EUROPE BEFORE ARRIVAL OF MAN 



an archipelago. The Alps, however, seem to 

 have maintained a relative height as great as 

 that of to-day, in comparison with the lands 

 about them. The elevated position which Brit- 

 ain had occupied in the Eocene age seems to 

 have been kept up during the Miocene. The 

 whole of Britain and Ireland, with the English 

 and Irish channels, the German Ocean, and the 

 Atlantic ridge between Scotland and Greenland, 

 stood at an average of nearly 3000 feet higher 

 than they do to-day, so" that the whole region 

 remained dry land, and Gaul was still joined in 

 this way to Scandinavia and North America. 

 Above this high level the Scottish Highlands 

 and the Welsh peaks rose to a height of some 

 7000 feet, having since been worn down to 

 half that height by rain and ice. Many of these 

 great mountains, thus standing nearly as high 

 above sea-level as the Alps, were active volca- 

 noes ; and this chain of volcanoes, of which 

 Hecla is now the most famous remnant, ex- 

 tended across the Atlantic ridge, all the way 

 from Wales to Greenland, which was then cov- 

 ered with a luxuriant vegetation of oaks and 

 chestnuts, vines and magnolias. In the earlier 

 part of the Miocene age the general climate of 

 Europe resembled that of Algiers or Louisiana 

 at the present day, but at the close of the period 

 it had become somewhat cooler, though still 

 sub-tropical. Gigantic conifers, like the famous 



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