CRETACEOUS AGE. 



island extended in the direction N.N.E. and S.S.W. from Brian- 

 gon to Innspruck, separated from the main tract by a strait which 

 covered that part of Europe now occupied by Switzerland and 

 the chain of the Swiss Alps. A local sinking of the land between 

 Dresden, Prague, and Briinn, in the middle of Germany, produced 

 an extensive lake in that country, which in the Jurassic age was 

 an uninterrupted tract of land. See map, fig. 154. 



406. The Vosges Mountains, previously washed by the ocean, 

 were now completely enclosed by the continental tract which con- 

 nected Bohemia with the central plateau, of France. The sea, 

 which covered so large a part of these countries, now retired, 

 leaving Langres, Nevers, Autun, and Lyons within the land. The 

 south-eastern coast of the great central continent extended from 

 Cracow a little to the north of Vienna and Munich, both of which 

 were covered by the Mediterranean basin, following Strasburg, 

 Bale, and Lyons, to Carcassonne, where the Pyrenean and Medi- 

 terranean basins were connected by a strait between Perpignan 

 and Bayonne. Bordeaux on the west and Avignon on the east 

 were at the bottom of the sea. 



407. The future base of the chain of the great Alps was then 

 marked by the island already mentioned, which appears on the 

 map between Salsburg and Briangon, on which Turin, Trente, 

 and Innspruck are now placed. Toulon was on an island to the 

 south of this, and Corsica already formed an island further south. 

 The chief part of Italy was at the bottom of the Mediterranean 

 basin. The Scandinavian peninsula had remained nearly as in 

 the Jurassic age. 



408. The geography of France and England during the 

 Cretaceous age is shown upon a large scale and' with more detail 

 in the map (fig. 172), drawn by M. D'Orbigny and reproduced 

 here by permission. In this map the seas are marked with the dark 

 shading, and those parts which in previous ages were submerged 

 are shown by three tints, indicated at the top of the map. The 

 deposits of six of the successive periods of the Cretaceous age are 

 marked as follows : 



I 17 III 19 V 21 



II 18 IV 20 VI 22 



409. It will be seen that the borders of the Anglo-Parisian basin 

 on the south-east were, as in the former age, gradually contracted 

 from period to period, that of the first period (17) being outermost, 

 the next (18) within it, and so on, one being within the other until 

 the last period. This regular succession of deposits is observable 

 to a certain point of the border near Nevers, on the map, beyond 

 which on south and west the exterior band of deposit is not, as 



101 



