246 THE MKNmps : a okological eeverie. 



rivers and ocean waves, wliicli has removed vast piles of 

 rock from the summits of the ridges themselves. 



Many geologists believe that it was during this period of 

 land upheaval, and the earth-ridging of our north-European 

 area (the Alleglianies of America being formed about the 

 same time) that the North Atlantic Ocean had its birth, by 

 the subsidence of an ancient continent of Atlantis. Be this 

 as it may, there is little doubt that some of the main 

 geographical lines of the Western Europe of to-day were 

 now beginning to be sketched out. 



, Could we have stood on the newly formed Mendip ridge, 

 wc should have looked out on a great continent stretching 

 eastward througli Trance, Around us wo might have seen 

 a vegetation in some respects allied to that of carboniferous 

 times ; but the coniferous trees, which were restricted to 

 the uplands of those days, would preponderate over the 

 reeds and ferns and gigantic club-mosses of the low-lying 

 coal-measure swamps. The great mediterranean sea had. 

 now shrunk into restricted Permian lakes, lying on either 

 side of tlie developing Pennine axis, tenanted by the stunted 

 descendants of the marine creatiires which had lived in the 

 waters of the Carboniferous seas. 



Again long ages passed by. The continent was ])orhaps 

 further uj)heaved and the great lakes were drained dry ; 

 or their level may have been gradually reduced, and their 

 waters rendered saline by the accumulation of mineral salts 

 through the long prevalence of a rainless condition of the 

 atmosphere. 



Tlie curtain next rises on a new act in the geological 

 drama. The successive scenes of the Palaeozoic act are 

 played out. Those of Mesozoic times now begin. And as 

 the curtain rises with the epoch of the Trias the Mondips 

 are still seen as a hill range in an almost desert continent. 



