294 NEOZOIC TIME. [CHAP. XIII. 



no less than 250 square nautical miles in extent ; a still 

 larger area is within the 15-fathoni line, while it is separated 

 from England by a channel which is from 27 to 40 fathoms 

 deep. 1 From this bank many hundred specimens of bones, 

 teeth, and antlers have been dredged up, belonging to the 

 mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, horse, bison, urus, reindeer, 

 Irish elk, stag, hyaena, bear, wolf, and beaver. 2 



Professor Dawkins points out that they cannot have 

 been carried there by sea currents, and thinks that the car- 

 casses were " collected in the eddies of a river that helped 

 to form the Dogger Bank." It is difficult, however, to see 

 how a river could form so large a bank, though it may be 

 credited with having formed the adjoining channel or 

 valley. Mr. J. Murray was of opinion that the channel, 

 and the deep water generally round the bank, were due to 

 the circulation of the tidal currents, and that the bank 

 itself had resulted from the heaping up of materials in the 

 centre of the circulating water. The occurrence of so 

 many osseous remains on the bank is, however, against the 

 view that it has been heaped up in this manner, and it is 

 just as probable that the pre-existence of the bank and the 

 channels was the cause of the present circulation of the 

 water. 



The bank is in fact a submerged plateau, which before 

 submergence appears to have supported large tracts of 

 sands and gravels deposited by the rivers which had coursed 

 over its surface, these tracts doubtless forming patches 

 and ridges similar in their mode of occurrence to those 

 that exist in the eastern counties at the present time. 3 

 The Dogger Bank is not the only spot in the bed of the 



1 See J. Murray, " On the North Sea, Proc. Inst. Civ. Eng.," vol. 

 xx. p. 320. 



2 Boyd Dawkins, " Early Man in Britain," p. 149. 



3 Mr. H. B. Woodward takes the same view; see "Geology of 

 England and Wales," second edition, p. 516. 



