QUATERNARY AGE. — CHAMPLAIN PERIOD. 555 



stream was like a Labrador current let loose in the Tropics. The 

 estuary and shore deposits about New Haven, Connecticut, are equally- 

 destitute of marine shells, and for the good reason that Long Island 

 Sound was actually occupied with ice, whether the land were more 

 elevated than now or not. 



B. Champlain Period in Foreign Countries. 



The Glacial period of Britain and Europe was followed, as in 

 America, by an era (the Champlain) in which the land stood below 

 its present level, and extensive beds of stratified Drift, overlaid and 

 somewhat interstratified by others of more quiet deposition, were 

 made along sea-borders, lake-borders, and river valleys. The sea- 

 border formations of Sweden and Norway are closely like those of 

 the coasts of Maine and the St. Lawrence, even to the " Leda clays " 

 and " Saxicava sands." And the valleys of Europe, especially over 

 its northern half, have their extensive river-border formations, which 

 are equivalents of those along the American river-valleys. 



Lyell states that the facts lead to the inference that, after the period 

 of elevation with which the Glacial era began, there " succeeded a 

 period of depression and partial submergence," and of accumulations 

 of sand and bowlder-clay, with peaty clay in a few places. This de- 

 pression in Great Britain varied in different parts from 1,300 to 500 

 feet, except over southern England, where it may have been only 100 

 or 200 feet. The height of the stratified Drift along the valley of 

 the Somme, above the stream, is 80 to 100 feet, which shows that the 

 depression was large in Northern France. In Sweden, the depression 

 varied from 200 feet in the south to 400 or 500 in the north; and 

 Erdmann proves that the Baltic was connected with the North Sea, 

 over the region of lakes from Stockholm westward, and with the 

 Arctic ocean by a great channel leading northeastward over Finland 

 to the White Sea. 



The depression ten miles east of Glasgow was at least 524 feet, as indicated by the 

 presence of marine shells in beds of clay, which are overlaid as well as underlaid by 

 beds of till. The marine shells present are those mainly of Arctic seas, like the St. 

 Lawrence species. Among them are Saxicava Arctica, Pecten Islandicus, Natica clausa, 

 Trophon clathratum, Yoldia glacialis, Macoma sabulosa. In some parts of Wales, 

 Ireland, and the northern half of England, it appears to have been 1.000 to 1,400 feet, 

 stratified Drift with marine northern shells occurring at this height on the south side 

 of the Menai straits; also at a height of 1,300 feet, on Moel Tryfaen; 1,200 feet, at 

 Macclesfield in Central England; 1,000 to 1,200 feet, in Ireland, County Wexford, 

 south of Dublin; at a height of 568 feet, near Blackpool in Lancashire, fifty miles from 

 the sea. In the depression separating Wales and England — Murchison's "Severn 

 Straits " — beds of marine shells are found at a height of 100 feet. 



The lake and river terraces in Great Britain, and especially its northern part, Scot- 

 land, are on a scale as grand as the sea-shore deposits. The " benches" of Glen Ro} r 

 are an example of them. The upper terrace is 1,139 feet above tide-level; the 



