A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND 
across what is now the North Sea. Moreover, southern Britain was, in 
like manner, connected with France and with the coast of Spain. By 
these several routes most of the existing plants had migrated to Cumber- 
land at an early period. Its flora, before the Age of Snow, therefore 
consisted of a main stock nearly identical, on the whole, with that of 
central Europe, with an admixture of such Scandinavian, Lusitanian and 
Armorican forms of plant life as could adapt themselves to the conditions 
then existing. With the gradual increase of the area covered with snow, 
the spreading of each succeeding generation of plants was necessarily 
confined to the south and the south-west. So the process continued— 
those plants which could least tolerate the cold forming the van of the 
emigrants, and those best adapted to live near to snow bringing up the 
rear, rank behind rank—until, in the end, the main body of the Cumber- 
land assemblage of plants had made their way into France. 
With the waning of the Age of Snow, the reverse process took 
place. Scandinavian and Arctic plants remigrated in the front rank as 
the ground became clear of snow; the Germanic plants, forming the 
main body as before, closely followed the advanced party, and, finally, 
the Pyrenean and Armorican contingents slowly brought up the rear. At 
present the Germanic main body, after long contending for the possession 
of the low ground of Cumberland with their Scandinavian predecessors, 
have gradually won position after position on the slopes of the fells, and 
are on their way to taking almost entire possession of even the highest 
fell tops. 
(7) While these changes were going on in the plant life of Cum- 
berland, various animals, including man, finding new feeding and hunt- 
ing grounds as yet unoccupied, gradually retook possession of the land. 
In some respects the animal immigrants differed from the plants— 
inasmuch as the men came of a different stock from their predecessors, 
and brought with them evidence of a much more advanced state of 
civilization. The other animals which repeopled the land were simply 
the ancestors of the animals that are living here now, plus the brown 
bear, wolf, wild-boar and a few others, which have disappeared with the 
extension of man’s domain in Britain. Neolithic man himself, as time 
went on, had to give way before the advance of men more civilized still, 
with whose advent commences the dawn of history, as commonly under- 
stood. 
(4) Long after man re-established himself here, minor changes 
continued in progress. The land has risen by fits and starts, with 
lengthy pauses between each move. It has now been elevated to about 
one hundred and fifty feet higher than its level when the ice first dis- 
appeared and Neolithic man first came. A few tiny glaciers gathered in 
the heart of some of the mountain areas during the period under con- - 
sideration, and have left miniature moraine heaps here and there as evidence 
of their former existence. The lakes which were formed when the ice 
first melted away are gradually becoming shallower, through the quan- 
tity of material transported into them by rivers; indeed, a few which 
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