A HIsTORY OF CUMBERLAND 
of events since the beginning of the historical period, were brough. 
about in connection with the episode about to be noticed. 
During nearly all the various geological periods which have been 
reviewed in the foregoing section, the climate of Cumberland does not 
seem to have been at any time characterized by any conditions of ex- 
ceptionally low temperature. It is true that evidence of glaciers is 
to be found in the New Red breccias near Appleby ; but that probably 
means no more than that on the uplands here and there might then be 
formed a glacier, just as there are glaciers on the upland areas not far 
removed from many desert tracts at the present day. The Cretaceous 
Period, and probably much of the succeeding Tertiary Period also, may 
well have been characterized by climatal conditions in which the 
temperature was above rather than below the present average. In this 
matter very much depends upon altitude above the sea, as well as upon 
proximity to zones of warm and moist aerial currents. 
(6) Near the close of the Tertiary Period, and long after the volcanic 
eruptions had ceased, we have evidence supplied from other areas, that the 
area now represented by Cumberland had been gradually elevated to 
a considerable height above the level of the sea. At the period at 
which this particular episode is supposed to have commenced, all the 
present rivers of the district had attained something of their present form, 
after the long and varied ancestral history of which an outline has been 
given in the foregoing paragraphs. One may indeed say that under the 
prolonged action of rain and river the country had by this time assumed 
nearly the same general configuration that it has to-day. 
After a time, the elevatory forces gained upon the destructive 
forces which were then, as now, at work lowering the surface of the 
land, and as a consequence its uplands rose to an elevation higher, 
perhaps by nearly a thousand feet, than their present position. The whole 
of north-western Europe participated in the movement, which appears 
to have reached its maximum in Scandinavia. Partly as a consequence 
of this elevation of the land, the average temperature fell at least a few 
degrees below what it is now; and the climatal conditions underwent 
further modification, owing to the fact that, with the elevation, a great 
tract of land west of Britain was raised above the sea level. As a con- 
sequence, the eastern margin of the Atlantic was removed some two 
hundred and fifty miles to the west of St. Bees’ Head. There are many 
reasons for believing the conjoined oceanic and aerial currents known as 
the Gulf Stream had been in existence long prior to the period under 
consideration, and that they must have remained in full operation 
throughout the whole of the long period of snow. But with these 
sources of heat removed to so much greater distance, the climatal conditions 
became much less equable than they are now. Indeed, for many reasons, 
it is probable that although Cumberland then received perhaps even 
more heat from the sun than it does at present, just as the snow-clad sum- 
mits of the Alps receive a sixth more sun heat than the valleys, yet, in 
Cumberland then, as on the Alpine slopes now, the precipitation took 
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