474 Reports and Proceedings — 



the northern hemisphere the whole of the area which became sub- 

 merged (B), and, for the purpose of comparison, there is along with 

 it another, showing the extent of the present Arctic basin (map A). 



The Drift-accumulations of this county are exceptional in this one 

 respect, that they attain unusual thicknesses. The Cromer cliff, 

 which is wholly of this formation, is 270 feet in height : this is not 

 so much an indication of the lapse of time during the submergence, 

 as the result of position. Situated on the eastern slope of the 

 English central area, towards the North-Sea depression, during the 

 first or subaerial stage, the form and slope of the land would favour 

 the transfer of materials downwards and outwards : in the subse- 

 quent stages, the areas of greater depth would receive the greatest 

 amounts of the abraded spoil of the land-areas encroached upon. So 

 likewise during the period of emergence, the transfer of material 

 would be outwards. The most reasonable explanation of the present 

 shallow condition of the North Sea, as compared with its depths 

 when occupied by the Crag sea, is, that it has been filled by the 

 aggregate of the accumulations of the Drift-period. 



The former extent of the Scandinavian region is of interest to the 

 British geologist during several periods — during the Glacial period, 

 from the spoil that was drifted from it and scattered over our 

 eastern counties. 



From early times this region was in the condition of dry land. 

 No beds of the age of the Crag have been met with on its surface ; 

 the absence of this formation, which occurs on the coast of Denmark, 

 suggests that the land of Norway then stood at a higher relative 

 level. That this was so is indicated by the manner and extent to 

 which the surface is scored by glacial action, not only down to the 

 present sea-level, but far below it. The deep fiords were occupied 

 by glaciers ; they passed over the numerous islands off that coast, 

 which, too, are all scored. 



The submarine trough which contours Norway must have been 

 produced subsequently to this greater elevation of the region. The 

 Crag-sea coincided with part of that period of elevation ; and its 

 marginal beds in that quarter lay some fifty miles or more from ihe 

 Norwegian coast-line. The subsequent depression amounted to more 

 than the depth of the trough, inasmuch as around the upper end of 

 the Gulf of Christiania, there occur marine beds at elevations of 500 

 feet above the sea, indicating a total change of level of at least 

 1200 feet. 



Whatever the amount of this former elevation of the Scandinavian 

 land and the precise period of its glaciation may have been, the geo- 

 logical phenomena about Christiania, so carefully described by the 

 naturalist, M. Sars, show clearly that the whole has also been much 

 below its present level. The phenomena, as a whole, correspond 

 with what took place over our area, but they are so much more de- 

 finite that they deserve brief notice as part of the physical history of 

 the North-Sea basin. From an elevation of 500 feet down to 300 

 feet there is a succession of marginal sea-lines, with banks of littoral 

 and sub-littoral shells (Skjgelbanker). These have also their deeper 



