GEOGRAPHICAL EVOLUTION 365 



of Asia, along the base of the Ural Mountains into the 

 south-east of Europe. 



The last scene in this long history is one of the most 

 unexpected of aK. Europe, having nearly its present height 

 and outlines, is found swathed deep in snow and ice. 

 Scandinavia and Finland are one vast sheet of ice, that 

 creeps down from the watershed into the Atlantic on the 

 one side, and into the basin of the Baltic on the other. 

 All the high grounds of Britain are similarly buried. The 

 bed of the North Sea as well as of the Baltic is in great 

 measure choked with ice. The Alps, the Pyrenees, the 

 Carpathians, and the Caucasus send down vast glaciers into 

 the plains at their base. Northern plants find their way 

 south even to the Pyrenees, while the reindeer, musk-ox, 

 lemming, and their Arctic companions, roam far and wide 

 over France. 



As a result of the prolonged passage of solid masses of 

 ice over them, the rocks on the surface of the continent, 

 when once more laid bare to the sun, present a worn, flow- 

 ing outline. They have been hollowed into basins, ground 

 smooth, and polished. Long mounds and wide sheets of 

 clay, gravel, and sand have been left over the low grounds, 

 and the hollows between them are filled with innumerable 

 tarns and lakes. Crowds of boulders have been perched on 

 the sides of the hills and dropped over the plains. With the 

 advent of a milder temperature the Arctic vegetation gradu- 

 ally disappeared from the plains. Driven up step by step 

 before the advancing flora from more genial climates, it 

 retired into the mountains, and there to this day continues 

 to maintain itself. The present Alpine flora of the Pyrenees, 

 the Alps, Britain, and Scandinavia, is thus a living record 

 of the ice-age. The reindeer and his friends have long 

 since been forced to return to their northern homes. 



After this long succession of physical revolutions, man 

 appears as a denizen of the Europe thus prepared for him. 

 The earliest records of his presence reveal him as a fisher 

 and hunter, with rude flint-pointed spear and harpoon. And 

 doubtless for many a dim century such was his condition. 

 He made no more impress on external nature than one of 

 the beasts which he chased. But in course of time, as 



