PAST GEOGRAPHICAL MUTATIONS ii 



extensive than it is during present time. From the 

 Shetlands to the Bay of Biscay, following the i co- 

 fathom line, was apparently dry land, our eastern coast- 

 line conforming much to the general direction which it 

 does now, extending, however, some 70 miles further 

 out to sea than in our time, to as far south as the 

 Wash, where, however, the sea encroached upon what 

 is now land in North-east Norfolk and East Suffolk 

 and Essex to a little north of the Thames. The con- 

 tinental coast was equally extended, the shores of the 

 Netherlands approaching our own to within some 70 

 miles at the narrowest part. During this late Pliocene 

 Period, therefore, a great portion of the southern part 

 of the North Sea was a wide alluvial plain, studded 

 with lakes and intersected by sluggish streams, very 

 similar in character to the Broad district of to-day, 

 bounded on the west by higher forest-clothed ground, 

 and traversed by a continuation of the Rhine with the 

 Thames as a tributary stream. Of the fauna and flora 

 of these remote days, according to Professor J. Gcikie 

 {PrcJiistoric Europe, pp. 261, 334), the remains include 

 "those of elephant, hippopotamus, horse, cave-bear, urus, 

 Irish deer, and many other Cervida;. The fauna is 

 remarkable as showing commingling of Pliocene and 

 Pleistocene species. Thus we have among the former 

 a bear {Ursiis arvernensis), a rhinoceros {R. etriiscus), 

 and a deer [Cerviis polignaciis) which have not yet been 

 met with in any deposits of more recent age. Again, 

 several of the forms which appear in the ' forest bed ' 

 are common Pliocene species that seem to have van- 

 ished from the European fauna in early Pleistocene 

 times. Among these are Machairodiis, and others which 



