[12] 



which view there appears to be strong evidence, he would 

 have been in all probability the companion of the extinct 

 tropical mammalia found deposited in the Cromer Forest 

 beds, and some of which belonged to Meiocene times. 

 This forest was in existence at the close of thePleiocene 

 era, and stretched from Cromer far away into what is 

 now the German Ocean, uniting Norfolk and Suffolk to 

 Holland and Belgium ; but soon after the commence- 

 ment of the Pleistocene period the North Sea gradually 

 swept over the old continent between Britain on the 

 west and Sweden, Denmark, and the Netherlands on the 

 east, thus converting the old forest at Cromer into the 

 bed of the ocean, where the stumps of the trees may 

 now be seen embedded in deposit at very low tide. 

 Immediately after the disappearance of this forest the 

 first period of glaciation commenced, from which moment 

 until the close of the glacial periods the alternations in 

 temperature and surface level were frequent and of enor- 

 mous magnitude, the correct sequence of which changes 

 we have as yet no proper conception. 



If we go back to the commencement of the Tertiary 

 great division of the geological periods, we shall find 

 that, at the beginning of the Eocene deposits, the 

 Secondary cretaceous rocks had been upheaved from the 

 bottom of the sea, and had become the dry ground of 

 a large continent, of which the British Islands formed a 

 part ; so that Eocene fauna and flora in England had 

 free communication with continental life. The relative 

 positions of land and water during this first Tertiary 

 period were as follows : The great continent spread from 

 North America to Europe, uniting Canada, Greenland, 

 Iceland, Faroes, Shetlands, Orkneys, Ireland, and Britain 

 (except south-east portion), with Scandinavia and Spitz- 

 bergen on the north-east, and with France (Brittany) and 

 Sp.ain on the south. There were three seas the North 

 Sea, which, like a wedge with its point downwards, 

 separated Greenland, Iceland, and Faroes from Spits- 

 bergen and Scandinavia ; the South-Eastern Sea, which 

 stretched from the top of Denmark to Boston in Lincoln- 

 shire, thence to Lyme Regis in Dorsetshire, and on to 

 Cherbourg, covering the whole of the east and south- 

 east of England ; and the Atlantic, which was separated 



