1 6 LANDSCAPE IN HISTORY 



may possibly go back some hundreds of years further. 

 But the geological record of the human period carries 

 us enormously beyond these dates. Hence, in so vast 

 a lapse of time, scope has been afforded for a whole 

 series of important geological revolutions. On every 

 side of us we may see manifest proofs of these changes. 

 The general aspect of the country has been altered, not 

 once only, but many times. The agencies that brought 

 about these changes have, in not a few instances, pre- 

 served tolerably complete memorials of them. We 

 are thus enabled to trace the history of lakes and 

 rivers, of forests and mosses : we can follow the 

 succession of animals that have wandered over the 

 land, and many of which had died out ere the days of 

 history began : we can dimly perceive the conditions 

 of life amidst the earliest human population of the 

 country : we can recover abundant evidence of the 

 extraordinary vicissitudes of climate which, since these 

 ancient times, have affected not this land only, but 

 the whole northern hemisphere. 



The evidence from which these reconstructions of 

 the former aspect of the country and its inhabitants 

 can be deduced lies easily accessible around us. 

 From the numerous caves in the limestone districts, 

 abundant remains have been disinterred of the land- 

 animals that were contemporary with aboriginal man, 

 and among them relics of human workmanship have 

 likewise been obtained. Our bogs have yielded 

 skeletons of the Irish elk and other denizens of the 

 primeval glades and woodlands, together with the 

 canoes and stone- implements of the hunters of these 

 animals. Our river-terraces reveal a long history of 



