44 THE DELUGE IN CLOUDLAND 



horses, heav}^, coarse, and slow. On the 

 Breton, British and Scandinavian moors there 

 were Celtic ponies. 



It needed but little sinking of this land to 

 flood the Delta, and open a long channel up 

 the North River valley. The sea washed out 

 the clay foundations of the forests. The sea 

 breakers wielded boulders of the glacier-drift 

 and hurled them like battering rams against 

 the dissolving limestone of low cliffs. The 

 tide swung gravels to tear out bays in the fore- 

 shores. Winter frosts cracked the headlands, 

 and summer rains melted the ice cracks so that 

 the capes fell into the sea in landslides. Thus 

 the sea widened, biting its way deep into 

 Europe until men began their losing fight with 

 dykes for the saving of doomed netherlands. 

 The North Sea cut its way through chalk dov/ns 

 into the English channel. The tribes who held 

 fortified headlands of the chalk downs and set 

 up temples at Stonehenge and Avebury on 

 the mainland of Europe, about 1800 B.C. found 

 that their countr}^ had become an island. 



The old horse pasture of North-western 

 Europe was split into sundered provinces by 

 the advancing sea, but the breeds, native to a 

 lost valley are still almost identical on either 

 shore. The Breton and British moors have 



