42 EARLY MAN IN BRITAIN. [CHAP. in. 



They have furnished the remains of a small hoglike 

 animal, Hyopotamus bovinus of Owen, which is identi- 

 fied by Professor Gervais with that found in lower 

 Meiocene strata in the Bourbonais. Crocodiles also 

 have been met with, closely resembling those of the lower 

 Meiocene strata of the Boulonnais and valley of the 

 Allier. 1 Among the plants Professor Heer recognises a 

 form analogous to the mammoth tree of California, and 

 three other species identical with those of the lignites of 

 Bovey Tracey. 2 



In the middle and upper Meiocene periods the 

 southern area became lifted up above the waves, and the 

 retreat of the British coast-line southwards towards the 

 mainland of France, which had begun in the Eocene 

 age, was completed by the greater part, if not the whole, 

 of the English Channel becoming dry land. 



We may infer, from the rarity of Meiocene deposits 

 in Britain, and from their being, with the above excep- 

 tion, mere freshwater local accumulations, that the main- 

 land of Europe extended northwards, so as to include 

 the British area throughout the middle and later stages 

 of the Meiocene period. The south-eastern sea of the 

 Eocene age (Fig. 3), described in the last chapter, was 

 reduced in the early Meiocene age to two isolated basins, 

 of which one covered the Isle of Wight and the adjacent 

 regions, the southern sea of Fig. 6 ; while the other ex- 

 tended over Holland and Belgium, but did not come far 

 enough to the west to touch the present coast-line, 

 although its proximity may be inferred from the rolled 

 fragments of Meiocene fossils found in the Pleiocene 



1 PaUont. Franfaise, 1859, p. 190. 



2 Sequoia Couttsice, Nelumbium (Nymphcea) dor is, Andromeda reticu- 

 lata, Carpolithes Websteri. 



