340 PREHISTORIC EUROPE. 



the west coast of the Continent prove the existence of a broad 

 submarine plateau, the general depth of which from the surface is 

 under 600 feet. (See Plate E.) This plateau extends beyond the 

 shores of Ireland, the Outer Hebrides, and the Orkney and Shet- 

 land Islands, so that an elevation of only 600 feet would add con- 

 siderably to the size of Europe. Immediately beyond the margin 

 of the plateau, however, the sea deepens more or less suddenly 

 to such an extent that an additional elevation of 2000 feet would 

 cause the west coast of Europe to advance very little farther 

 into the Atlantic. But the same amount of upheaval would lay 

 bare much of the sea-bottom in the extreme north, so as to con- 

 nect ISTovaia Zemlia with Norway, while at the same time Ice- 

 land and the Fseroe Islands would unite to form one large island. 

 Whether the Europe of interglacial times extended so far to 

 the north we cannot positively assert ; but we have, at all events, 

 very good grounds for believing that much of the sea-bottom in 

 our own latitudes, which now lies under a depth of 100 fathoms, 

 was dry land during some part of the Pleistocene Period, so that 

 in those days neither the North Sea nor the English Channel 

 had any existence, and the Gulf of Bothnia and the Baltic 

 may have been freshwater seas. But if we have proof of a 

 former wider extent of land, we have, on the other hand, no less 

 good evidence to show that at certain stages in the Pleistocene 

 Period large areas, both in the north and south of Europe, were 

 submerged. The occurrence of one and the same terrestrial 

 fauna in the Pleistocene deposits of England and the Continent 

 bears witness to the former union of Britain with the latter — 

 the appearance of existing species of marine mollusca at high 

 levels in Scandinavia and our own islands testifies just as cer- 

 tainly to recent submergence and re-elevation of the land. 



But it is not from the occurrence of those organic remains 

 alone that changes in the geographical outline of Europe are 

 inferred to have taken place. The present position of the ancient 



Any greater degree of upheaval and subsequent depression is more or less prob- 

 lematical, although, as I have said, the evidence adduced by Mr. Godwin- Austen 

 is not without its weight. See further upon this subject Chapter XXI. 



