506 PREHISTORIC EUROPE. 



passage, that passage would date back to late glacial or early- 

 postglacial times. We might suppose that the movement of 

 elevation which carried up the arctic shell-beds of Scania and 

 Southern Norway was continued until a land-connection with 

 Denmark had been effected, and that the arctic willow and its 

 associates then passed over. 1 By and by, when the climate 

 became milder, the arctic flora was succeeded by the temperate 

 species, and shortly afterwards the land-connection disappeared, 

 and the southern part of the Scandinavian peninsula was de- 

 pressed for 150 feet or more, and thereafter the later postglacial 

 shell-beds were formed. This view would explain several 

 matters which at present are not very clear. It would account, 

 in the first place, for the fact that the postglacial shell -banks, 

 with their characteristic fauna, rest " unconformably " upon the 

 arctic clays — there is no passage from the older into the newer 

 series. The clays with arctic shells go down to the sea-level, 

 and are there covered by the later shell-beds in such a manner 

 as to indicate that some time must have elapsed between the 

 formation of the two series. Then, in the second place, it would 

 give a reasonable explanation of the appearance in the postglacial 

 shell -beds of the remains of temperate species of plants. It 

 is hard to believe that there was no land -connection between 

 Sweden and Denmark before the formation of the younger 

 postglacial deposits which cover the slopes of Enkopings as or 

 gravel-ridge, and in which it will be remembered remains of oak, 

 willow, aspen, fir, etc., occur. The suggestion I venture to make, 

 therefore, is simply this : that after the deposition of the latest 

 shell-beds pertaining to the Glacial Period a land-connection 

 obtained between Denmark and Sweden across which the arctic 

 flora migrated ; that this connecting link continued in existence 

 until after the climate had so far improved that temperate species 



1 Gwyn Jeffreys's discovery of arctic littoral shells off the Shetland Islands, 

 referred to in the text (p. 509) may possibly be connected with this supposed 

 elevation of the Scandinavian peninsula in late glacial times. Possibly, also, the 

 shell-bed referred to by Mr. E. Erdmann as occurring 100 feet below the level of 

 the sea at Gothenburg may pertain to the same period. See Geol. For. i Stock- 

 holm Forh., May 1876. 



