464 PREHISTORIC EUROPE. 



CHAPTEE XX. 



POSTGLACIAL AND RECENT DEPOSITS OF THE CONTINENT. 



Postglacial and Eecent deposits of Norway and Sweden — No direct passage from 

 Glacial into Postglacial accumulations — Postglacial shelly clays, etc. — 

 Character of the molluscan fauna — Contrast between shelly clays of the east 

 of Sweden and those of "Western Sweden and Norway — Height of Swedish 

 and Norwegian shell -banks above sea-level — Postglacial freshwater and 

 marine deposits of Finland — Unfossiliferous clay and sand above shelly clays 

 of Norway and Sweden — Postglacial erratics resting on shelly clays of Eastern 

 Sweden — General conclusions — Submerged peat of Scania — Raised-beaches of 

 same region — Submerged peat and trees of Denmark ; of Schleswig-Holstein ; 

 of East Friesland and Holland ; of Flemish coast ; of Somme Valley ; of 

 Normandy and Brittany ; of Arcachon and Biarritz — Age of the submerged 

 forests of the Channel area — Peat-bogs of Denmark ; of Norway — Rate of 

 growth of peat— Arctic flora in Postglacial deposits of Southern Sweden, of 

 Brandenburg, and other parts of Germany — Peat of Champagne, its organic 

 remains — Peat-bogs in other regions of Europe — No trace of Palaeolithic man 

 in any Postglacial accumulations — Postglacial deposits of Spitzbergen. 



The Postglacial and Eecent deposits of the Continent assume 

 their most interesting development in Scandinavia. In that 

 region, as in our own islands, the occurrence of well-marked 

 marine deposits pertaining to the Postglacial Period supplies 

 us with a line of evidence which, of course, is entirely wanting 

 in the interior of the Continent. And, as I shall point out in 

 the following chapter, it is from the marine accumulations of 

 North-western Europe that a large part of postglacial history- 

 has to be constructed. My account of the Scandinavian deposits 

 must therefore be considerably more detailed than that of their 

 equivalents in other parts of the Continent. 



In the low grounds of Southern Scandinavia the glacial 



