242 



THE MENDII'S: A OEOLOOICAL REVERIE. 



of life-sea-lilies, lainp-Hliells, and branching paliBozoio 

 corals. The skeletal romaiiiH of these creatures were built 

 up into thick masses of limestone which, since it now forms 

 hill-ridges, the main mass of the Mondips among the 

 number, was called l)y the older geologists the Mountain. 

 Limestone. The sea wherein it was formed was not im- 

 probably a land-locked mediterranean. Its northern shore 

 perhaps ran through the Highlands and along the north- 

 west of Ireland. Its southern shore probably ran througli 

 the north of ;Franoe, but perhaps touched Cornwall. East- 

 wards the sea stiotched through north-east Prance, Belgium, 

 Germany, and Poland, into Russia. Westward it may have 

 opened by narrow straits into the greater ocean. 



We have evidence from the thinning of the strata and 

 the occurrence of beach-conglomerates that, within this 

 Mediterranean Sea, there was land extending from Mid- 

 Wales into Leicestershire ; there was laud, too, north oi 

 Wexford and Waterford in the Wicklow hills of Ireland ; 

 there was land in Coitnty Down ; there was land in the 

 southern uplands of Scotland. Mr. Jukes-Browne, who 

 has ably marshalled the evidence, includes these land areas 

 in the large island, the position of which, is indicated in the 

 map (Map 2). Professor Hull gives a different reading, 

 extending the land of Mid- Wales and Leicester eastwards, 

 as a " central barrier," to join the continental land in that 

 direction, and marking the Wicklow, County Down, and 

 Southern Upland land-regions as isolated islands ; while 

 Prof. Green extends the central barrier westwards to join 

 a land area between Ireland and Franco. In any case it 

 seems very probable that within the Lower Carboniferous 

 Mediterranean, the southern Mendip Sea was partially 

 separated by an island or ridge from the Northumlirian Soa 

 to the north, in which, at the beginning of the period, the 



