288 THE STOttY OF THE EARTH AND MAN. 



been to geologists, especially to those who fail to 

 present to their minds the true" conditions of the 

 period; and how difficult it is to separate the river 

 alluvia of this age from the deposits in the seas 

 and estuaries, and these again from the older Glacial 

 beds. Further, in not a few instances the animals 

 of a cold climate must have lived in close prox- 

 imity to those which belonged to ameliorated con- 

 ditions, and the fossils of the older Post-pliocene 

 must often, in the process of sorting by water, 

 have been mixed with those of the newer. 



Many years ago the brilliant and penetrating in- 

 tellect of Edward Forbes was directed to the question 

 of the maximum extent of the later Post-pliocene or 

 Post-glacial land; and his investigations into the 

 distribution of the European flora, in connection with 

 the phenomena of submerged terrestrial surfaces, led 

 to the belief that the land had risen until it was both 

 higher and more extensive than at present. At the 

 time of greatest elevation, England was joined to the 

 continent of Europe by a level plain, and a similar 

 plain connected Ireland with its sister islands. Over 

 these plains the plants constituting the " Germanic " 

 flora spread themselves into the area of the British 

 Islands, and herds of mammoth, rhinoceros, and Irish 

 elk wandered and extended their range from east to 

 west. The deductions of Forbes have been confirmed 

 and extended by others; and it can scarcely be 

 doubted that in the Post-glacial era, the land re- 

 gained fully the extent which it had possessed in the 



