Time has been required, and a succession of geological periods, to raise it above the waves in so many regions; and if calcareous rocks of the middle and upper tertiary periods have been formed, as homogeneous in mineral composition throughout equally extensive regions, it may require convulsions as numerous as all those which have occurred since the origin of the Chalk to bring them up within the sphere of human observation.
— from Principles of Geology or, The Modern Changes of the Earth and its Inhabitants Considered as Illustrative of Geology by Lyell, Charles, Sir