24 EARLY MAN IN BRITAIN. [CHAP. n. 



mountains on the west, during the whole of the Second- 

 ary period. The Pennine range, the backbone of England, 

 was then very much as it is now, with its limestone cut 

 into deep canons or dales in the areas of Derbyshire 

 and Yorkshire, and with the massive carboniferous sand- 

 stones rising into rugged heights, and traversed by 

 deeply cut glens. The hills of Somerset, Devon, and 

 Ireland also, were the same, and the surface contours 

 of the lower ground must have been to a large extent 

 what they are now, since they were carved by those 

 agents by which the present hills and valleys have 

 been formed. There are, however, differences to be 

 remarked. The mountains were higher 1 and more 

 precipitous, and the landscape could not, in those times, 

 have offered the flowing lines and curves, which have 

 been produced by ice, in the present surface. Nor must it 

 be forgotten that in the long lapse of ages the whole of 

 the Eocene land-surface has been removed by the action 

 of those denuding agents, which we shall bring before 

 our readers in treating of the Meiocene mountains: 



From Professor Judd's observations on the western 

 districts of Scotland, it is evident that the volcanic energy 

 which raised a range of lofty volcanic mountains in the 

 Western Isles in the Meiocene age, was felt in the same 

 districts in the Eocene. We may therefore picture to 

 ourselves groups of cones, similar to those of Auvergne, 

 rising above the forests, then spreading from the rugged 

 Alpine heights of the Western Highlands far away in 

 one mass of green, broken only by the rivers, to Ireland 

 and the remote coast-line of the western sea. 



1 Ramsay, Physical Geology and Geography of Great Britain, 3d edit, 

 p 213. 



