* QUATERNARY OR RECENT PERIOD. 173 
in England and the greater part of Holland; old beaches may be distinctly 
traced, with their eliffs, shores, and shells far above sea-level ; whole forests 
have been submerged, whose old trunks and fruits are thrown up by every 
storm ; and ‘huge acc lations of sand, blown or washed, have been 
found along its shores. Rivers have been depositing new matter under 
the ocean at t mouths, increasing the land by the formation of deltas, 
sometimes hundreds of miles in extent, laying down fine etna along 
their banks, hat now forms the richest soil of the fa and leaving 
terraces far above their present level, to mark their gen Many 
lakes have been formed, others are gradually silting up from the earthy 
matter brought down by rivers, while some have become quite dry and 
are now waving with corn. Animals have been busy forming new islands 
and continents, as in the Pacific, where the coral insect leaves its skeleton 
to form the nucleus of future islands; birds have deposited guano; and 
myriads of microscopic creatures cover the floor of the ocean, some of the 
earths now existing being so full of these as to be used by savage tribes 
as food ; and igneous agencies have been and are as active as in the olden 
times in changing the land and throwing out vast deposits of lava and 
ashes. 
Man.—It is an interesting question how far back man extends into these 
geologic eras, and this important inquiry has of late years received great 
attention. Striking results have also been arrived at. It seems t be 
indisputably proved that man existed as far back as the great glacial 
period, at the close of the Tertiary epoch, and that he contemporary, 
with the hairy rhinoceros, mammoth, woolly lephent thes gigantic — 
creatures now long extinct, which he no doubt hunted as he now does the 
fox and the deer; and at a period when Britain was united to France, 
where now the sea flows in the Straits of Dover, his bones have been 
found in the same deposits with these animals. But this subject is but 
in its infancy, and it would therefore be unwise to make positive state- 
ments where our data,are insufficient. Enough has, however, been 
discovered to shew that men have lived with strange denizens for many 
ages, and under very different conditions, in our own quiet land. 

