694 



NOTES TO BOOK XVIII. 



of the grooving and scratching of rocks as they are now 

 found. The climate being then much colder than it now is, 

 the flora, even down to the water's edge, consisted of what 

 are now Alpine plants ; and this A Ipine flora is common to 

 Scandinavia and to our mountain-summits. And these 

 plants kept their places, when, by the elevation of the 

 land, the whole of the present German Ocean became a 

 continent connecting Britain with central Europe. For 

 the increased elevation of their stations counterbalanced 

 the diminished cold of the succeeding period. Along the 

 dry bed of the German Sea, thus elevated, the principal 

 part of the existing flora of England, the Germanic flora, 

 migrated. A large portion of our existing animal popu- 

 lation also came over through the same region ; and along 

 with those, came hyenas, tigers, rhinoceros, aurochs, elk, 

 wolves, beavers, which are extinct in Britain, and other 

 animals which are extinct altogether, as the primigenian 

 elephant or mammoth. But then, again, the German 

 Ocean and the Irish Channel were scooped out ; and the 

 climate again changed. In our islands, so detached, many 

 of the larger beasts perished, and their bones were covered 

 up in peat-mosses and caves, where we find them. This 

 distinguished naturalist has further shown that the popu- 

 lation of the sea lends itself to the same view. Mr. Forbes 

 says that the writings of Mr. Smith, of Jordan -hill, " On 

 the last Changes in the relative Levels of the Land and 

 Sea in the British Islands," published in the Memoirs of 

 the Wernerian Society for 1837-8, must be esteemed the 

 foundation of a critical investigation of this subject in 

 Britain. 



(JA.) p. 657. I think I did not do injustice to Dr. 

 Hutton in describing his theory of the earth as premature. 



