26 
Then gradually the climate grew milder, and a fresh movement 
of elevation occurred ; the bed of the glacial sea beeame dry land, 
covered with forests of oak, yew, Scotch fir, and ash, while new 
species of the Pleistocene mammalia found ample food for them- 
selves. Glaciers remained on the higher parts of Scotland and 
Wales, but they slowly disappeared; the Scandinavian plants, 
insects, birds, and quadrupeds retreated to the higher grounds, 
where some of their descendants remain to this day; and our 
share of the Germanic flora made its way across the North Sea 
Plain. It is this later stage of the Pleistocene Period which is 
depicted on the map. The coast line, as you see, stretched much 
farther north and west than at present, 200 or 300 miles west of 
Ireland, and onwards to the inner angle of the Bay of Biscay. All 
the sea within this line at the present time is less than 100 
fathoms in depth, but immediately outside it sinks rapidly to 
several thousand feet ; it is then in reality the true western coast- 
line of Europe, and the British Isles at present rise from the 
enclosed surface as from a submarine plateau. If an elevation of 
600 feet were to take place now, this state of things on the map 
would be restored. Let me direct your attention to one or two 
interesting features in the map :—the present North Sea was a 
broad undulating plain rich in vegetation, and was the feeding 
ground of herds of animals whose bones and teeth lie seattered 
oyer it at the present time in immense numbers. The Dogger 
Bank was ‘“‘a part of western Europe, its southern and western 
sides washed by the waters of a large river’? coming from the 
south and flowing onwards to the deeper parts of the North Sea. 
This river was the Rhine, which then received the Thames and all 
the rivers of eastern Britain as feeders. The English Channel had 
no existence, but was a wide valley similarly drained by a river 
flowing to the west. ‘Ihe Bristol Channel was also a valley 
threugh which the Severn flowed to join a much larger stream 
draining the lake and plain of the present Irish Sea. One 
interesting proof of this is found in the fact of the small island of 
Caldy off the coast of Pembrokeshire haying yielded au abundance 
of remains of large mammals which must have required extensive 
_feeding grounds. ‘‘It may be concluded,” says Professor Boyd 
Dawkins, ‘‘ that when they perished in the fissures Caldy was not 
an island, but a precipitous hill overlooking the bread valley now 
-oceupied by the Bristol Channel, but then affording abundant 
pasture. We must therefore picture to ourselves a fertile plain 
occupying the whole of the Bristol Channel, and supporting herds 
of reindeer, horses, and bisons, many elephants and rhinoceroses, 
and now and then being traversed by a stray hippopotamus, which 
