996 HISTORICAL GEOLOGY. 



close of the floods the flood-grounds of the river Meuse, near Dinant in 

 Belgium, were diminished in breadth from seven and a half miles to a fourth 

 of a mile ; and this is an example of the general change over Europe. 

 Europe also had rivers dammed up by gravel and sand from the unlading 

 glacier. It has been shown that the Rhine owes its present channel at the 

 Falls at Schaffhausen to its having been forced out of an older one ; and it 

 is probable that the Champlain period was the time of the change. 



There is evidence in the remains of Mammals of Malta and Sicily that 

 these islands, and probably Europe, were connected at this time with Africa ; 

 and Britain, as the ice departed, retained for awhile its connection with France, 

 and gave passage across for the warm-climate jMammals. While the cold 

 waters of the North Sea were thus shut off from the British Channel, warm 

 water species, from the coast to the south, were living in the channel. 



The valley of the Rhine and those of its tributaries contain extensive 

 deposits of Pleistocene time. The material of the alluvium is mostly the loess, 

 a tine yellowish-gray loam, much of it unstratified, — generally a little 

 calcareous from pulverized shells ; and in some parts it contains glacially 

 marked stones. It rests in some places on stratified gravel or sand. Between 

 Bdle and Bingen, this alluvium near Bdle has a height of 600 feet above 

 the river ; and through much of it there are land and freshwater shells. 

 Similar facts are reported from most of the river valleys of Europe. The 

 deposits on the Danube are as extensive as those of the Rhine ; and Suess 

 states that stones occur in it that were probably dropped by floating ice. 



In Belgium, according to Dupont, along the valley of the Lesse, and 

 others, the limestone caverns situated at the greatest elevations — 80 to 100 

 feet above the present river — are those which contain the oldei' remains of 

 Mammals ; and those below are successively more recent as their height is 

 less. Moreover, the river alluvium shows that, when the upper caves were 

 inhabited, the valley was filled with water and river-border deposits, nearly 

 to the level of the cave. Thus change is strikingly exhibited. 



As Nikitin states, ''the time corresponding to the ' interglacial epoch' 

 and the second glaciation of the Swedes was probably, for the greater part 

 of Russia, the epoch of the formation of the ancient lake deposits, the loess, 

 and the upper terraces of the rivers, which constitute the principal repository 

 for the bones of the Mammoth and other extinct Mammals, which abounded 

 here while Scandinavia and Finland were still covered by the glacier." 



In Europe, a reelevation of the land at the close of the Pleistocene was 

 also a general fact ; but the rise was great enough to make a partial return 

 of glaciated conditions in northern Europe and about the Alps, before a 

 settling down to modern levels and more genial climatal conditions. 



The absence in E"orth America of distinct evidence of unusual cold, as a 

 consequence of the elevation closing the Champlain period, is not proof that 

 some extension of glaciers did not mark the close of this period in Europe. 

 For Europe has had glaciers ever since over the Scandinavian mountains and 

 the Alps, while in the glaciated part of eastern America, Mount Washington 



