442 Dr. Nils Olof Hoist — The Ice Age in England. 



the latter with land molluscs washed into it, covering the older 

 ' raised heach' up to 80 feet above O.D., a figure which cannot be 

 regarded as representing the limit of its extent. 1 



The circumstance that the coast deposits along the south coast of 

 England lie at a much lower level westwards than they do eastwards 

 at once renders it probable that the depression of the land during 

 which they were laid down was greater on the Continent than in 

 England, and this in fact receives further confirmation. Thus, in 

 Northern France, according to J. Ladriere, the ' late-glacial ' loam is 

 found up to a height of 240 metres 2 ( = 787 feet). The loam, 

 therefore, has a much wider distribution on the Continent than in 

 England, and stretches from Hofstade in North Belgium down to 

 Einisterre in the south, where it is found on the northern side of the 

 peninsula, but is wanting on the island of Ouessant as well as on the 

 south side of the peninsula east of this, 3 while it covers the Channel 

 Islands, which were " completely submerged" during its deposition. 4 

 The basin in which this peculiar loam was laid down was therefore 

 very large and in parts also very deep. 



As already stated, the loam contains no fossils. If this basin had 

 been filled with sea-water this would be quite impossible. Almost 

 equally impossible would it be if it contained ordinary fresh water. 

 There remains, therefore, no other possibility than that the water was 

 glacial, coming from the inland ice and the tundras, that the basin 

 was closed in the north by the inland ice itself and in the south by 

 an elevation of the sea-floor from Einisterre north-westwards, an 

 upward pressure which may be regarded as having balanced the 

 downward pressure and lowering of the land which was effected by 

 the inland ice both in England and on the Continent along and in 

 front of its extreme limit. These contemporaneous changes of level in 

 two opposite directions can be explained only in one way, namely, as 

 the direct and indirect result of the pressure of the inland ice. The 

 succeeding post-glacial changes of level also find their full explanation 

 in the same pressure and in the removal of that pi'essure. Such an 

 explanation has appeared to be the only one that can be applied to 

 the interpretation of the glacial and post-glacial changes of level in 

 Scandinavia, in parts both rapid and great and followed by distinct 

 wave-motions of the surface. Here we need only recall the fact that 

 the glacial strand-walls in Northern Sweden, nearest to the former 

 centre of the inland ice, now lie as far up as 260 metres ( = 853 feet) 

 above the level of the Baltic, and that this huge and rapid elevation 

 took place in connexion with, and immediately after, the melting of 

 the inland ice, that is to say, as a consequence of the sudden removal 

 of the pressure of the ice. Beside these Scandinavian changes of 

 level, the elevation of the continental sea-platform south of the 



1 J. Prestwich, op. cit., 1851, p. 275 (the section), and op. cit.,1865,p. 442. 



2 J. Ladriere, 1891. "Etude stratigraphique du terrain quaternaire du 

 Nord de la France " : Ann. Soc. geol. Nord, tome 18, pp. 205-75, seep. 212. 



3 C. Barrois, 1897. "Note sur l'extension du limon quaternaire en 

 Bretagne " : Ann. Soc. geol. Nord, tome 26, pp. 33-44, see p. 39. 



4 A. Collenette, 1893. "The Baised Beaches, Cliff and Bubble-heads of 

 Guernsey " : Trans. Guernsey Soc. Nat. Sci., 1892, pp. 219-35. 



