THE PHYSICAL HISTORY Ob'' THE NORWEGIAN FJORDS. 141 



In Argyllshire, this terrace constitutes tlie sites for churches 

 and other buildings, being the only approximately level 

 ground in that part of Scotland. In other districts it has 

 afforded ground for many towns and villages, such as Leith, 

 Dundee, Arbroath, Kothsay, Greenock, Ardrossan and Ayr. 



But the actual submergence of Scotland since the glacial 

 epoch is not limited by the levels of the raised beaches above 

 described. IMarine deposits of sand, gravel and clay have 

 been recognized at much greater altitudes. Professor James 

 Geikie places the submergence of Scotland in later or inter- 

 glacial times at not less than 1,238 feet as indicated by the 

 Kames on the Fintry Hills ; but in the south-east of the 

 <?ountry the depression did not exceed 1,050 to 1,060 feet.* 

 I myself have seen beds of stratified sand and gravel high up 

 amongst the hills of Kantyre. On the whole we may 

 conclude that the depression of the land in interglacial 

 times in Scotland was much about the same as that of 

 Scandinavia, and it need scarcely be added that other parts 

 of the British Isles partook, to a greater or Jess extent, of 

 these terrestrial oscillations of level. In England and 

 Ireland the intei'glacial and post-glacial beds are found at 

 varying levels up to 1,300 feet above the level of the sea. 



Part V. 



1. General Elevation of the land of Western Europe dwing the 



Glacial period. 



The subject of this paper would be more incomplete than 

 is necessarily the case, did I omit to point out the evidence 

 Avhich Norway affords of a general and great elevation of the 

 European land-area at an epoch just preceding the Great Ice 

 Age and the connection of this extension of the land area 

 with the conditions which resulted in a vast extension of 

 snow and ice consequent on the refrigeration of the climate. 

 In a series of papers published by the Victoria Institute I 

 have described the existence of vaUeys physically, or 

 inferentially, continuous with those of existing rivers which, 

 after traversing the Continental Platform, open out on the 



* Great Ice Age, p. 254. Prestwich states that the shell beds extend 

 to an elevation in Scotland of 510 feet. Geolojt/, vol. ii, p. 450, the 

 amount of submergence was very iinequal in different ])arts of the 

 British Isles, having been 1,300 feet in North Wales, and 400 feet in Isle 

 of Wight as shown by the gravel terraces at St. George's Downs and 

 above " the Needles.'' 



