GEOGRAPHICAL EVOLUTION. 603 



Europe and Asia. It was at the close of this period of extreme de- 

 pression that those subterranean movements began to which the pres- 

 ent configuration of Europe is mainly due. The Pyrenees, Alps, Apen- 

 nines, Carpathians, the Caucasus, and the heights of Asia Minor mark 

 as it were the crests of the vast earth- waves into which the solid frame- 

 work of Europe was then thrown. So enormous was the contortion 

 that, as may be seen along the northern Alps, the rocks for thousands 

 of feet were completely inverted, this inversion being accompanied by 

 the most colossal folding and twisting. The massive sedimentary for- 

 mations were crumpled up, and doubled over each other, as we might 

 fold a pile of cloth. In the midst of these commotions the west of Eu- 

 rope remained undisturbed. It is strange to reflect that the soft clays 

 and sands under London are as old as some of the hardened rocks 

 which have been upheaved into such picturesque peaks along the 

 northern flanks of the Alps. 



After the completion of these vast terrestrial disturbances, the out- 

 lines of Europe began distinctly to shape themselves into their present 

 form. The Alps rose as a great mountain-range, flanked on the north 

 by a vast lake which covered all the present lowlands of Switzerland, 

 and stretched northward across a part of the Jura Mountains, and east- 

 ward into Germany. The size of this fresh-water basin may be in- 

 ferred from the fact that one portion only of the sand and gravel that 

 accumulated in it even now measures six thousand feet in thickness. 

 The surrounding land was densely clothed with a vegetation indicative 

 of a much warmer climate than Europe now can boast. Palms of 

 American types, as well as date-palms, huge Calif ornian pines (Sequoia), 

 laurels, cypresses, and evergreen oaks, with many other evergreen trees, 

 gave a distinctive character to the vegetation. Among the trees too 

 were planes, poplars, maples, willows, oaks, and other ancestors of our 

 living woods and forests ; numerous ferns grew in the underwood, 

 while clematis and vine wound themselves among the branches. The 

 waters were haunted by huge pachyderms, such as the dinotherium 

 and hippopotamus ; while the rhinoceros and mastodon roamed through 

 the woodlands. 



A marked feature of this period in Europe was the abundance 

 and activity of the volcanoes. In Hungary, Rhineland, and Central 

 France, numerous vents opened and poured out their streams of lava 

 and showers of ashes. From the south of Antrim, also, another great 

 line of active orifices ran up the west coast of Scotland and by the 

 Faroe Islands to Iceland, whence it extended even far into Arctic 

 Greenland. 



The mild climate indicated by the vegetation in the deposits of the 

 Swiss lake, prevailed even into polar latitudes, for the remains of nu- 

 merous evergreen shrubs, oaks, maples, walnuts, hazels, and many other 

 trees, have been found under the sheets of lava in the far north of 

 Greenland. The sea still occupied much of the lowlands of Europe. 



