538 PREHISTORIC EUROPE. 



the decay of most of the great pine forests which formerly 

 nourished over extensive areas in Ireland, Scotland, the north 

 of England, and Scandinavia, and the overthrow of the buried 

 trees of the upper forest -layer in the peat of Holland, East 

 Friesland, Oldenburg, Liineburg, the Cimbric peninsula, Meck- 

 lenburg, Pomerania, etc. Probably the Iron Age began during 

 this wet period, which was already passing away when the 

 Komans came to occupy Britain. 



The Postglacial and Eecent accumulations of Southern 

 Europe throw little light upon the problem of the correlation 

 of the Neolithic, Bronze, and Iron epochs with the successive 

 stages of the geological record. We have evidence, indeed, to 

 show that considerable local oscillations have affected the 

 borders of the Mediterranean area since the close of Pleistocene 

 times ; and that while some of those changes of sea-level took 

 place probably during the Neolithic Age, others, again, certainly 

 come within the Historical period. 1 But we have none of those 

 more or less clearly-marked stages which distinguish the Post- 

 glacial and Eecent deposits of the maritime districts of North- 

 western Europe. 



1 The most complete account of changes in the coast-line of Europe which are 

 supposed to have taken place within historical times is that given by K. E. Adolf 

 von Hoff ; Geschichte der durch Ueberlieferung nachgewieseyien naturlichen Veran~ 

 derungen der Erdoberflaehe (1822-1834). In this work the author seems to have 

 exhausted every historical and lengendary source of information, and many of the 

 statements of old writers which he has unearthed are perhaps worth more con- 

 sideration than they have yet received. 



