system. The time-honoured expression "End of the World" really applies to very little beyond the end of our own earth. To the people of past ages it, of course, meant very much more. For them, as we have seen, the earth was the centre of everything; and the heavens and all around were merely a kind of minor accompaniment, created, as they no doubt thought, for their especial benefit. In the ancient view, therefore, the beginning of the earth meant the beginning of the universe, and the end of the earth the extinction of all things. The belief, too, was general that this end would be accomplished through fire. In the modern view, however, the birth and death of the earth, or indeed of the solar system, might pass as incidents almost unnoticed in space. They would be but mere links in the chain of cosmic happenings.
A number of theories have been forward from time to time prognosticating the end of the earth, and consequently of human life. We will conclude with a recital of a few of them, though which, if any, is the true one, the Last Men alone can know.