CHAPTER XIV. 



SUMMARY OP THE GEOGRAPHICAL EVOLUTION OF THE 

 BRITISH ISLES. 



T N this concluding chapter it is my intention to review 

 -^ the series of geographical mutations which have been 

 described in the preceding pages, to take note of the rela- 

 tive age of the diverse physical districts which make up 

 the British Islands, and to consider how far the geo- 

 graphical restorations which have been attempted can be 

 regarded as consecutive stages in the building and fashion- 

 ing of that part of north-western Europe which may be 

 called the British region, meaning by this term not only 

 the actual land-tracts which constitute Great Britain, 

 Ireland, and the adjacent islands, but also the narrow 

 seas which separate them from one another and from the 

 continent of Europe. 



Geologists can hardly now subscribe to the Huttonian 

 dictum that no traces are to be found of a beginning in 

 the world's economy, but the glimpses which we have 

 obtained into the physical conditions of the earliest Cam- 

 brian epoch do not warrant us in attempting any definite 

 delineation of land and sea. Nor is our knowledge of the 

 succeeding Palaeozoic periods sufficiently complete to make 

 our reconstructions more than guesses at the truth. In- 

 deed, the geologist who is attempting to restore the geo- 

 graphy of any epoch of Palaeozoic time may be compared 

 to an archaeologist who is examining the ruins of a temple 



