Reviews — Dr. J. Lorie's Pays-Bas. 225 



enormous amount of evidence bearing on tlie question of the later 

 Tertiary earth-movements in Holland. He has shown that there 

 has been extensive, though perhaps intermittent, subsidence in this 

 area during the Pliocene and Pleistocene period; he now attempts 

 to demonstrate that this movement has continued, intermittently and 

 irregularly, since the period of the Eoman occupation, and probably 

 down to the present day. 



The most interesting part of this Memoir to the English reader 

 probably will be that treating of the changes of the level which 

 have taken place since the Roman period ; for though much of the 

 evidence has long been published, it has been so scattered that one 

 is now startled to find what a strong case can be made out for the 

 continuity of the movements of subsidence. Of course Dr. Lorie 

 takes into account the subsidence caused by the slow compression of 

 the peats and clays, as the organic matter decays and the water 

 is squeezed out. But making every allowance for this, there still 

 remains, accordins; to Dr. Lorie, a considerable amount of subsidence 

 unaccounted for. It may be well, however, to point out that no one 

 case of Post-Roman subsidence in Holland appears to be conclusively 

 proved ; for the absence of any solid foundations for either ancient 

 or modern buildings leaves it open for any one to suggest bad 

 foundations as the cause of the present low position of the remains. 

 It is the cumulative force of the evidence, all pointing in one 

 direction, that makes the case so strong, especially when the Pliocene 

 and Pleistocene subsidence to the extent of at least 1100 feet is 

 taken into account. 



Among the Roman remains found in Holland below the sea-level, 

 the fortress of Brittenburg ("Arx Bx'ittanife ") was perhaps the most 

 interesting. The ruins were visible at exceptionally low tides during 

 the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but have now 

 been entirely destroyed. They showed, according to Dr. Lorie, a 

 sinking of at least three metres since the third century. Another 

 ruin — the temple of Nehalennia in Zealand — was considered by 

 Laveleye to have subsided six or seven metres since it was built. 

 When last seen the floor was at the level of low water, and Laveleye 

 concluded that originally it must have been above the level of the 

 highest tides. 



Oaken planks of prehistoric date have been found beneath the 

 peat at a depth of thirteen feet below mean tide, and traces of an 

 inhabited land surface with egg-shells and cut wood at sixteen feet 

 below the surface. By these one is reminded of the traces of a fire 

 found in a submerged forest at low-water level in some excavations 

 for docks at Hull. Belonging to a still older period we find, 

 abundance of submerged forests and peat mosses at depths ranging 

 to fifty feet or more below the sea. Much of the remainder of the 

 Memoir is devoted to minute measurements of the amount of sub- 

 sidence which has taken place since the date of the first accurate 

 surveys. Other portions deal with the origin of the inland sand- 

 dunes, and with the peat mosses. C. R. 



DECADE III. VOL. VIII. NO. V, 15 



