Professor Ansted, in his _Ancient World_, thus characterises this
phenomenon:
These movements, described in a few words, were doubtless going
on for many thousands and tens of thousands of revolutions of our
planet. They were accompanied also by vast but slow changes of
other kinds. The expansive force employed in lifting up, by mighty
movements, the northern portion of the continent of Asia, found
partial vent; and from partial subaqueous fissures there were
poured out the tabular masses of basalt occurring in Central India;
while an extensive area of depression in the Indian Ocean, marked
by the coral islands of the Laccadives, the Maldives, the great
Chagos bank, and some others, were in the course of depression by a
counteracting movement.
Hitherto the processes of denudation and of elevation have been so
far balanced as to preserve a pretty steady proportion of sea and dry
land during geological ages; but if the internal temperature should
be so far reduced as to be no longer capable of generating forces of
expansion sufficient for this elevatory action, while the denuding
forces should continue to act with unabated energy, the inevitable
result would be, that every mountain-top would be in time brought low.
No earthly barrier could declare to the ocean that there its proud
waves should be stayed. Nothing would stop its ravages till all dry
land should be laid prostrate, to form the bed over which it would
continue to roll an uninterrupted sea.