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tense. The last leaf in the great volume — the latest deposit of 

 sedimentary matter just underlying our vegetable soil — tells 

 us of an icy period which, at its commencement, found the 

 Continent of Europe much higher above the level of the sea 

 than it is now ; and the shallow sea which now divides the 

 British Islands from the main land, was then a great plain, 

 covered with vegetation, and teeming with multitudes of living 

 beings. As the cold became more intense, the land began to 

 sink, and continued till not only was that great plain submerged, 

 but also the greater part of what now constitutes the dry land 

 of England, Scotland, and Ireland ; and all that remained of 

 the British Islands was a little archsepelago of rocky islets, 

 formed by the tops of our mountain ranges. Over this glacial 

 sea floated icebergs from the Scandinavian mountains, dropping 

 over the submerged land the mud and stones and boulders, 

 which are known now as the glacial drift. Slowly there came 

 a diminution of the intensity of cold, and slowly the land began 

 to rise, till ultimately it had attained its former height, again 

 to sink to its present level. That this change in the level of 

 the land was intermittent, is proved by the existence of inland 

 cliffs which mark the action of the sea when the land was 

 lower. The rocky, almost perpendicular, face of our Cave Hill 

 and the Knockagh Mountain, point to a period when the move- 

 ment was arrested for a great length of time. Between Larne 

 and G-lenarm we have an inland basaltic cliff at the same height ; 

 and above the present limestone cliff at Glenarm we have a 

 basaltic one, which belongs to the same period of arrested 

 movements. It can be traced all along the coast of Antrim. 

 During the glacial period the glaciers which now fill our Alpine 

 valleys were far more extensive than now ; that of the Bhone 

 filled the whole of Switzerland with a mass of ice 100 miles 

 long by 50 wide, depositing its boulders on the flanks of the 

 Jura, above the lakes of Neufchatel, and extending on the 

 right to Soleure, on the left to Geneva. That the area of 

 extension of cold was at this period very great, is proved by 

 the discovery by Dr. Hooker, in his travels in Syria, of the 

 moraines of great glaciers. r On these moraines grow the 

 cedars of Lebanon. 



