256 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES 



Wealden period, it was elevated into an extensive 

 and important district, not far removed, though per- 

 haps very different in form and direction, from the 

 land in the northern hemisphere at present. After 

 a time, however, the depression re-commenced, and 

 lasted till a considerable tract of deep water cover- 

 ed the greater part of the existing land of Europe. 

 The depression was probably very gradual, but it must 

 also have been general, for we have good evidence 

 that it included nearly the whole of what is now 

 the Alpine range of mountains, and quite the whole 

 of that extensive range of high ground to the east, 

 which has since been lifted up to form the chain 

 of the Caucasus. 



In our own country, and in the northern hemi- 

 sphere generally, the direction of the elevating force 

 during the first of these two periods was, for the most 

 part, north-east and south-west. This is seen in the 

 Welsh and Cumberland hills, the Scandinavian moun- 

 tains, and the Ural chain, and in the general strike of 

 the older deposits. It is not, indeed, uniform, nor are 

 the mountain chains parallel, but there is sufficient 

 evidence to prove that there was, in this way, 9 

 general impress given. 



During the secondary period we have this direc- 

 tion retained in England, the oolitic escarpments af- 

 fording excellent examples of its permanence : but on 

 the continent of Europe there is much confusion ; and 

 even the older rocks in the eastern districts, as in 

 Russia, instead of being consolidated and almost 

 crystalline, are loose and scarcely altered from the 

 condition they may have exhibited when first de- 

 posited. It might be worth while to speculate how 



