CHAPTER X 

 BEFORE AND AFTER. THE ICE AGE. 



WE have read the story written in the rocks of the Isle of 

 Wight. What wonderful changes we have seen in the 

 course of the long history ! First we were taken back to 

 the ancient Wealden river, and saw in imagination the 

 great continent through which it flowed, and the strange 

 creatures that lived in the old land. We saw the delta 

 sink beneath the sea, and a great thickness of shallow 

 water deposits laid down, enclosing remains of ammonites 

 and other beautiful forms of life. Then long ages passed 

 away, while in the waters of a deeper sea the great thick- 

 ness of the chalk was built up, mainly by the accumulation 

 of microscopic shells. In time the sea bed rose, and new 

 land appeared, and another river bore down fruits to be 

 buried with sea shells and remains of turtles and croco- 

 diles in the mud deposited near its mouth to form the 

 London clay. We followed the alternations of sea and 

 land, and the changing life of Eocene and Oligocene times. 

 We have heard of the early mammalia found in the quarries 

 of Quarr, and have learnt from the leaf beds of Alum Bay 

 that at that time the climate of this part of the world was 

 tropical. Indeed, I think everything goes to prove that 

 through the whole of the times we have been studying, 

 except perhaps the earliest Eocene, that of the Reading 

 beds, the climate was considerably warmer than it is 

 at the present day. After all these changes do you not 

 want to know what happened next ? Well, at this point 

 we come to a gap in the records of the rocks, not only in 

 the Isle of Wight, but also in the British Isles. The 

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