﻿282 Canadian Record of Science. 



we know most accurately, namely, to Europe, or, as 

 we should more exactly call it, to Western Eurasia. 

 The phenomena are here peculiarly complicated, indeed 

 they seem to reach a higher degree of complexity than 

 anywhere else in the world. Whereas all the bounding 

 curves of Eurasia already mentioned are folded tow^ards 

 the south and as also through the whole of Central Asia 

 the southerly direction of folding predominates, the 

 systems of folding in mid-Europe are directed to the 

 north, and, moreover, Europe has been folded over and 

 over again and always towards the north.^ - 



Let us begin in the north-west. Iceland, like Jan 

 Mayen, is of volcanic origin. The Western Hebrides, all 

 Norway, the Lofotens to Magero, and up to the North 

 Cape consist of primeval gneiss. If one passes over, 

 however, from the islands to North-Western Scotland, 

 rocks are immediately encountered which are completely 

 overturned, which have been thrust up on to the old 

 gneiss area in reversed order, and which form the outer 

 edge of a great series of folds. The general strike of 

 these folds is towards the north-east. The series includes 

 a great part of Ireland and Wales and portions of 

 England, all Scotland, and finds its continuation in the 

 western folds of Norway. This was once a uniformly 

 folded highland, of which we see to-day only remnants, 

 and among these remnants flows the sea. This we call 

 the Caledonian System. 



This system of folds is of very great age, and for those 

 who have made a closer study of geology we would add, 

 that in them the Silurian rocks are folded, w^hile the 

 lower Devonian deposits lie horizontally. The age of the 

 Caledonian folds is therefore greater than that of the 

 Devonian deposits. 



On the west coast of Ireland, south of the mouth of 



1 See "Geological Structure of Europe," Suess, witli inaji, in last number of 

 Recokd.— Trans. 



