The Geology of Hingham. 69 



which led man) r Arctic species of animals to extend themselves 

 south to the Mediterranean, among them the reindeer, and this 

 era has hence been called the Reindeer Era, while the latter part 

 of the period has been called the Modern Era. 



As there has been no evidence produced showing a second ad- 

 vance of the Glacier in America such distinction does not apply 

 here. We will embrace therefore what is further to be said under 

 the heading of the Modern Era. 



MODERN ERA. 



Before limiting remarks to what appertains alone to the terri- 

 tory of Hingham, it may be well to express a few words here upon 

 changes of the era that have occurred in other regions, and which 

 are of general interest. 



Among such changes may be instanced those that have taken 

 place by elevation and depression of the earth's surface. It has 

 been demonstrated by investigations made for the government of 

 Sweden that the coasts of that country and of Finland have been 

 slowly rising for the past one or two centuries. On the other 

 hand, as is well known, a slow subsidence has been going on in 

 Greenland during the past four centuries, for hundreds of miles 

 along the coast, where in places the buildings of the early inhabi- 

 tants have been found submerged. 



The Geologist of New Jersey. Mr. G. II. Cook, became satisfied 

 from his investigations that a slow depression of the surface along 

 the coasts of that State, and also along the coasts of Eong Island 

 and Martha's Vineyard, had been in progress since the occupation 

 of the country by the white man. 



An immense subsidence has been taking place over a large area 

 of the Pacific Ocean which has carried beneath the waves hun- 

 dreds of islands to the depth of thousands of feet. These in- 

 stances are only given as indications of changes that are occurring 

 extensively over perhaps a large portion of the globe. 



The extinction of species of life has been going on during this 

 era as in earlier periods, accelerated undoubtedly by the agency 

 of man. The cases of the Eodo and of the Solitaire in the islands 

 of the Indian Ocean, of the Dinornis of New Zealand, of the 

 ^Epyornis of Madagascar, and of the Great Auk of the North Sea, 

 and of the coasts of Labrador, Maine, and Massachusetts, may be 

 cited among birds. 



A noted instance of destruction tending fast to extinction is 

 that of the noble animal of the western wilds, the Bison. At the 

 time of the settlement of the country by the white man, immense 

 herds roamed over territory extending from Mexico far north into 

 British America, and from the Rocky Mountains east to the At- 

 lantic, nearly or quite all of which have been annihilated, not so 

 much by the reasonable requirements of civilization as by the 



