CONCLUSION. 555 



itself in all the temperate regions of Europe. Dense forests ex- 

 tended far north into countries which are now desolate and bare, 

 and reached to altitudes in our mountain-regions at which trees 

 will no longer grow. At this period Spitzbergen, Greenland, 

 Iceland, and the Fseroe Islands had land -connection with our 

 continent, as is proved by the character of their floras, and by 

 the fact that those floras could only have immigrated in post- 

 glacial times. 



Clothed with an abundant vegetation, stocked with vas f 

 herds of oxen, deer, and other forms characteristic of the 

 temperate zone, the Europe of this genial Postglacial epoch 

 approached in character to that of Interglacial times. The 

 southern mammals, however, did not revisit their old haunts — 

 hippopotamuses, elephants, and rhinoceroses were unknown in 

 Postglacial Europe. Even the southern carnivores — the hyaenas 

 and servals — never returned. The land- bridges which had 

 formerly connected our continent with Africa had disappeared, 

 and thus the re-advance of the southern forms was effectually 

 prevented. No such obstacle, however, could stay the migrations 

 of marine Life -forms. The warm ocean -currents flowing from 

 the south in larger volume than now brought with them many 

 immigrants to people our northern seas, where the conditions in 

 our own day no longer favour their increase and dispersion. 

 Many facts thus conspire to show that the climate of these 

 early Postglacial times was clement and equable — the strong 

 winds which now forbid the growth of trees in high latitudes 

 were then much less prevalent, and plants which are now 

 relegated to different stations then flourished together in the 

 same habitats. 



Eventually a movement of depression commenced in the far 

 north, and succeeded ere long in isolating Spitzbergen and Green- 

 land, and in cutting off the land-connection between Europe and 

 the Freroe Islands and Iceland. But before the reappearance of 

 the North Sea Neolithic man had entered Europe and crossed 

 into Britain. 



The genial climate now began to pass away and to be sue- 



