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There remain to be considered a small array of undersurface insular items which seem germane to our inquiry. Sir John Murray tells us that:

Another remarkable feature of the North Atlantic is the series of submerged cones or oceanic shoals made known off the northwest coast of Africa between the Canary Islands and the Spanish peninsula, of which we may mention: the “Coral Patch” in lat. 34° 57′ N., long. 11° 57′ W., covered by 302 fathoms; the “Dacia Bank” in lat. 31° 9′ N., long. 13° 34′ W., covered by 47 fathoms; the “Seine Bank” in lat. 33° 47′ N., long. 14° 1′ W., covered by 81 fathoms; the “Concepcion Bank” in lat. 30° N. and long. 13° W., covered by 88 fathoms; the “Josephine Bank” in lat. 37° N., long. 14° W., covered by 82 fathoms; the “Gettysburg Bank” in lat. 36° N., long. 12 W., covered by 34 fathoms.29

All of these subaqueous mountain-top lands or hidden elevated plateaus are conspicuously nearer the ocean surface than the real depths of the sea—so much nearer that they inevitably raise the suspicion of having been above that surface within the knowledge and memory of man. It is notorious that coasts rise and fall all over the world in what may be called the normal non-spasmodic action of the strata, and sometimes the movement in one direction—upward or downward—seems to have persisted through many centuries. If we assume that Gettysburg Bank has been continuously descending at the not extravagant rate of two feet in a century, then it was a considerable island above water about the period dealt with by the priests of Sais. Apparently the rising of Labrador and Newfoundland since the last recession and dispersion of the great ice sheet has been even more. Here the elements of exact comparison in time and conditions are lacking; nevertheless, the reported uplift of more than 500 feet in one quarter and nearly 700 in another is impressive as showing what the old earth may do in steady endeavor. It must be borne in mind, too, that a sudden acceleration of the descent of Gettysburg Bank and its consorts may well have occurred at any stage in so feverishly seismic an area. All considered, it seems far from impossible that some of these banks may have been visible and even habitable at some time when men had attained a moderate degree of civilization. But they would not be of any vast extent.