358 GEIKIE 



shrouded in obscurity. When the curtain of darkness 

 begins to rise from our primeval Europe, it reveals to us 

 a scene marvellously unlike that of the existing continent. 

 The land then lay chiefly to the north and north-west, 

 probably extending as far as the edge of the great sub- 

 marine plateau by which the European ridge is prolonged 

 under the Atlantic for 230 miles to the west of Ireland. 

 Worn fragments of that land exist in Finland, Scandinavia, 

 and the north-west of Scotland, and there are traces of 

 what seem to have been some detached islands in Central 

 Europe, notably in Bohemia and Bavaria. Its original 

 height and extent can of course never be known; but some 

 idea of them may be formed by considering the bulk of 

 solid rock which was formed out of the waste of that land. 

 I find that if we take merely one portion of the detritus 

 washed from its surface and laid down in the sea viz. 

 that which is comprised in what is termed the Silurian 

 system and if we assume that it spreads over 60,000 square 

 miles of Britain with an average thickness of 16,000 feet, 

 or 3 miles, which is probably under the truth, then we 

 obtain the enormous mass of 180,000 cubic miles. The 

 magnitude of this pile of material may be better realised if we 

 reflect that it would form a mountain ridge three times as 

 long as the Alps, or from the North Cape to Marseilles 

 (1800), with a breadth of more than 33 miles, and an 

 average height of 16,000 feet that is, higher than the sum- 

 mit of Mont Blanc. All this vast pile of sedimentary rock 

 was worn from the slopes and shores of the primeval 

 northern land. Yet it represents but a small fraction of 

 the material so removed, for the sea of that ancient time 

 spread over nearly the whole of Europe eastwards into 

 Asia, and everywhere received a tribute of sand and mud 

 from the adjoining shores. 



There is perhaps no mass of rock so striking in its 

 general aspect as that of which this northern embryo of 

 Europe consisted. It lacks the variety of composition, 

 structure, colour, and form, which distinguishes rocks of 

 more modern growth; but in dignity of massive strength it 

 stands altogether unrivalled. From the headlands of the 

 Hebrides to the far fjords of Arctic Norway it rises up 



