408 Sir H. Hoioorth — Recent Changes of Level. 



the probabilities are very greatly in favour of tbis bridge having 

 existed at the time when the Channel bridge was broken. 



The exact position of this land-bridge we cannot absolutely 

 ascertain at present, but we have some guide. The peculiar fauna 

 of Ireland points to its having been united to Great Britain, not 

 in the south but in the north. The birds of Ireland are especially 

 noteworthy in this respect, and ornithologists in fact treat Ireland 

 as a province of Scotland. The same conclusion is pointed at by 

 the scarcity of the remains of the Mammoth in Ireland, and the 

 absence of the Tichoi'hine Rhinoceros there, the identity of the Ix'ish 

 Hare and the Scotch Blue Hare, etc.; and it would seem, therefore, 

 almost certain that this bridge was situated in the north of the 

 Irish Channel, while the south of the same sea was occupied as now 

 by water; and we have some evidence that the MoUuscan fauna of 

 Moel Tryfaen and of the Lancashire and Macclesfield beds, and also 

 of the Irish Pleistocene beds, is of a more temperate character than 

 that of the beds of the same age in the west of Scotland, pointing 

 to a separation between the waters of the Irish Sea and those 

 bathing Western Scotland having once existed. 



That some changes of level have taken place, however, in the 

 southern part of the Irish Sea, involving a considerable subsidence, 

 we know, from the buried forests, etc., in Cardigan Bay, while the 

 junction of Anglesea to the mainland in the Mammoth age seems 

 attested by the well-known molar tooth discovered by Mr. Owen 

 Stanley in a submerged peat bog. 



If we turn to the other side of England, evidence of a similar 

 kind is forthcoming. We have remains of submerged forests oft' 

 the coast of East Anglia and Yorkshire which cannot be explained 

 by any other theory than a widespread submergence ; the same 

 conclusion follows from the semi-fossil littoral shells which have 

 been dredged in the North Sea, and which show that there must 

 have been shallow water where there is now deep. 



Let us now cross over the North Sea. The coasts of Denmark 

 are girdled with traces of submerged forests, so are the southern 

 shores of the Baltic. Similar traces have been found in the Sounds 

 separating Sweden and Denmark. Here we seem to be on traces 

 of a comparatively recent change of level, since at least one polished 

 stone axe has been dredged in the Cattegat. But even better evidence 

 of such a submergence is the comparatively recent existence of the 

 Bos primigenius, and perhaps the Bison, on both sides of the Sounds 

 and its absence in Central and Northern Sweden, in Finland, etc. 

 Its remains have been found in the turbary deposits of Scania, 

 while they abound in Mecklenburg, and there is no way in which 

 we can account for this animal occurring in both areas except by 

 a land-bridge. 



If we now turn to the plains of Holland and North Germany, 

 we shall have evidence of another kind. The Drift deposits lie 

 there in some places to a vast depth, and it has been remarked, 

 that if they were removed, a very large area would be under the 

 level of the sea; this, too, where there are no traces of marine 



